Slide 3 of 5

Key takeaways

Course summary

What you learned:

  1. Drilldown apps provide queryless exploration for Prometheus-compatible metrics and Loki logs

  2. The exploration workflow is consistent:

    • Navigate to data
    • Filter by labels and metadata
    • Visualize automatically
    • Add findings to dashboards

  3. Key capabilities of each tool:

    • Metrics Drilldown: Browse time series, filter by labels, spot patterns
    • Logs Drilldown: Search text, filter by fields, identify errors

  4. When to use the Drilldown apps:

    • Quick investigation during incidents
    • Learning unfamiliar systems
    • Ad-hoc analysis and verification
    • Self-service troubleshooting for the team

The one thing to remember:

Visual exploration removes query language barriers: anyone can investigate infrastructure issues, not just query experts.

What’s next:

The Level 2 course covers Traces Drilldown and Profiles Drilldown for application-level observability, using the same exploration patterns.

Script

Let’s bring it all together. Drilldown apps are queryless exploration interfaces that let you investigate metrics and logs visually.

The fundamental advantage is accessibility. You don’t need to know PromQL or LogQL to investigate infrastructure issues. Point, click, filter, and explore. This makes troubleshooting available to everyone on your team, not just the engineers who know query languages.

Both Drilldown apps follow the same exploration pattern. Start broad, filter progressively using labels and metadata, visualize results automatically, and save findings to dashboards when you find something worth monitoring permanently.

These tools complement query editors and dashboards. Use the Drilldown apps for exploration and ad-hoc investigation. Use query editors for complex analysis. Use dashboards for permanent monitoring. Each has its place.

When you’re ready to explore application-level signals, the Level 2 course covers Grafana Traces Drilldown and Grafana Profiles Drilldown using the same exploration patterns you learned here.

/
Previous Next