Introduction on Grafana Labs

Course overview

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 06:03:04 +0000

Who this course is for

Teams managing multiple collector instances
Platform engineers building observability infrastructure
Anyone who’s tired of managing collector configs one-by-one

What you’ll learn

Module	Skills
Health monitoring	Register collectors, interpret health dashboards, troubleshoot issues
Remote configuration	Categorize your collectors, use attribute matching, configure at scale

What you’ll do

This is a hands-on course. You’ll complete two learning paths:

Monitor collector health — Register a collector and explore health dashboards
Categorize your collector fleet — Organize collectors with remote attributes for configuration management

Fleet Management overview

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 06:03:04 +0000

What is Fleet Management?

Fleet Management is a Grafana Cloud feature that provides a central control plane for managing collectors at scale.

The problem it solves

Without Fleet Management	With Fleet Management
Update configs locally on each machine	Remotely configure with UI and API
Check health dashboard by dashboard	See entire fleet health at a glance
Hope configs stay consistent	Ensure consistency with pipelines

What Fleet Management provides

Streamlined configuration management — Create, activate, and adjust configs remotely without scripts or manual processes
Centralized health monitoring — Complete visibility into collector health with out-of-the-box dashboards
Cost and collection control — Turn data streams on and off to optimize costs and reduce data overload

Key insight

Configure once, deploy everywhere. Instead of managing collectors individually, you manage them as a fleet.

Who uses Fleet Management?

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 06:03:04 +0000

Three scenarios

Persona	Challenge	How Fleet Management helps
Platform team	200 collectors, multiple environments, coordinating changes is slow	Create once, deploy everywhere with attribute matching
Growing startup SRE	Went from 5 to 40 collectors, manual management doesn’t scale	Enterprise-grade control without building custom tooling
DevOps during incident	Need profiles now, can’t wait for change management	Create temporary pipeline, toggle on/off instantly

Common patterns

Centralized control — One team manages fleet for entire org
Environment segmentation — Different configs for prod/staging/dev
Gradual rollouts — Test new configs on subset before fleet-wide rollout
Temporary debugging — Collect targeted telemetry during incidents, remove after

Is Fleet Management right for you?

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 06:03:04 +0000

Good fit for Fleet Management

Signal	Why it matters
10+ collectors	Operational overhead of individual management is high
Multiple environments	Need consistent configs across prod/staging/dev
Central platform team	One team manages collectors for many consumers
Frequent config changes	New integrations, scrape targets, requirements
Need for rapid response	Emergency debugging, incident response

The decision checklist

Ask yourself:

Will you have 10+ collectors within the next year?
Do you frequently update collector configs?
Do you need to ensure consistency across collectors?
Do you need a central view of all collector health?

If you answered yes to 2 or more, Fleet Management will likely provide significant value.

When you might not need it

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 06:03:04 +0000

When Fleet Management might not fit

Signal	Why it might not be needed
1-5 collectors	Manual management is still manageable
Static configurations	Configs rarely change after initial setup
Distributed ownership	Each team owns and operates their own collectors
Identical configs everywhere	All collectors run the exact same config

It’s OK to wait

Fleet Management scales down gracefully. You can:

Start simple — Manage a few collectors manually
Adopt later — Add Fleet Management when the pain becomes real
Try it out — Register one collector to explore before committing

Still unsure?

Continue with this course anyway. The hands-on experience will help you evaluate whether Fleet Management fits your needs. You can always register a single collector to try it out.

Your observability journey

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 06:03:04 +0000

Where are you on the observability journey?

In the Hierarchy of Observability Needs, Level 1 is Infrastructure Foundation:

“Is my infrastructure healthy?”

You achieve Level 1 coverage by deploying collectors that gather metrics and logs from your servers, databases, and services.

Fleet Management as a force multiplier

Fleet Management is a force multiplier because it scales your capacity without scaling your effort.

Without Fleet Management	With Fleet Management
Scaling collectors = scaling operational work	Scaling collectors = same operational work
Coverage limited by management overhead	Coverage limited only by your infrastructure

Fleet Management removes the operational bottleneck that prevents you from expanding your Level 1 foundation.

Before you begin

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 06:03:04 +0000

Prerequisites

Requirement	Why you need it
Grafana Cloud account (sign up free)	Fleet Management is a Grafana Cloud feature
Collector deployed	You need at least one collector to manage
Basic telemetry concepts	Understanding of metrics, logs, and collection

Not ready yet?

If you haven’t deployed at least one collector instance, start with one of these courses first:

Introduction to integrations

Introduction to Cloud Provider Observability

Ready to continue?

If you have a running collector and a Grafana Cloud account, you’re all set. Let’s learn how Fleet Management works.