---
title: "Course overview | Grafana Labs"
description: "Introduction to sending data from external collectors"
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

## Connect your existing collectors

Already have a collector running? Send your data to Grafana Cloud.

## What you’ll learn

- **When to use external collectors**: Instead of Grafana Alloy or integrations
- **Metrics ingestion methods**: Prometheus remote write, InfluxDB, Graphite, OpenTelemetry
- **Logs ingestion methods**: OTLP and HTTP API
- **Which method fits your setup**: Decision framework based on your existing tools

## Course duration

~15 minutes

## Methods covered

Prometheus remote write • InfluxDB • Graphite • OpenTelemetry • OTLP • HTTP API

> **Note:** Grafana recommends using [Grafana Alloy](/docs/alloy/) or [integrations](/docs/grafana-cloud/monitor-infrastructure/integrations/) for collection. This course is for users who need to connect existing, external collectors.