When to connect to a self-hosted data source
Consider connecting to a self-managed metrics data source when:
- The cost of sending metric data to Grafana Cloud is too high
- Compliance requirements prevent storing data off-premise
- You need custom configurations, like support for alpha Prometheus features
- Your retention needs exceed the 13-month limit
- Your team wants to handle the management of the metrics environment internally
- The metrics are already stored and managed in another platform, like Amazon Managed Prometheus or Google Cloud Platform Managed Prometheus
- You prefer to continue with your existing non-Prometheus metric data sources, as you don’t want to transition to Prometheus or Mimir and learn PromQL
