NetApp ONTAP Data Source Plugin for Grafana

Description

The NetApp ONTAP DataSource Plugin is a Grafana backend datasource plugin that enables on-demand querying and visualization of storage metrics and operational data from NetApp ONTAP systems using the ONTAP REST API.

NetApp ONTAP is an enterprise-grade storage operating system that provides unified data management across SAN, NAS, and cloud environments. It offers capabilities for storage provisioning, performance monitoring, data protection, and network management. This plugin provides visibility into ONTAP clusters by allowing users to explore and monitor key resources such as clusters, volumes, LUNs, disks, and network components directly within Grafana dashboards.

Features

• Query and visualize storage metrics and operational data from NetApp ONTAP directly within Grafana
• Support for multiple ONTAP resource types including Cluster, Volume, LUN, Disk, Ethernet Port, and Network Interface
• Dashboard time-range filtering for metric queries, sent to the ONTAP REST API as a timestamp filter, with a per-query switch to opt out
• Real-time monitoring and analysis of storage performance and health metrics
• Flexible query configuration to explore different resource-level insights
• Compatibility with Grafana panels for building custom dashboards and visualizations
• Built-in retry logic with exponential backoff for transient failures
• Optimized API interaction to ensure efficient data retrieval from ONTAP systems

Compatibility

Component	Version / Detail
Grafana	>= 12.3.0
NetApp ONTAP	>= 9.17 (9.17+ recommended for full API support)
ONTAP REST API	v1
Authentication	Basic Auth (Username + Password, optional CA Certificate support)

Demonstration Video

Please find attached a demo video showcasing how to use the NetApp ONTAP integration.

Installation

Requirements

• Grafana >= 12.3.0
• Access to a NetApp ONTAP cluster
• ONTAP REST API enabled on the cluster
• Valid ONTAP credentials (Username & Password) with appropriate permissions

Obtaining ONTAP Credentials

• Login to the ONTAP System Manager or CLI.
• Ensure that the REST API is enabled on the cluster.
• Create or use an existing user with sufficient privileges to query cluster and storage resources.
• Note down the following details:
  • Cluster Management IP / Hostname
  • Username
  • Password

Install the Plugin

Install the plugin from the Grafana Plugin Catalog or using the Grafana CLI:

grafana cli plugins install crestdata-netappontap-datasource

After installation, restart the Grafana server for the plugin to be loaded.

Configure the Data Source

• In Grafana, navigate to Connections > Data Sources > Add data source.
• Search for NetApp ONTAP and select it.
• Fill in the required configuration fields:

Name	Type	Required	Description
URL	String	Yes	NetApp ONTAP cluster URL (e.g., https://ontap.example.com)
Username	String	Yes	Username for authentication
Password	Secured String	Yes	Password for authentication
Skip TLS Verify	Boolean	Yes	Skip verify
TLS CA Certificate	String	Yes	Custom CA certificate in PEM format for validating self-signed certificates. Leave empty to use system certificates. Only used when Skip TLS Verify is disabled.

• Click Save & Test. The health check will validate your credentials against the NetApp ONTAP API.

Usage

Query Editor

Once the data source is configured, you can create panels using the query editor with the following parameters:

Parameter	Type	Options	Default	Description
Resource Type	Dropdown	Cluster, Volume, LUN, Disk, Ethernet Port, Network Interface	Cluster	Type of ONTAP resource to query.
Metric Type	Dropdown	Varies based on Resource Type	Varies based on Resource Type	Type of metric or data view to retrieve for the selected Resource Type (e.g. Details, IOPs, Latency, Throughput, Snapshots).
Resource Identifier	String	NA	NA	UUID of the specific resource to query (format: 8-4-4-4-12 hex, e.g. 12345678-1234-1234-1234-123456789abc). Only visible for selected Metric Types.
Filter by Time Range	Switch	On, Off	On	When enabled, only samples within the dashboard's selected time range are returned. When disabled, returns ONTAP's full unfiltered window regardless of the time picker. Only visible for selected Metric Types.

Time Range Handling

The dashboard time range (the Grafana time picker) is honored for metric queries: the selected From/To window is sent to the ONTAP REST API as a timestamp filter, so changing the time picker changes what data is returned. This can be turned off per-query with the Filter by Time Range switch, which defaults to on.

Error Handling and Retry Strategy

Retries are performed only for transient failures:

• HTTP 429 (rate limited)
• HTTP 5xx responses (500–599)
• Network/connection-level errors
• Errors while reading the response body

Max retry attempts: 3, with exponential backoff.

Non-retryable: HTTP 4xx errors (e.g., 401, 403) are returned immediately.

Pre-built Dashboards

The plugin ships with six pre-built dashboards for quick visualization and monitoring of ONTAP environments.

Setting	Value
Default time range	Last 1 hour (now-1h to now)
Auto-refresh	Enabled
Datasource selection	Template variable (dropdown for selecting the ONTAP instance)

• NetApp ONTAP – Cluster Overview — Provides a high-level view of cluster performance, including:

  • Throughput metrics
  • IOPs metrics
  • Latency metrics

• NetApp ONTAP – Disks — Displays disk-level insights, including:

  • Disk inventory and status
  • Disk performance metrics

• NetApp ONTAP – Volumes — Detailed monitoring of storage volumes, including:

  • Volume inventory
  • Throughput, IOPs, Latency metrics

• NetApp ONTAP – LUNs — Insights into LUN performance and usage:

  • LUN details
  • Throughput, IOPs, Latency metrics

• NetApp ONTAP – Network Interface — Monitoring of network interfaces:

  • Interface details
  • Throughput metrics

• NetApp ONTAP – Ethernet Ports — Provides visibility into physical network ports:

  • Ethernet port details
  • Throughput metrics

Support

For issues, questions, or feature requests, please reach out to grafanalabs.integrations@crestdata.ai

Authors and Acknowledgment

Developed by Crest Data.

License

This plugin is distributed under EULA. LICENSE.

References

• NetApp ONTAP Rest API Documentation
• Grafana Plugin Development
• Grafana Plugin Publishing Best Practices