Install and Use Grafana's Alibaba Cloud OpenAPI Plugin for Rapid Cloud Monitoring

Introduction

Grafana is a leading open‑source monitoring solution that makes data monitoring and visualization accessible. It supports querying, visualizing, alerting, and exploring data from any source. The Alibaba Cloud OpenAPI plugin extends Grafana to fetch and display cloud‑side data, enhancing monitoring and rapid prototype development.

Why Use the Alibaba Cloud OpenAPI Plugin?

In fast‑moving software development, quick iteration and validation are essential. Traditional development requires deep front‑end and back‑end coordination, creating bottlenecks. Effective visualization of monitoring data simplifies decision‑making, but non‑traditional cloud metrics are hard to collect. The plugin addresses authentication limits, integration of non‑metric data, and lack of direct alerting based on OpenAPI results.

Key Benefits

Accelerated prototype validation: Grafana provides ready‑made dashboards, while the OpenAPI plugin enables back‑end developers to fetch cloud data and build data‑driven prototypes without building front‑end interfaces.

Expanded data display: Non‑traditional cloud metrics can be visualized, allowing drill‑down from overview dashboards to detailed resource status.

Data‑driven alerts: Combine Grafana’s alert system with OpenAPI query results to trigger notifications via email, SMS, etc.

Plugin Installation

If you use the Alibaba Cloud hosted Grafana service (version ≥ 9.0.x), the OpenAPI plugin is pre‑installed. For self‑hosted Grafana, download the release package from the GitHub repository and place it in the Grafana plugins directory.

GitHub repository: https://github.com/alibabacloud-observability/aliyun-openapi-grafana-datasource-plugin

[plugins]
allow_loading_unsigned_plugins = aliyun-openapi-grafana-datasource-plugin

Data Source Configuration

In the Data Sources panel, add an OpenAPI data source and configure the following parameters:

Parameter

Description

Name

Custom name for the data source.

AccessKeyId / AccessKeySecret

Credentials of the RAM user that can call OpenAPI. See the RAM AccessKey guide for details.

Product

Cloud product name (select from dropdown or type manually).

Endpoint

OpenAPI service address; obtain from the product’s API documentation. Supports regional format [regionId].

Version

Product API version, from the API docs.

Style

API style, also from the product’s documentation.

Query Configuration

Action tab – Fill in:

Product: the product name set in the data source.

Method: usually POST or GET.

Action: the API operation name from the product’s API list.

PathName: request path (required for ROC style APIs).

Params tab – Click Add Param and enter parameter name and value.

Fields tab – Define how to parse the response. Use $ for the whole JSON, select the data type (default Auto), and set an alias for column names.

Building Monitoring Panels

Configure a Time Series panel by ensuring the data includes ISO‑format timestamps (set the field type to Time ) and numeric values for the Y‑axis (set the field type to Number ). This allows visualization of trends such as alert recovery times.

Final Example

Demo link: https://demo.grafana.aliyuncs.com/d/uid_for_demo_home/openapi-home?orgId=1

Related Links

[1] View RAM user AccessKey information: https://help.aliyun.com/zh/ram/user-guide/view-the-accesskey-pairs-of-a-ram-user#task-187540