Graphite Training — Time-Series Metrics Storage, Visualization & Legacy Observability

What Is Graphite?

Graphite is an open-source time-series monitoring system that does three things: receives metrics (via Carbon), stores them efficiently (in Whisper databases), and visualizes them (via Graphite-web). Released in 2008, Graphite pioneered time-series metrics storage and was the monitoring backbone for organizations like Etsy, GitHub, and Booking.com. Graphite's simple architecture — metrics in, graphs out — influenced an entire generation of monitoring tools, including Prometheus.

Current Relevance in Modern Observability

Graphite is foundational but no longer the recommended choice for new deployments. Prometheus has become the standard for metrics collection and storage, offering a more powerful query language (PromQL), built-in alerting (Alertmanager), and native Kubernetes integration. However, significant Graphite deployments persist in enterprises with long-running infrastructure. This course covers: maintaining Graphite infrastructure, integrating Graphite with Grafana for visualization, and planning Graphite→Prometheus migration.

Who Should Attend

System administrators maintaining Graphite monitoring infrastructure
SREs and DevOps engineers integrating Graphite with modern dashboards
Engineering managers planning Graphite→Prometheus migration
Teams with legacy Graphite deployments needing operational continuity

Learning Outcomes

Operate Graphite — Carbon relays, aggregators, Whisper storage, Graphite-web
Feed metrics into Graphite using StatsD, collectd, and custom instrumentation
Build Grafana dashboards backed by Graphite data sources
Troubleshoot Graphite performance — I/O, retention, aggregation
Plan and execute Graphite→Prometheus migration with metric-by-metric mapping

Course Modules

Graphite Architecture — Carbon (relay, aggregator, cache). Whisper file format. Graphite-web. Render API.
Metrics Ingestion — StatsD protocol. collectd. Custom metrics via Python/Bash. Carbon protocol.
Graphite-web & Grafana — Graphite render functions. Grafana + Graphite data source. Dashboard design.
Graphite Operations — Retention policies. Aggregation rules. Carbon clustering. Performance tuning. Backup.
Modern Context: Graphite to Prometheus — Prometheus architecture comparison. Metric mapping. Carbon→Prometheus exporter. Coexistence.
Capstone: Graphite Operations — Operate a Graphite deployment, build Grafana dashboards, plan Prometheus migration.

Hands-on Labs (8 total)

Deploy Graphite with Carbon and Whisper. Configure StatsD metric collection from application code. Build Grafana dashboards with Graphite data sources. Configure retention and aggregation policies. Set up Prometheus with Graphite exporter for coexistence.

Enterprise Use Cases

Maintaining Graphite for 10,000+ metrics across 500 servers in a legacy data center
Building Grafana operational dashboards backed by existing Graphite metrics
Planning incremental Graphite→Prometheus migration while maintaining monitoring continuity

SRE / ITOps / SysOps Relevance

Graphite provides the metrics layer for operational dashboards and capacity planning. SREs use Graphite metrics to track SLOs; ITOps teams monitor infrastructure health; SysOps teams track system performance. Understanding Graphite is relevant wherever legacy metrics infrastructure exists alongside modernization efforts.