Grafana Learn
Sign in Sign up
Section 6 · Observe with turnkey solutions

Query-level performance monitoring for your databases.

Estimated time: 2 min

Query-level visibility with Data Observability

Your application hits the MySQL or PostgreSQL database thousands of times a day. Database Observability watches all of those hits. Then it gives your engineers the context to understand why, without needing a DBA to interpret it.

  • See every query across all your databases: execution times, wait events, and error rates, aggregated or broken down by instance, schema, or table.
  • Find the root cause faster: correlate database queries directly with application traces and infrastructure metrics without bouncing between tools.
  • Drill into deep diagnostics: execution plans, table schemas, and index usage via visual explain plans, without needing DBA expertise.
  • Get actionable optimization: AI Helper provides specific recommendations (composite indexes, query rewrites) with the exact SQL to implement them.
Try it out in Grafana Play

What keeps you up at night?

Role / WorriesWhat you get with the app
Developer
  • I follow the trace and it points to the database, then the trail stops
  • I know something in the database is the problem, but I can’t tell which query, why it’s slow, or what changed
  • Query-level visibility shows exactly which queries are slow, how often they run, and what they’re waiting on
  • Visual explain plans take you from “slow query” to “here’s what to fix” without needing DBA expertise
SRE, On-Call Engineer
  • During an incident in the early morning hours, infrastructure metrics look fine, traces point to the database, and the DBA is asleep
  • No way to investigate the database layer myself
  • Query samples, wait events, and execution plans are available to any engineer, not just DBAs
  • Correlate database queries directly with application traces so you get the full picture in one place
DBA, Platform Engineer
  • Every slow endpoint becomes a ticket for me
  • Developers can’t self-serve through database problems, so I spend my time answering “which query is slow” instead of doing actual database work
  • Developers and SREs can investigate database performance independently
  • AI Helper surfaces specific optimization recommendations (composite indexes, query rewrites) with the exact SQL to implement them
Engineering Manager, VP Engineering
  • Paying per host for database monitoring and the bill compounds every time we add an instance
  • Still getting escalations because nobody can answer why a specific query is slow
  • Usage-based pricing: you only pay for active host hours and associated telemetry, not per host or container, so cost tracks usage, not fleet size
  • Database performance in the same Grafana Cloud instance you already use, without a separate tool or contract