---
title: "Check requirements | Grafana Labs"
description: "Verify that your MySQL database, Grafana Cloud account, and Alloy installation meet the requirements for Database Observability."
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

# Check requirements

Before starting the setup, verify that your environment meets the requirements for Database Observability. Getting these right upfront prevents troubleshooting later.

## Grafana Cloud requirements

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| Requirement            | Details                                                                                                                                                                               |
|------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Account                | Grafana Cloud account with Editor or Admin role                                                                                                                                       |
| Database Observability | Activated in your Grafana Cloud stack. Open **Observability** > **Database** in the navigation menu and click **Activate Database Observability** if the app isn’t already active. |
| Stack                  | Access to Grafana Cloud Mimir (metrics) and Grafana Cloud Loki (logs) data sources                                                                                                    |
| Permissions            | Ability to view and create dashboards                                                                                                                                                 |

## MySQL requirements

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| Requirement                  | Details                                                                                                                                                                                          |
|------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Version                      | MySQL 8.0 or later (MySQL 5.7 and earlier are not supported)                                                                                                                                     |
| MariaDB                      | Not supported — Performance Schema implementation differs from MySQL                                                                                                                             |
| Performance Schema           | `performance_schema` set to `ON` (the default in MySQL 8.0+)                                                                                                                                     |
| Query capture settings       | `max_digest_length`, `performance_schema_max_digest_length`, and `performance_schema_max_sql_text_length` set to `4096`. These are startup variables, so changing them requires a MySQL restart. |
| Performance Schema consumers | `events_statements_cpu`, `events_waits_current`, and `events_waits_history` enabled, or the monitoring user allowed to enable them so Alloy can manage them                                      |
| Monitoring user              | User with `PROCESS` and `REPLICATION CLIENT` on `*.*`, `SELECT` on `performance_schema.*`, and `SELECT, SHOW VIEW` on the schemas you want to monitor                                            |
| Connection                   | Alloy connects directly to the MySQL server, not through a proxy or connection pooler                                                                                                            |

## Grafana Alloy requirements

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| Requirement     | Details                                                                                                                   |
|-----------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Version         | Grafana Alloy 1.17.0 or later. Database Observability is generally available, so no `--stability.level` flag is required. |
| Network         | Outbound access to Grafana Cloud endpoints                                                                                |
| Database access | Network connectivity to your MySQL instance                                                                               |

## Checklist

Before proceeding, verify:

- Grafana Cloud account is active with appropriate permissions
- Database Observability is activated in your Grafana Cloud stack
- MySQL version is 8.0 or later (not MariaDB)
- You can change MySQL configuration and restart MySQL if the query capture settings need to change
- Network connectivity exists between the Alloy host and your MySQL database
- Network connectivity exists between the Alloy host and Grafana Cloud
- You have administrative access to create a MySQL monitoring user

In the next milestone, you’ll prepare your MySQL database for monitoring.