Graph Non Time Series Data in Grafana! How?

Grafana can graph Time Series data from many different types of data sources extremely well. But sometimes you just want to graph, simple non time series data. i.e. Data without timestamps, flat tables with regularly updated statistics or just simple lookup tables.

Example Non Time Series data as a flat table.

Some non time-stamped sample data

Grafana normally needs Time Series (time-stamped) data to create graphs, so this is not immediately possible from Non Time Series data, but there is a way, and I'll show you how.

To test this yourself, you should have a MySQL database and create a Data Source connection to it in Grafana. If you don’t have a MySQL database then you can follow the instructions at https://sbcode.net/grafana/create-mysql-data-source/ to quickly install yourself a MySQL server and configure a MySQL data source inside Grafana.

Now to organise a simple flat table with some non time series data it.

For this exercise, we can quickly create a new database named exampledb and allow our grafana database user select permissions on it.

mysql