Grafana ships with a built-in Microsoft SQL Server (MS SQL) data source plugin that allows you to query and visualize data from any Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or newer, including Microsoft Azure SQL Database. This topic explains options, variables, querying, and other options specific to the MS SQL data source. Refer to [Add a data source]({{< relref "add-a-data-source.md" >}}) for instructions on how to add a data source to Grafana. Only users with the organization admin role can add data sources.
A lower limit for the [$__interval]({{< relref "../variables/variable-types/_index.md#the-interval-variable" >}}) and [$__interval_ms]({{< relref "../variables/variable-types/_index.md#the-interval-ms-variable" >}}) variables.
This option can also be overridden/configured in a dashboard panel under data source options. It's important to note that this value **needs** to be formatted as a
number followed by a valid time identifier, e.g. `1m` (1 minute) or `30s` (30 seconds). The following time identifiers are supported:
| `$__time(dateColumn)` | Will be replaced by an expression to rename the column to _time_. For example, _dateColumn as time_ |
| `$__timeEpoch(dateColumn)` | Will be replaced by an expression to convert a DATETIME column type to Unix timestamp and rename it to _time_. <br/>For example, _DATEDIFF(second, '1970-01-01', dateColumn) AS time_ |
| `$__timeFilter(dateColumn)` | Will be replaced by a time range filter using the specified column name. <br/>For example, _dateColumn BETWEEN '2017-04-21T05:01:17Z' AND '2017-04-21T05:06:17Z'_ |
| `$__timeFrom()` | Will be replaced by the start of the currently active time selection. For example, _'2017-04-21T05:01:17Z'_ |
| `$__timeTo()` | Will be replaced by the end of the currently active time selection. For example, _'2017-04-21T05:06:17Z'_ |
| `$__timeGroup(dateColumn,'5m'[, fillvalue])` | Will be replaced by an expression usable in GROUP BY clause. Providing a _fillValue_ of _NULL_ or _floating value_ will automatically fill empty series in timerange with that value. <br/>For example, _CAST(ROUND(DATEDIFF(second, '1970-01-01', time_column)/300.0, 0) as bigint)\*300_. |
| `$__timeGroup(dateColumn,'5m', 0)` | Same as above but with a fill parameter so missing points in that series will be added by grafana and 0 will be used as value. |
| `$__timeGroup(dateColumn,'5m', NULL)` | Same as above but NULL will be used as value for missing points. |
| `$__timeGroup(dateColumn,'5m', previous)` | Same as above but the previous value in that series will be used as fill value if no value has been seen yet NULL will be used (only available in Grafana 5.3+). |
| `$__timeGroupAlias(dateColumn,'5m')` | Will be replaced identical to \$\_\_timeGroup but with an added column alias (only available in Grafana 5.3+). |
| `$__unixEpochFilter(dateColumn)` | Will be replaced by a time range filter using the specified column name with times represented as Unix timestamp. For example, _dateColumn > 1494410783 AND dateColumn < 1494497183_ |
| `$__unixEpochFrom()` | Will be replaced by the start of the currently active time selection as Unix timestamp. For example, _1494410783_ |
| `$__unixEpochTo()` | Will be replaced by the end of the currently active time selection as Unix timestamp. For example, _1494497183_ |
| `$__unixEpochNanoFilter(dateColumn)` | Will be replaced by a time range filter using the specified column name with times represented as nanosecond timestamp. For example, _dateColumn > 1494410783152415214 AND dateColumn < 1494497183142514872_ |
| `$__unixEpochNanoFrom()` | Will be replaced by the start of the currently active time selection as nanosecond timestamp. For example, _1494410783152415214_ |
| `$__unixEpochNanoTo()` | Will be replaced by the end of the currently active time selection as nanosecond timestamp. For example, _1494497183142514872_ |
| `$__unixEpochGroup(dateColumn,'5m', [fillmode])` | Same as \$\_\_timeGroup but for times stored as Unix timestamp (only available in Grafana 5.3+). |
| `$__unixEpochGroupAlias(dateColumn,'5m', [fillmode])` | Same as above but also adds a column alias (only available in Grafana 5.3+). |
We plan to add many more macros. If you have suggestions for what macros you would like to see, please [open an issue](https://github.com/grafana/grafana) in our GitHub repo.
The query editor has a link named `Generated SQL` that shows up after a query has been executed, while in panel edit mode. Click on it and it will expand and show the raw interpolated SQL string that was executed.
If the `Format as` query option is set to `Table` then you can basically do any type of SQL query. The table panel will automatically show the results of whatever columns and rows your query returns.
GETDATE(), CAST(GETDATE() AS DATETIME2), CAST(GETDATE() AS SMALLDATETIME), CAST(GETDATE() AS DATE), CAST(GETDATE() AS TIME), SWITCHOFFSET(CAST(GETDATE() AS DATETIMEOFFSET), '-07:00')
If you set `Format as` to `Time series`, for use in Graph panel for example, then the query must have a column named `time` that returns either a SQL datetime or any numeric datatype representing Unix epoch in seconds. You may return a column named `metric` that is used as metric name for the value column. Any column except `time` and `metric` is treated as a value column. If you omit the `metric` column, the name of the value column will be the metric name. You may select multiple value columns, each will have its name as metric.
If you return multiple value columns and a column named `metric` then this column is used as prefix for the series name (only available in Grafana 5.3+).
When the above query is used in a graph panel, it will produce two series named `Metric A` and `Metric B` with the values `valueOne` and `valueTwo` plotted over `time`.
When the above query is used in a graph panel, it will produce two series named `Metric A` and `Metric B` with the values `valueOne` and `valueTwo` plotted over `time`.
When the above query is used in a graph panel, it will produce two series named `Metric A` and `Metric B` with the values `valueOne` and `valueTwo` plotted over `time`.
Any two series lacking a value in a three-minute window will render a line between those two lines. You'll notice that the graph to the right never goes down to zero.
Instead of hard-coding things like server, application and sensor name in your metric queries you can use variables in their place. Variables are shown as dropdown select boxes at the top of the dashboard. These dropdowns make it easy to change the data being displayed in your dashboard.
Check out the [Templating]({{< relref "../variables/_index.md" >}}) documentation for an introduction to the templating feature and the different types of template variables.
For example, you can have a variable that contains all values for the `hostname` column in a table if you specify a query like this in the templating variable **Query** setting.
A query can return multiple columns and Grafana will automatically create a list from them. For example, the query below will return a list with values from `hostname` and `hostname2`.
```sql
SELECT [host].[hostname], [other_host].[hostname2] FROM host JOIN other_host ON [host].[city] = [other_host].[city]
Another option is a query that can create a key/value variable. The query should return two columns that are named `__text` and `__value`. The `__text` column value should be unique (if it is not unique then the first value is used). The options in the dropdown will have a text and value that allow you to have a friendly name as text and an id as the value. An example query with `hostname` as the text and `id` as the value:
You can also create nested variables. For example, if you had another variable named `region`. Then you could have
the hosts variable only show hosts from the current selected region with a query like this (if `region` is a multi-value variable, then use the `IN` comparison operator rather than `=` to match against multiple values):
> From Grafana 4.3.0 to 4.6.0, template variables are always quoted automatically so if it is a string value do not wrap them in quotes in where clauses.
>
> From Grafana 5.0.0, template variable values are only quoted when the template variable is a `multi-value`.
Grafana automatically creates a quoted, comma-separated string for multi-value variables. For example: if `server01` and `server02` are selected then it will be formatted as: `'server01', 'server02'`. Do disable quoting, use the csv formatting option for variables:
Read more about variable formatting options in the [Variables]({{< relref "../variables/variable-types/_index.md#advanced-formatting-options" >}}) documentation.
[Annotations]({{< relref "../dashboards/annotations.md" >}}) allow you to overlay rich event information on top of graphs. You add annotation queries via the Dashboard menu / Annotations view.
Stored procedures have been verified to work. However, please note that we haven't done anything special to support this, so there might be edge cases where it won't work as you would expect.
Stored procedures should be supported in table, time series and annotation queries as long as you use the same naming of columns and return data in the same format as describe above under respective section.
Please note that any macro function will not work inside a stored procedure.
For the following examples, the database table is defined in [Time series queries](#time-series-queries). Let's say that we want to visualize four series in a graph panel, such as all combinations of columns `valueOne`, `valueTwo` and `measurement`. Graph panel to the right visualizes what we want to achieve. To solve this, we need to use two queries:
It's now possible to configure data sources using config files with Grafana's provisioning system. You can read more about how it works and all the settings you can set for data sources on the [provisioning docs page]({{< relref "../administration/provisioning/#datasources" >}})