Raspberry Pi Computing: Monitoring with Prometheus and Grafana: Measure, record, visualize and understand your systems

If you’ve heard about the Raspberry Pi you may know that it provides a fantastic method to learn about using a computer and to develop some skills that go beyond the basics.

It has the ability to provide a bridge between the sometimes abstract computing environment and the physical world. In this case we are going to use it to set up a monitoring ‘stack’ consisting of the software platforms Prometheus and Grafana. This will allow us to measure and monitor a range of different aspects of computing technology including developing your own specialised monitoring.

What sort of things will we learn?
Good question!
– What sort of versions of the Raspberry Pi are there?
– What hardware do I need to get it up and going?
– What sort of operating system do I need and how do we install it.
– How do we install and configure Prometheus and Grafana
– How do we do [Insert any number of cool things]?

Is this book for you?
It’s not written for experts. It’s put together as a guide to get you started if you’re unsure about how to make the first move with a Raspberry Pi and/or Prometheus and Grafana

Why has the book been written?
Because in the process of learning things, it’s a great way to remember them if you write them down :-).

Writing about how to do cool stuff with computers means that we’re accumulating ways to help ourselves out when the going gets tricky. Making a book out of the information is a no-brainer since that way more people benefit from the process.

So I hope you get something out of the book, please excuse the sometimes light-hearted conversational manner in which I approach the topic and enjoy the Raspberry Pi!