Dashboards with Grafana - Now in Azure Portal for PostgreSQL

varun-dhawan

Microsoft

Feb 26, 2026

Zero setup. Instant visibility. Native Grafana dashboards for PostgreSQL

Monitoring Azure Database for PostgreSQL just got significantly simpler. With the new Azure Monitor Dashboards with Grafana, you can visualize key metrics and logs directly inside Azure Portal - no Grafana servers to deploy, no configuration to manage, and no additional cost

In this post, we’ll walk through how these built-in Grafana dashboards help you troubleshoot faster, understand database behavior at a glance, and decide when you might still want Azure Managed Grafana for advanced scenarios.

Native Grafana Dashboards — No Setup, No Hosting, No Cost

We are thrilled to announce that Azure Database for PostgreSQL users can now access prebuilt Grafana dashboards directly within the Azure portal - with no additional cost or configuration required. This integration eliminates the complexity of deploying and administering self-hosted or managed Grafana instances. Grafana’s powerful visualization capabilities are now embedded directly in the Azure experience

From the moment you open the Azure Portal you have immediate access to dashboards for PostgreSQL. Simply navigate to Azure Database for PostgreSQL server in the Azure Portal and select “Dashboards with Grafana” and choose Featured dashboards. Within seconds, you have a rich, real-time view of your database server’s health - no custom queries or manual wiring required.

Figure 1: Azure Portal showing the “Dashboards with Grafana” blade , featuring the prebuilt monitoring dashboard tile.

Comprehensive PostgreSQL Metrics at a Glance

Figure 2: Azure PostgreSQL Grafana dashboard showing resource utilization, performance metrics, and server configuration.

As shown above, the new Grafana dashboard provides at-a-glance visibility into all the key metrics that matter for Azure Database for PostgreSQL. These dashboards are purpose-built to surface the health and performance of your database server, so you can immediately spot trends or issues.

Quick Configuration Snapshot

Figure 3: PostgreSQL server details, showing version, region, compute size, availability, and resource usage gauges.

Every monitoring session starts with instant answers to critical questions:

Is the server up?
Is High Availability configured?
How much storage is available?

The summary panel provides:

Instance status (Up/Down)
High Availability and replica configuration
Azure region, PostgreSQL version, and SKU
Live resource usage (CPU, memory, storage)

No extra clicks. No custom queries. Just clarity.

Metrics Coverage

The prebuilt dashboards visualize telemetry emitted by Azure Database for PostgreSQL, including:

Server availability and status
Active connections and connection failures
CPU and memory utilization
Storage usage and WAL consumption
Disk I/O (IOPS and throughput)
Network ingress and egress
Transaction rates, commits, and rollbacks

These metrics are collected via Azure Monitor platform metrics and refreshed at near-real-time intervals (depending on metric type). For a complete list, see the Azure Database for PostgreSQL monitoring documentation.

Metrics and Logs—Together

Ever struggled to trace a spike in CPU to the actual query behind it? With PostgreSQL logs and metrics visualized side-by-side, you can now correlate the exact timestamp of a CPU surge with detailed query logs in seconds.

Figure 4: CPU usage metrics co-relation with PostgreSQL log entries in Azure Monitor, highlighting slow query detection and log integration.

💡Note: To view logs in Grafana, make sure diagnostic settings are enabled to send PostgreSQL logs to Azure Monitor Logs. You can configure this in the Azure Portal under your PostgreSQL resource > Monitoring > Diagnostic settings. Learn how.

In the example above, high CPU usage (73.2%) aligns precisely with poor-running queries against a large salesorderdetail_big table. This helps engineers instantly validate and pinpoint slow queries without jumping between tools.

The unified Metric + Logs view, you can:

Plot query errors over time
Correlate failed logins with resource spikes
Investigate locking or memory pressure using timestamps

Grafana Explore mode is also available for deep-dive troubleshooting without altering dashboards.

First-Class Azure Integration

This is not just embedded Grafana - it is first-class Azure-native:

Dashboards are Azure resources, scoped to subscriptions and resource groups
Access is controlled using Azure RBAC
Dashboards can be exported and deployed via ARM templates
Easy sharing and migration across environments

You get the flexibility of open-source Grafana with Azure’s enterprise-grade governance.

Getting Started

To use the pre-built dashboard

Open the Azure portal
Navigate to Azure Database for PostgreSQL
Select Dashboards with Grafana
Open the PostgreSQL featured dashboard

To customize a dashboard:

Open the prebuilt PostgreSQL dashboard
Select Save As to create a copy
Modify panels or add new visualizations
Connect additional data sources (metrics or logs)
Save and share with your team

For advanced customization, refer to the Azure Monitor + Grafana Learn documentation.

When to Use Azure Managed Grafana?

Dashboards with Grafana in the Azure portal cover most common PostgreSQL monitoring scenarios. Azure Managed Grafana is still the right choice when you need: