Migrate from Azure Managed Grafana Essential service tier

The Azure Managed Grafana Essential service tier is deprecated and is scheduled for complete deprecation by March 31, 2027. Existing Essential workspaces continue to run during the transition period, but you can't create new Essential workspaces. This article outlines your transition options.

To ensure continuity of your Grafana dashboards and monitoring capabilities, use one of the following migration paths:

• Upgrade to Standard service tier (recommended): Keep your existing Azure Managed Grafana workspace with enhanced reliability, SLA coverage, and additional features.
• Migrate to Azure Monitor dashboards with Grafana: Move your dashboards to a free, Azure-native alternative.

Choose the option that best fits your requirements and budget.

The following milestones apply to the deprecation timeline:

• Existing Essential workspaces continue to run during the transition period.
• You can't create new Essential workspaces.
• March 31, 2027: Essential SKU is scheduled to be fully deprecated.

Recommended option: Upgrade to Standard service tier

When you upgrade to the Standard service tier, you get continued reliability, SLA coverage, and enhanced features:

• SLA-backed service and enterprise-level reliability with access to more data sources.
• Two instance sizes available: X1 (default) and X2 (more capacity and alert rules).
• A similar provisioning flow as Managed Grafana Essential service tier.
• Additional features: zone redundancy, private endpoints, reporting, alerts, and more.

For pricing details, see Azure Managed Grafana pricing.

To upgrade to the Standard service tier, follow these steps in the Azure portal:

1. Navigate to your Azure Managed Grafana workspace in the Azure portal.
2. Go to Settings > Configuration > Pricing Plans.
3. Choose Standard SKU. Optionally increase the instance size to X2.
4. Save the changes.

Important

Downgrading from Standard SKU back to Essential (preview), or moving from a larger to a smaller instance size, isn't supported.

Alternative option: Move dashboards to Azure Monitor dashboards with Grafana (preview)

If upgrading isn't suitable, consider migrating your dashboards to Azure Monitor dashboards with Grafana (preview) — a free, Azure-native alternative:

• Integrated directly with Azure Monitor (metrics, logs, traces, Prometheus, and more).
• Higher availability - no reliance on spot VMs.
• Feature parity with Essential SKU capabilities.

To move dashboards to Azure Monitor dashboards with Grafana, first export your dashboards from Azure Managed Grafana, and then import them into Azure Monitor dashboards with Grafana.

1. Export your dashboard from Azure Managed Grafana by using the Grafana UI or the Azure CLI.

   Grafana UI

   1. In the Grafana UI, open the dashboard you want to export.
   2. At the top of the dashboard, select Share.
   3. In the dialog that appears, select the Export tab.
   4. Select Save to file to download the dashboard JSON file.

   Azure CLI

   Run the az grafana backup command in preview to export dashboards, data sources, and other components.

   az grafana backup --name <grafana-workspace-name>
   

   For additional options and filters, see az grafana backup. For example, the following command backs up data sources, dashboards, and folders to a temp folder from the specified Grafana resource while excluding the "General" and "Azure Monitor" folders:

   az grafana backup \
       --name MyGrafana \
       --resource-group MyResourceGroup \
       --directory "c:\temp" \
       --folders-to-exclude "General" "Azure Monitor" \
       --components datasources dashboards folders
   

2. Import your exported dashboards to Azure Monitor dashboards with Grafana.

   Follow these steps, or see more details in the guide: Import Grafana dashboards using JSON.

   1. In the Azure portal, open Azure Monitor.
   2. In the service menu, select Dashboards with Grafana (preview), then New > Import.
   3. Under Import dashboard from File, upload the JSON file you exported.
   4. Select Load.
   5. Enter a name for the dashboard, and select the subscription, resource group, and region where the dashboard should be created.

Related content

• Visualize data with Grafana in Azure Monitor for details.
• Azure Managed Grafana pricing