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MSSQLServer Grafana Dashboard

KubeDB exposes MSSQLServer metrics through a sidecar exporter, and its own view of each resource (status, phase, version) through Panopticon. Once Prometheus is scraping both, you can visualize them in Grafana using pre-built KubeDB dashboards. This tutorial walks through the full setup: deploying the monitoring stack, enabling monitoring on a MSSQLServer instance, and importing the Grafana dashboards.

Before You Begin

• You need a Kubernetes cluster with kubectl configured. If you do not already have a cluster, you can create one by using kind.

• KubeDB must be installed in your cluster with kubedb-metrics enabled. Follow the setup guide here and make sure to include the flag below during installation:

  --set kubedb-metrics.enabled=true
  

  kubedb-metrics creates MetricsConfiguration objects for each database type, which Panopticon (see Configuration) uses to expose metrics to Prometheus.

• MSSQLServer requires TLS to be enabled. You need a cert-manager Issuer in the demo namespace before deploying. If cert-manager is not installed, install it first:

  $ helm repo add jetstack https://charts.jetstack.io
  $ helm repo update
  $ helm upgrade --install cert-manager jetstack/cert-manager \
    --namespace cert-manager --create-namespace \
    --set crds.enabled=true
  

  Then create a self-signed Issuer in the demo namespace:

  apiVersion: cert-manager.io/v1
  kind: Issuer
  metadata:
    name: mssqlserver-ca-issuer
    namespace: demo
  spec:
    selfSigned: {}
  

  $ kubectl apply -f issuer.yaml
  issuer.cert-manager.io/mssqlserver-ca-issuer created
  

• To keep monitoring resources isolated, we use a separate monitoring namespace and deploy the database in the demo namespace.

  $ kubectl create ns monitoring
  namespace/monitoring created
  
  $ kubectl create ns demo
  namespace/demo created
  

• Before proceeding, complete the Configuration steps to deploy kube-prometheus-stack and Panopticon.

Note: YAML files used in this tutorial are stored in docs/examples/mssqlserver/monitoring folder in GitHub repository kubedb/docs.

Setup

Step 1: Deploy MSSQLServer

Below is the MSSQLServer object with TLS and monitoring configured to use Prometheus Operator.

apiVersion: kubedb.com/v1alpha2
kind: MSSQLServer
metadata:
  name: mssql-grafana-demo
  namespace: demo
spec:
  version: "2022-cu12"
  replicas: 1
  tls:
    issuerRef:
      name: mssqlserver-ca-issuer
      kind: Issuer
      apiGroup: "cert-manager.io"
    clientTLS: false
  deletionPolicy: WipeOut
  storage:
    storageClassName: "standard"
    accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
    resources:
      requests:
        storage: 1Gi
  monitor:
    agent: prometheus.io/operator
    prometheus:
      serviceMonitor:
        labels:
          release: prometheus
        interval: 10s

Here,

• tls.issuerRef is required for MSSQLServer; it references the cert-manager Issuer created above.
• monitor.agent: prometheus.io/operator tells KubeDB to create a ServiceMonitor for this instance.
• monitor.prometheus.serviceMonitor.labels must match the serviceMonitorSelector label of your Prometheus (release: prometheus).
• monitor.prometheus.serviceMonitor.interval sets the scrape interval to 10 seconds.

Create the MSSQLServer instance:

$ kubectl create -f https://github.com/kubedb/docs/raw/v2026.7.10/docs/examples/mssqlserver/monitoring/mssql-grafana-demo.yaml
mssqlserver.kubedb.com/mssql-grafana-demo created

Wait for it to be Ready:

$ kubectl get mssqlserver -n demo mssql-grafana-demo
NAME                 VERSION    STATUS   AGE
mssql-grafana-demo   2022-cu12  Ready    3m

KubeDB creates a stats service named {mssqlserver-name}-stats for the exporter:

$ kubectl get svc -n demo --selector="app.kubernetes.io/instance=mssql-grafana-demo"
NAME                       TYPE        CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)     AGE
mssql-grafana-demo         ClusterIP   10.96.10.1     <none>        1433/TCP    3m
mssql-grafana-demo-stats   ClusterIP   10.96.10.2     <none>        9399/TCP    3m

KubeDB also creates a ServiceMonitor in the demo namespace:

$ kubectl get servicemonitor -n demo
NAME                       AGE
mssql-grafana-demo-stats   3m

Verify it carries the correct label:

$ kubectl get servicemonitor -n demo mssql-grafana-demo-stats -o jsonpath='{.metadata.labels}'
{"release":"prometheus", ...}

Step 2: Verify Prometheus is Scraping

Port-forward the Prometheus pod:

$ kubectl port-forward -n monitoring \
  prometheus-prometheus-kube-prometheus-prometheus-0 9090
Forwarding from 127.0.0.1:9090 -> 9090
Forwarding from [::1]:9090 -> 9090

Open http://localhost:9090/targets in your browser. Look for an entry whose service label matches mssql-grafana-demo-stats. Its state should be UP.

If the target is missing, check that the ServiceMonitor label (release: prometheus) matches the Prometheus serviceMonitorSelector.

Step 3: Access Grafana

Port-forward the Grafana service:

$ kubectl port-forward -n monitoring svc/prometheus-grafana 3000:80
Forwarding from 127.0.0.1:3000 -> 80

Open http://localhost:3000. The username is admin. Retrieve the auto-generated password from the secret:

$ kubectl get secret -n monitoring prometheus-grafana \
  -o jsonpath='{.data.admin-password}' | base64 -d

After a successful login you will see the Grafana home page:

Step 4: Configure Prometheus as a Data Source

If you installed Grafana via kube-prometheus-stack, Prometheus is already configured as the default data source — skip to Step 5.

If you’re using a different Grafana instance than the one installed in the Configuration prerequisite (linked in “Before You Begin” above), add Prometheus as a data source manually:

1. Go to Connections → Data sources → Add new data source.

2. Select Prometheus.

3. Set the URL to your Prometheus service:

   http://prometheus-operated.monitoring.svc:9090
   

4. Click Save & test. You should see Data source is working.

Step 5: Import Dashboard — Option A: Automatic (chart)

Rather than downloading and uploading each JSON file by hand (Option B below), KubeDB ships a chart that creates all matching dashboards for you as GrafanaDashboard custom resources. A separate controller, grafana-operator, watches these resources and pushes the actual dashboard JSON into your Grafana instance — both pieces are required.

1. Install grafana-operator (skip if it’s already running in your cluster):

$ helm repo add appscode https://charts.appscode.com/stable/
$ helm repo update

$ helm upgrade --install grafana-operator appscode/grafana-operator \
    --version v2026.6.12 \
    --namespace kubeops --create-namespace

2. Register your Grafana instance as an AppBinding (skip if you’ve already done this in another guide on this cluster). grafana-operator needs to know where to push dashboards and how to authenticate — it reads this from an AppBinding object, not from the chart install command itself. Since Grafana here came bundled with kube-prometheus-stack, reuse its existing admin credentials:

$ kubectl port-forward -n monitoring svc/prometheus-grafana 3000:80 &

$ curl -s -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -u admin:<grafana_password> \
    http://localhost:3000/api/auth/keys \
    -d '{"name":"kubedb-dashboards","role":"Admin"}'
# Note the returned "key"

$ kill %1

$ kubectl create secret generic grafana-admin-token -n monitoring \
    --from-literal=token='<key-from-above>'

$ cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: appcatalog.appscode.com/v1alpha1
kind: AppBinding
metadata:
  name: grafana
  namespace: monitoring
spec:
  type: monitoring.appscode.com/grafana
  clientConfig:
    url: http://prometheus-grafana.monitoring.svc:80
  secret:
    name: grafana-admin-token
EOF

3. Install the dashboards:

The chart packages dashboard JSON for every database it supports, so install it from a copy trimmed down to just MSSQLServer’s dashboards (this also keeps grafana-operator from creating dashboards for databases you don’t run):

$ helm pull appscode/kubedb-grafana-dashboards --version v2026.7.10 --untar

$ cd kubedb-grafana-dashboards/dashboards
$ ls | grep -v '^mssqlserver$' | xargs rm -rf   # keep only dashboards/mssqlserver
$ cd ../..

$ helm package kubedb-grafana-dashboards
Successfully packaged chart and saved it to: kubedb-grafana-dashboards-v2026.7.10.tgz

$ helm upgrade -i kubedb-grafana-dashboards-mssqlserver ./kubedb-grafana-dashboards-v2026.7.10.tgz \
    -n kubeops --create-namespace \
    --set grafana.name=grafana \
    --set grafana.namespace=monitoring

Use a release name unique to this database (kubedb-grafana-dashboards-mssqlserver), not the plain kubedb-grafana-dashboards name — if you also follow another DB’s Grafana Dashboard guide on this same cluster, each helm upgrade -i under a shared release name would prune the previous DB’s dashboards (Helm removes anything not in the new release’s manifest). A per-DB release name lets them coexist.

grafana.name/grafana.namespace point the chart’s GrafanaDashboard resources at the AppBinding created in step 2 (omitting them falls back to whichever AppBinding in your cluster is labeled as the cluster-default Grafana, if any — explicit is safer on a shared cluster). No need to touch featureGates — with every other database’s dashboards/ folder removed, their gates simply match zero files and render nothing, regardless of being true by default.

This creates every dashboard the chart ships for MSSQLServer — KubeDB / MSSQLServer / Summary, KubeDB / MSSQLServer / Pod, KubeDB / MSSQLServer / Database — which grafana-operator then pushes into your Grafana instance automatically. No manual JSON download or upload needed.

Verify they landed:

$ kubectl get grafanadashboards.openviz.dev -n kubeops | grep -i mssqlserver
NAME                                   TITLE                              SYNCED    AGE
grafana-kubedb-mssqlserver-summary     KubeDB / MSSQLServer / Summary     Current   30s
grafana-kubedb-mssqlserver-pod         KubeDB / MSSQLServer / Pod         Current   30s
grafana-kubedb-mssqlserver-database    KubeDB / MSSQLServer / Database    Current   30s

SYNCED: Current confirms grafana-operator successfully pushed each dashboard into Grafana. Open Grafana — the dashboard are already there under Dashboards, fully wired to your Prometheus data source, ready to explore in Step 6 below.

If the SYNCED column is missing entirely from your output (not just showing a non-Current value), grafana-operator most likely never processed the resource at all. Check that the operator pod is actually running (kubectl get pods -n kubeops -l app.kubernetes.io/name=grafana-operator), inspect its logs for AppBinding/auth errors (kubectl logs -n kubeops deploy/grafana-operator), and check kubectl get grafanadashboards.openviz.dev -n kubeops <name> -o yaml for status.conditions — the CR existing only means kubectl accepted it, not that it reached Grafana.

After importing them, they will appear under Dashboards in the left sidebar as well:

Step 5: Import Dashboard — Option B: Manual (JSON upload)

If you’d rather not run grafana-operator, or want fine-grained control over exactly which dashboards get imported, upload the same dashboard JSON files by hand instead.

The KubeDB MSSQLServer dashboards are distributed as JSON files. Each JSON file is a complete dashboard definition — panels, queries, variables, and layout — that Grafana loads in one shot. Without importing, you would have to build every panel and write every PromQL query by hand. Importing lets you skip that entirely.

Three dashboards are available. Download all three JSON files from the appscode/grafana-dashboards repository (mssqlserver/ folder):

Import steps (repeat for each of the three files):

1. In Grafana, click the + icon in the left sidebar.
2. Select Import from the menu.
3. Click Upload JSON file and select one of the downloaded .json files.
4. In the Prometheus dropdown that appears, select your Prometheus data source.
5. Click Import.

The import page looks like this — click Upload dashboard JSON file to select the file:

After importing all three files, they will appear under Dashboards in the left sidebar.

Step 6: Explore the Dashboard

After opening a dashboard, use the dropdown filters at the top to focus on a specific instance.

KubeDB / MSSQLServer / Summary — start here for an instance overview:

• General Info — database status, version, whether secure transport is required, deletion policy, total nodes
• Resource Requests / Limits — configured CPU, memory, and storage requests and limits
• CPU Info / CPU Quota — per-pod CPU usage over time and quota utilization

KubeDB / MSSQLServer / Pod — drill into a specific pod:

• Pod Name / Status / Role / Uptime — pod identity, running status, Availability Group role (Primary/Secondary), and uptime
• Server Resource Overview — server local time, total and used RAM, pagefile size and usage
• Server Resource Overview (2) — total page faults, batch requests/sec, page life expectancy, deadlocks, user errors/sec, kill connection errors/sec
• Summary — current database connections, log growth since last restart, total I/O stall wait time

KubeDB / MSSQLServer / Database — Availability Group cluster health:

• Service Status / Uptime — per-pod health and how long each pod has been serving
• AG Cluster Active Replica — which pod is acting as the active replica
• Cluster Status — count of Primary vs. Secondary replicas
• SQL Compilations/sec — per-pod query compilation rate
• Batch Requests per Second — per-pod T-SQL batch throughput

Cleaning up

# Remove the MSSQLServer instance
kubectl delete mssqlserver -n demo mssql-grafana-demo

# Remove the TLS Issuer
kubectl delete issuer mssqlserver-ca-issuer -n demo

# Remove namespaces
kubectl delete ns demo

# Uninstall the Grafana dashboards chart, if you used Option A
helm uninstall kubedb-grafana-dashboards-mssqlserver -n kubeops

# Uninstall grafana-operator (optional — skip if other DB guides on this cluster still use it)
helm uninstall grafana-operator -n kubeops

# Uninstall monitoring stack (optional)
helm uninstall prometheus -n monitoring
helm uninstall panopticon -n kubeops
kubectl delete ns monitoring kubeops

Next Steps

• Monitor your MSSQLServer instance with KubeDB using Prometheus Operator.
• Want to hack on KubeDB? Check our contribution guidelines.