grafana/docs/sources/getting-started/glossary.md

+++ title = "Glossary" description = "Grafana glossary" keywords = ["grafana", "intro", "glossary", "dictionary"] aliases = ["/docs/grafana/latest/guides/glossary"] weight = 500 +++

Glossary

This topic lists words and abbreviations that are commonly used in the Grafana documentation and community.

Dashboard	A set of one or more panels, organized and arranged into one or more rows, that provide an at-a-glance view of related information.
Data source	A file, database, or service providing the data. Grafana supports a several data sources by default, and can be extended to support additional data sources through plugins.
Exemplar	An exemplar is any data that serves as a detailed example of one of the observations aggregated into a metric. An exemplar contains the observed value together with an optional timestamp and arbitrary labels, which are typically used to reference a trace.
Explore	Explore allows a user to focus on a building a query. User can refine the query to return the expected metrics before building a dashboard.
Export/Import dashboard	Grafana includes the ability to export your dashboards to a file containing JSON. Community members sometimes share their created dashboards on the [Grafana Dashboards page](https://grafana.com/grafana/dashboards). Dashboards previously exported or found on this site may be imported by other users.
Exporter	An exporter translates data that comes out of a data source into a format that Prometheus can digest.
Integration (Grafana Cloud)	Each Integration in Grafana Cloud uses the cloud agent to connect your data source to Grafana Cloud for visualizing. Note: Prometheus uses the word “integrations” to refer to software that exposes Prometheus metrics without needing an exporter, which is a different use of the same word we use here.
Graph	A commonly-used visualization that displays data as points, lines, or bars.
Mixin	A mixin is a set of Grafana dashboards and Prometheus rules and alerts, written in Jsonnet and packaged together in a bundle.
Panel	Basic building block in Grafana, composed by a query and a visualization. Can be moved and resized within a dashboard.
Plugin	An extension of Grafana that allows users to provide additional functionality to enhance their experience. The types of plugins currently supported are: App plugin: Extends Grafana with a customized experience. It includes a set of panel and data source plugins, as well as custom pages. Data source plugin: Extends Grafana with support for additional data sources. Panel plugin: Extends Grafana with additional visualization options.
Query	Used to request data from a data source. The structure and format of the query depend on the specific data source.
Time series	A series of measurements, ordered by time. Time series are stored in data sources and returned as the result of a query.
Trace	An observed execution path of a request through a distributed system. For more information, refer to [What is Distributed Tracing?](https://opentracing.io/docs/overview/what-is-tracing/)
Transformation	Transformations process the result set of a query before it’s passed on for visualization.
Visualization	A graphical representation of query results.