Visualize log severity and error metrics

This document describes how to use the Logs Dashboard page to detect trends in the behavior of your systems, monitor your workloads, and diagnose and resolve problems by using the predefined dashboard or by creating a custom dashboard.

Types of dashboards

The Logs Dashboard page has two options for visualizing the performance of the resources in your Google Cloud project: the predefined dashboard and a custom dashboard. The predefined dashboard is always available and is managed by Monitoring, but you can also customize this predefined dashboard.

Predefined dashboard

The predefined dashboard is automatically configured and only provides information for resources in your Google Cloud project that are producing logs data.

The predefined dashboard is organized into a pair of charts for each of the following resource types:

  • Google Kubernetes Engine

  • Compute Engine

  • App Engine

  • Cloud Load Balancing

  • Cloud SQL

  • BigQuery

One chart displays the number of logs and their severity types, such as WARNING. The other chart displays logs that contain errors. To get more information about severity types or error logs, hold your pointer over the chart.

The following screenshot is an example of the predefined dashboard:

Example of a dashboard that displays Google Kubernetes Engine severity and errors.

Custom dashboard

If the content in the predefined dashboard doesn't contain the information you need to help you troubleshoot, then consider creating a custom dashboard. Custom dashboards let you display information that is of interest to you, organized in a way that's useful to you. For example, you might create a dashboard that displays the logs, metrics, and alerting policies for virtual machines (VM) in your production environment.

Custom dashboards are managed by Cloud Monitoring, but you must create a new custom dashboard to use in the Logs Dashboard page. The custom dashboard you create in the Logs Dashboard page is only accessible in Cloud Logging. When you create a custom dashboard, the predefined dashboard is copied into the custom dashboard, so that you can delete unnecessary widgets and add missing content.

View the predefined dashboard

To view the predefined dashboard, do the following:

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Logs Dashboard page:

    Go to Logs Dashboard

    If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading is Monitoring.

  2. If the Dashboard menu is enabled, then select Predefined.

Customize the predefined dashboard

You can't modify the predefined dashboard. However, you can make a copy of this dashboard, and then modify the copy.

To create a copy of the predefined dashboard, do the following:

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Logs Dashboard page:

    Go to Logs Dashboard

    If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading is Monitoring.

  2. Do one of the following:

    • If the Dashboard menu isn't enabled, then go to the toolbar and select Edit.

      Cloud Monitoring creates a copy of the predefined dashboard, and then opens the copy in edit mode.

    • If the Dashboard menu doesn't display Predefined, then you are viewing a dashboard that can be edited. To modify this dashboard, go to the toolbar and select Edit.

    • If the Dashboard menu is enabled and is displaying Predefined, then use the menu to select a dashboard in the Customized views subsection. To modify the dashboard you selected, go to the toolbar and select Edit.

  3. Modify the dashboard by adding or removing widgets, or by editing existing widgets.

    For example, to add a widget, click Add widget, complete the dialog, and then select Apply. For more information about adding widgets, see the following pages:

  4. After you complete your modifications, in the toobar, click Save.

    To toggle between the predefined dashboard and your custom dashboard, use the Dashboard menu.

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