Grafana Mimir is a powerful open-source time-series database designed to handle large-scale metrics workloads. It is part of the Grafana ecosystem and is known for its scalability and performance. Deploying Grafana Mimir as a monolith service can simplify the setup process, especially for smaller environments or testing purposes. In this article, we’ll walk through deploying Grafana Mimir using Docker Compose, which allows for easy management and orchestration of containerized applications.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have the following installed on your system:

• Docker: Install Docker
• Docker Compose: Install Docker Compose

Docker Compose Configuration

To deploy Grafana Mimir as a monolith service, we’ll use Docker Compose to define and run a multi-container Docker application. Below is a sample docker-compose.yml file that sets up Grafana Mimir:

version: '3.8'

services:
  mimir:
    image: grafana/mimir:latest
    container_name: grafana-mimir
    ports:
      - "9009:9009" # Mimir API
      - "9095:9095" # Mimir Query Frontend
    environment:
      - MIMIR_MODE=all
      - MIMIR_LOG_LEVEL=info
      - MIMIR_STORAGE_BACKEND=filesystem
      - MIMIR_STORAGE_PATH=/data/mimir
    volumes:
      - mimir-data:/data/mimir
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  mimir-data:

Explanation of the Configuration

• Image: We use the grafana/mimir:latest image to ensure we have the latest version of Grafana Mimir.
• Ports: The service exposes ports 9009 for the Mimir API and 9095 for the query frontend. These ports can be adjusted as needed.
• Environment Variables:
  • MIMIR_MODE=all: This sets Mimir to run in monolith mode, where all components are bundled into a single service.
  • MIMIR_LOG_LEVEL=info: Sets the logging level to info for better visibility into the service’s operations.
  • MIMIR_STORAGE_BACKEND=filesystem: Configures Mimir to use the filesystem for storage, suitable for local testing.
  • MIMIR_STORAGE_PATH=/data/mimir: Specifies the path where Mimir will store its data.
• Volumes: A named volume mimir-data is used to persist data across container restarts.

Deploying Grafana Mimir

With the docker-compose.yml file in place, you can deploy Grafana Mimir by running the following command in the directory containing your docker-compose.yml file:

docker-compose up -d

This command will start the Grafana Mimir service in detached mode. You can check the status of the service using:

docker-compose ps

To view logs for the Mimir service, use:

docker-compose logs -f mimir

Accessing Grafana Mimir

Once the service is running, you can access the Mimir API at http://localhost:9009 and the query frontend at http://localhost:9095. These endpoints can be integrated with Grafana for visualization and further analysis.

Conclusion

Deploying Grafana Mimir as a monolith service using Docker Compose is a straightforward process that provides a quick way to get started with this powerful time-series database. This setup is ideal for development and testing environments. For production deployments, consider a more distributed architecture to leverage Mimir’s full scalability and resilience capabilities.

References

• Grafana Mimir Documentation
• Docker Documentation
• Docker Compose Documentation

By following this guide, you should be able to deploy and manage Grafana Mimir effectively, gaining insights into your metrics with ease.