Query and view telemetry data

This document describes the options you have when you want to view, explore,or analyze your telemetry data. You can, for example, view the dashboards thatGoogle Cloud Observability creates when you use Google Cloud services. When you aretroubleshooting issues, pages like theLogs Explorer,Metrics Explorer, and theTrace Explorer can help youunderstand how your services are operating.

Predefined dashboards

When you create a resource like a Compute Engine virtual machine (VM),Google Cloud Observability automatically creates and installs a dashboard in your project.These dashboards display metric data and general information about theresources that you use. To view your dashboards, go to theDashboards page in the Google Cloud console:

Go toDashboards

If you register applications withApp Hub, then youcan use dashboards that Application Monitoring creates. These dashboards displaytelemetry and other information, from the perspective of your application.

To learn more, see the following documents:

View and explore telemetry

To view or explore telemetry, use the explorer pages for log, metric, andtrace data. These pages provide access to individual log entries, time series,and trace spans, and they help you troubleshoot and analyze the performance ofyour services and applications.

The explorer pages rely on scopes to determine what resources to query for data.Scopes let you view and analyze data that is stored in multiple projects.If you don't configure observability scopes, then the explorer pages query yourproject for data. To learn more, seeConfigure observability scopes.

The explorer pages provide filtering and aggregation capabilities that you canuse to control what data appears and how the pages process that data. Theexplorer pages for logging and trace also perform some analysis for you. Forexample, theLogs Explorer page displays the rate of errors as afunction of time. TheTrace Explorer page displays a heatmap thatdisplays aggregated latency data.

Log data

To learn how to use theLogs Explorer page, seeView and explore log data.

In the Google Cloud console, go to theLogs Explorer page:

Go toLogs Explorer

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

Metric data

To learn how to use theMetrics Explorer page, seeChart metric data.

In the Google Cloud console, go to the Metrics explorer page:

Go toMetrics explorer

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

Trace data

To learn how to use theTrace Explorer page, seeFind and explore trace data.

In the Google Cloud console, go to theTrace explorer page:

Go toTrace explorer

You can also find this page by using the search bar.

Analyze telemetry with SQL

To generate insights or identify trends in your data, use theLog Analytics page, which lets you query your data by using theSQL query language.

TheLog Analytics page can query the following types of views:

  • Log views on log buckets: A log view providesread-access to a subset of log entries that are stored in a log bucket.
  • Analytics views:An analytics view contains a SQL query that queries one or more log views,and is itself a resource that can be queried. Use analytics views whenyou want to transform your log data into a custom format.

By default, query results are shown in tabular form. However, you candisplay the results in a chart, which can help you identify patterns andtrends. TheLog Analytics page lets you save and share queries, and itlets you save a query, and the chart or tabular output, to a custom dashboard.

Log data

To learn how query your log data with SQL, seeQuery and analyze by using Log Analytics.

In the Google Cloud console, go to theLog Analytics page:

Go toLog Analytics

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

Metric data

Not supported.

Trace data

Preview

This product or feature is subject to the "Pre-GA Offerings Terms" in the General Service Terms section of theService Specific Terms. Pre-GA products and features are available "as is" and might have limited support. For more information, see thelaunch stage descriptions.

To learn how query your trace data with SQL, seeQuery and analyze traces.

In the Google Cloud console, go to theLog Analytics page:

Go toLog Analytics

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

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Last updated 2026-02-19 UTC.