Looker Monitoring

The Looker Monitoring Dashboard provides valuable insights into your Looker usage and costs. This tool enables teams to optimize their Looker implementation, control costs, and identify unused or expe

The Looker Monitoring Dashboard provides valuable insights into your Looker usage and costs. This tool enables teams to optimize their Looker implementation, control costs, and identify unused or expensive content.

Prerequisites

• Completed Looker Monitoring setup in Radar's Get Started guide.

The Looker dashboard is divided into two main sections:

1. Explores: Analyzes usage and costs at the Explore level. [link]

2. Dashboards: Provides insights into dashboard usage and associated costs. [link]

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Explores Section

The Explores section offers a comprehensive view of your Looker Explore usage and associated costs:

1. Daily Spend Analysis

Value: Understand daily spending patterns across Explores and models.

How to use:

• Monitor daily spend trends to identify any unusual spikes or patterns.

• Compare spend across different Explores and models to prioritize optimization efforts.

• Use this information to guide resource allocation and cost management strategies.

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2. Top Spenders

Value: Identify the most expensive Explores and models.

How to use:

• Focus optimization efforts on the Explores and models with the highest query costs.

• Investigate high-cost Explores to determine if they can be optimized or if their usage justifies the cost.

• Consider restructuring or optimizing expensive models to reduce overall costs.

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3. Usage Patterns

Value: Visualize daily usage patterns of Looker Explores.

How to use:

• Identify the most frequently used Explores.

• Correlate usage patterns with spend to ensure high-use Explores are optimized for performance and cost.

• Consider deprecating or archiving consistently unused Explores.

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Dashboards Section

The Dashboards section provides insights into Looker dashboard usage and associated costs:

1. Dashboard Spend Analysis

Value: Understand daily spending on Looker dashboards.

How to use:

• Monitor daily dashboard spend trends to identify any unusual patterns or spikes.

• Use this information to guide budget allocation and cost control measures for dashboard development and maintenance.

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2. Top Dashboard Spenders

Value: Identify the most expensive Looker dashboards.

How to use:

• Focus optimization efforts on the dashboards with the highest query costs.

• Investigate high-cost dashboards to determine if they can be optimized or if their usage justifies the cost.

• Consider restructuring or consolidating expensive dashboards to reduce overall costs.

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3. Active Dashboard Usage

Value: Analyze the usage and performance of active Looker dashboards.

How to use:

• Review the "Last accessed" column to identify potentially unused or underutilized dashboards.

• Analyze runtime and query cost to identify dashboards that may need performance optimization.

• Use the "run on load" information to understand which dashboards are set to update automatically, potentially impacting costs.

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How to Apply Filters

1. Locate the "Select date range" dropdown at the top of both Explores and Dashboards sections.

2. Choose your desired time frame for analysis.

3. The dashboard will automatically update to reflect your selection, allowing for focused analysis over specific periods.