Talk presented at Grafana & Friends Stockholm meetup. RSVP here.

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Time for another Grafana & Friends Meetup, together with the Stockholm Apache Kafka® and Kong/Stockholm communities, hosted by Magello 🎉

📕 Agenda
17:00 – 17:25: Drop-in, food/drink-grabbing and mingle
17:25 – 17:30: Introductions
17:30 – 18:00: Talk 1
18:00 – 18:20: Mingle
18:20 – 18:50: Talk 2
18:50 – 20:00: Mingle

1️⃣ “Beyond API Management: Building AI-Enabled Event Streams with Kong Event Gateway, Kafka and MCP” by Johannes Brännström, Staff Solutions Engineer at Kong
In the era of LLMs and real-time data, the gateway’s role has shifted from a passive “traffic cop” to an active platform enabler. In this session, we’ll move beyond the basics and live-build a real-time, event-driven chat system. We’ll show you how to:

• Architect the Backbone: Use Kafka for high-throughput event streaming.
• Secure the Flow: Implement robust Auth/Z using Kong to protect your event streams.
• Give AI “Hands”: Integrate the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to allow a chatbot to perform actions, like fetching Konnect metrics or generating memes, directly from the stream.
• Simplify the Complexity: See how Kong isn’t just another layer of friction, but a tool that makes orchestrating these complex, multi-protocol systems significantly easier.

2️⃣ “Visualizing Your Data Lake with Grafana”, Imma Valls, Staff Developer Advocate at Grafana Labs.
In this brief talk, we’ll walk through how to get started with Grafana’s open source platform to explore and understand your data lake. We’ll cover how to connect to your data, no matter where it lives. How to craft queries that turn raw information into clear, compelling visualizations, and finally, set up alerts and annotations so you’re always in the know when something important changes in your data lake.

📍Location
Magello office: Västgötagatan 2, 118 27 Stockholm | https://maps.app.goo.gl/FPhEqLjttBHEneEt8
Take the stairs to the left after entering the building. If anyone is late, dial “Patrik Magello Group” on the door phone.

Food
There will be vegan/vegetarian food, and beverages at the event; if you have any allergies or other food preferences, please let us know at least 48 hours before the event!

Photo and video
We may take photos and record videos during the event. If you prefer not to be captured on camera, please inform the photographer when arriving.
If you feel sick, stay at home.

We are looking forward to seeing you 🎉!

Social

• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/imma-valls_grafana-observability-techcommunity-activity-7434902714863656960-F8DN

This talk was presented at the Grafana & Friends Zurich meetup, a joint meetup with the Zurich Apache Kafka community.

Grafana is powerful on its own, but its true potential lies in its vibrant community of plugin developers. In this talk, we’ll explore how community plugins extend Grafana’s core functionality, enabling you to connect to a broader range of data sources and visualize your data in new ways. As a practical example, we’ll introduce the Kafka Data Source plugin and demonstrate how it enables you to directly query and visualize Kafka topic data in your dashboards, eliminating the need for intermediate storage or external services.

Demo repository: https://github.com/thopewell/grafana-kafka-datasource-demo

Social

• https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7434902714863656960/

Grafana Labs patrocina HackUCD 2026. Como parte del patrocinio, se presenta un reto para los estudiantes hackers. Con María Alonso, preparamos una sesión para presentar el reto e incluir una formación en el uso de Grafana para el reto.

Descripción

¿Cómo podemos saber si hoy es un buen día para practicar deporte al aire libre basándonos en la contaminación? ¿O cómo influye el clima en el consumo de servicios públicos? Los datos abiertos están ahí, pero necesitan ser interpretados para ser útiles.

Os retamos a construir un cuadro de mando (dashboard/s) y un sistema de respuesta que resuelva una duda concreta o narre una situación específica de Galicia o de sus ciudades. Buscamos proyectos que no solo visualicen tendencias, sino que también permitan a sus usuarios recibir notificaciones simplificadas y personalizables.

Objetivo 

Desarrollar un sistema que conecte al menos una fuente de datos abiertos para:

• Crear dashboards en Grafana que hagan los datos comprensibles de un vistazo mediante gauges, heatmaps, series temporales, etc…
• Configurar Grafana Alerting para detectar anomalías o la superación de umbrales.
• (Opcional – Nivel Avanzado) Desarrollar una capa de usuario (App, Bot o Web) que consuma dichas alertas, de modo que la ciudadanía no tenga que interpretar gráficas complejas para estar informada.

Material de apoyo

• Datos Xunta de Galicia: abertos.xunta.gal (Recomendado: Medio Ambiente > Calidade Ambiental/Meteoroloxía).
• MeteoGalicia: API MeteoSIX, con datos de meteorología y calidad del aire en tiempo real.
• Grafana: Grafana Cloud y Grafana Assistant, herramientas para el despliegue y la ayuda en la creación de dashboards.
• Tokens de acceso: Se proporcionarán instrucciones en Discord para obtener los tokens de MeteoGalicia.

Criterios de valoración

1. Creatividad e impacto social: ¿ayuda realmente a que una persona tome una mejor decisión sobre su salud o su entorno?
2. Storytelling y claridad: capacidad del dashboard para narrar una historia de forma clara a simple vista.
3. Complejidad técnica: se valorará positivamente la integración de sistemas de alerta (Telegram/Discord) y el uso de arquitecturas completas (App + Grafana).
4. Uso de datos en tiempo real: capacidad para trabajar con flujos de datos dinámicos frente a datasets estáticos.

¿Qué no se premia?

• No se requiere un código perfecto ni una solución totalmente funcional en todos sus aspectos; buscamos un prototipo que demuestre el potencial de la idea.

Social

• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/imma-valls_hackudc-hackudc-gpul-activity-7432437481289142272-oQRs

Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vQy52iuKWM

Grafana is powerful on its own, but its true potential lies in its vibrant community of plugin developers. In this talk, we’ll explore how community plugins extend Grafana’s core functionality, enabling you to connect to a broader range of data sources and visualize your data in new ways. As a practical example, we’ll introduce the Kafka Data Source plugin and demonstrate how it enables you to directly query and visualize Kafka topic data in your dashboards, eliminating the need for intermediate storage or external services.

Demo repository by Tom Hopewell: https://github.com/thopewell/grafana-kafka-datasource-demo

Social

Talk based on the blog post “Metrics, logs, traces, and mayhem: introducing an observability adventure game powered by Grafana Alloy and OTel“, at Grafana & Friends Mumbai
We’re excited to kick off 2026 with our first Grafana & Friends Mumbai meetup — and this one is online, so you can experience it from anywhere! 🚀
This session is designed to be student-friendly, beginner-focused, and community-driven, with talks centered around Grafana, observability, and real-world learning journeys.

📅 Event Details

• Date: 6th February 2026 (Friday)
• Time: 5:30 PM IST
• Mode: Online

✨ What to Expect

• Beginner-friendly Grafana talks
• Practical insights and learning-focused sessions
• Community stories and real-world use cases
• Live Q&A and interactive discussions

Whether you’re a student, early-career professional, or Grafana enthusiast, this meetup is a great place to learn, connect, and grow with the community.

📌 Speakers

🎙️ Marie Cruz — Senior Developer Advocate, Grafana Labs
Talk: Observability Made Simple: Monitoring Plants with IoT and Grafana
🎙️ Imma Valls — Staff Developer Advocate, Grafana Labs
Talk: Metrics, Logs, Traces, and Mayhem: Introducing an observability adventure game powered by Grafana Alloy and OpenTelemetry
🎙️ Sonal Gaud — Software Engineer, Accenture
Talk: Inside otelhttp: How OpenTelemetry Instruments HTTP in Go

📌 Registrations open — save your spot!

We look forward to seeing you online — let’s learn and build together! 💬

Social

• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/imma-valls_observability-opentelemetry-grafana-activity-7425168547686961152-LleI
• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/imma-valls_observability-opentelemetry-grafana-ugcPost-7425168546420318208-M10C
• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/grafana-user-group-mumbai-50149b386_grafanaandfriendsmumbai-observibility-grafana-activity-7428363989442777088-uo9m
• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/grafana-user-group-mumbai-50149b386_grafanaandfriendsmumbai-communityevent-observability-activity-7425566641847037952-es2h
• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/amitabh-devops_amazing-online-meetup-by-grafana-and-friends-activity-7425542780606861313-3dUj

Talk presented at Open Lakehouse and AI in Brussels. RSVP here

The OSA Community is proud to host the Open Lakehouse and AI event in Brussels!

​​As real-time databases integrate more closely with data lakes to reduce storage costs and unlock data for AI and advanced analytics, data infrastructure is evolving fast. Join us to hear from leading experts as they share practical solutions and lessons learned in building open, scalable, and high-performance data platforms.

​Food and beverages will be provided!

​​​​Speakers

• ​​Robert Hodges, CEO @ Altinity
• ​​Andrew Madson, Head of Developer Relations @ Fivetran
• ​​Imma Valls, Senior Developer Advocate @ Grafana
• ​Will Martin, Evangelist @ Dremio

​​Agenda

• ​​6:00 pm – Check-in and networking
• ​​6:15 – 8:00 pm – Talks
• ​​8:00 – 9:00 pm – Networking

​​Description of the Talks

​​Building a Foundation for AI with ClickHouse® and Apache Iceberg Storage

​​Speaker: Robert Hodges, CEO @ Altinity

​​Abstract: AI applications need data. Lots of it. Altinity’s Project Antalya is adapting open source ClickHouse® to introduce separation of compute and storage on shared Iceberg table data. The result: fast, cheap, flexible query that extends the life of real-time analytic applications and lays the foundation for handling new AI use cases on the same datasets. We cover architecture, performance results, roadmap, and how to get started yourself.  

​​

​​Iceberg for Agents: Elevating Lakehouse Data Into AI-Ready Context

​​Speaker: Andrew Madson, Head of Developer Relations @ Fivetran

​​Abstract: AI agents fail in production because even though they’re stuffed with data, they’re starved for context. Better LLM models aren’t the problem. The bottleneck is the data stack: fragmented silos, inconsistent definitions, and logic hidden in tribal knowledge. Agents need structured, reliable, and interpretable context—not just data access.

​​In this session, we’ll show how Apache Iceberg becomes the backbone of AI-ready pipelines. You’ll learn how to elevate your Iceberg implementation from a storage format to a live context layer that powers structured retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), schema-aware agents, and autonomous reasoning grounded in truth.

​​What we’ll cover:

• ​​Iceberg Foundations for AI – from ACID to Time Travel
• ​​From Rows to Relationships – The role of the semantic layer
• ​​Structured RAG in Practice – Fully open source

​​The session includes a live demo of a fully open-source Structured RAG stack built on Apache Iceberg, featuring semantic query translation, hybrid retrieval, and governed agent reasoning. Expect architecture diagrams, real code, and practical guidance.

​​

​​Visualizing Your Data Lake with Grafana

​​Speaker: Imma Valls, Senior Software Engineer @ Grafana

​​Abstract: In this brief talk, we’ll walk through how to get started with Grafana’s open source platform to explore and understand your data lake. We’ll cover how to connect to your data—no matter where it lives—then craft queries that turn raw information into clear, compelling visualizations, and finally set up alerts and annotations so you’re always in the know when something important changes in your data lake.

​

​​The Open Data Lakehouse: Who Benefits?

​​Speaker: Will Martin, Evangelist @ Dremio

​​Abstract: Data Lakehouses have long benefited from open standards, with many established table formats and now emerging alternatives for the data catalog. But where does this leave the users, customers, and vendors? Who sees the benefits of these open technologies?

In this talk I will delve into the Open Data Lakehouse, the analytics platform that delivers industry-leading performance on open software standards. We will delve into the technical details of Apache Iceberg and Apache Polaris, what they deliver for modern data analytics, and who is impacted by these ground-breaking collaborations.

Location

Commons Hub Brussels

Rue de la Madeleine 51, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgium

Social

• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/osa-con_open-lakehouse-and-ai-luma-activity-7422333186233376770-0VLu

Talk presented at Open Lakehouse and AI in Amsterdam. RSVP here

GitHub repo: https://github.com/sarahzinger/meetup-data-lake

The OSA Community is proud to host the Open Lakehouse and AI event in Amsterdam!

​​As real-time databases integrate more closely with data lakes to reduce storage costs and unlock data for AI and advanced analytics, data infrastructure is evolving fast. Join us to hear from leading experts as they share practical solutions and lessons learned in building open, scalable, and high-performance data platforms.

​Food and beverages will be provided!

​​Speakers

• ​Robert Hodges, CEO @ Altinity
• ​Andrew Madson, Head of Developer Relations @ Fivetran
• ​Imma Valls, Senior Developer Advocate @ Grafana
• ​Will Martin, Evangelist @ Dremio

​Agenda

• ​6:00 pm – Check-in and networking
• ​6:15 – 8:00 pm – Talks
• ​8:00 – 9:00 pm – Networking

​Description of the Talks

​Building a Foundation for AI with ClickHouse® and Apache Iceberg Storage

​Speaker: Robert Hodges, CEO @ Altinity

​Abstract: AI applications need data. Lots of it. Altinity’s Project Antalya is adapting open source ClickHouse® to introduce separation of compute and storage on shared Iceberg table data. The result: fast, cheap, flexible query that extends the life of real-time analytic applications and lays the foundation for handling new AI use cases on the same datasets. We cover architecture, performance results, roadmap, and how to get started yourself.  

​Iceberg for Agents: Elevating Lakehouse Data Into AI-Ready Context

​Speaker: Andrew Madson, Head of Developer Relations @ Fivetran

​Abstract: AI agents fail in production because even though they’re stuffed with data, they’re starved for context. Better LLM models aren’t the problem. The bottleneck is the data stack: fragmented silos, inconsistent definitions, and logic hidden in tribal knowledge. Agents need structured, reliable, and interpretable context—not just data access.

​In this session, we’ll show how Apache Iceberg becomes the backbone of AI-ready pipelines. You’ll learn how to elevate your Iceberg implementation from a storage format to a live context layer that powers structured retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), schema-aware agents, and autonomous reasoning grounded in truth.

​What we’ll cover:

• ​Iceberg Foundations for AI – from ACID to Time Travel
• ​From Rows to Relationships – The role of the semantic layer
• ​Structured RAG in Practice – Fully open source

​The session includes a live demo of a fully open-source Structured RAG stack built on Apache Iceberg, featuring semantic query translation, hybrid retrieval, and governed agent reasoning. Expect architecture diagrams, real code, and practical guidance.

​Visualizing Your Data Lake with Grafana

​Speaker: Imma Valls, Senior Developer Advocate @ Grafana

​Abstract: In this brief talk, we’ll walk through how to get started with Grafana’s open source platform to explore and understand your data lake. We’ll cover how to connect to your data—no matter where it lives—then craft queries that turn raw information into clear, compelling visualizations, and finally set up alerts and annotations so you’re always in the know when something important changes in your data lake.

​The Open Data Lakehouse: Who Benefits?

​Speaker: Will Martin, Evangelist @ Dremio

​Abstract: Data Lakehouses have long benefited from open standards, with many established table formats and now emerging alternatives for the data catalog. But where does this leave the users, customers, and vendors? Who sees the benefits of these open technologies?

In this talk I will delve into the Open Data Lakehouse, the analytics platform that delivers industry-leading performance on open software standards. We will delve into the technical details of Apache Iceberg and Apache Polaris, what they deliver for modern data analytics, and who is impacted by these ground-breaking collaborations.

Social

• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/osa-con_open-lakehouse-and-ai-luma-activity-7422333186233376770-0VLu
• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/osa-con_amsterdamtech-openlakehouse-ai-activity-7422862881454637056-6JOp

This talk was presented at the Grafana & Friends Barcelona meetup, a joint meetup with the Barcelona Apache Kafka community.

Grafana is powerful on its own, but its true potential lies in its vibrant community of plugin developers. In this talk, we’ll explore how community plugins extend Grafana’s core functionality, enabling you to connect to a broader range of data sources and visualize your data in new ways. As a practical example, we’ll introduce the Kafka Data Source plugin and demonstrate how it enables you to directly query and visualize Kafka topic data in your dashboards, eliminating the need for intermediate storage or external services.

Demo repository: https://github.com/thopewell/grafana-kafka-datasource-demo

Social

• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/imma-valls_grafana-warpstream-apachekafka-activity-7395007681218101248-SziX

Recording: https://grafana.com/go/webinar/cloud-infrastructure-monitoring-with-grafana-cloud/

Streamline Cloud Observability, No Data Consolidation Required

In this webinar, we will explore key concepts and practical strategies for effectively observing your cloud services. From understanding different cloud service models to implementing OpenTelemetry for consistent observability, we’ll cover a range of topics. Whether you’re managing workloads on AWS, Azure, GCP, or across multiple providers, this webinar will provide valuable insights to help you refine your cloud observability practices.

What you’ll learn

1. Understand nuances in observing cloud service models (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) and identify relevant telemetry.
2. Discover strategies for monitoring across multiple cloud providers.
3. Explore OpenTelemetry benefits for consistent observability.
4. Enhance visibility into cost and performance for better decision-making.

Social

• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/imma-valls_managing-workloads-across-aws-azure-activity-7394420902387503104-d2JU
• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/grafana-labs_managing-workloads-across-aws-azure-activity-7393811234321563648-P67j
• https://x.com/grafana/status/1988034048644513934

Workshop based on the blog post “Metrics, logs, traces, and mayhem: introducing an observability adventure game powered by Grafana Alloy and OTel“, at Cloud Native Day Bergen 2025: https://2025.cloudnativebergen.dev/speaker/imma-valls

Workshop Instructions at https://github.com/grafana/adventure/blob/main/workshop.md

This hands-on workshop transforms learning about observability into an engaging adventure!

Step into a text-based game where you’ll master essential observability tools—metrics, logs, and traces—and discover how to leverage them effectively for real-world troubleshooting and gaining critical insights into your applications.

Powered by OpenTelemetry (OTel) and the Grafana stack, this session offers a unique, interactive environment for exploring the critical components of a robust observability strategy. You’ll gain practical experience identifying, understanding, and resolving complex system issues.

Whether you’re a developer, operator, or just curious about understanding your system’s health, you’ll leave with a solid foundation on how OpenTelemetry and core observability tools can empower you to solve complex problems confidently.

You’re also welcome to work in pairs and collaborate on your observability adventure!

Pre-requisites: Docker and Git are installed on your machine, or access to a web browser to run the workshop on a Killercoda playground

Social

• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/imma-valls_meet-imma-valls-bernaus-staff-developer-activity-7373264388067258369-drEj