---
title: "Course overview | Grafana Labs"
description: "Introduction to optimizing database operations"
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

## Welcome

If you’re running a database and want to understand what’s happening inside it, you’re in the right place. This course helps you find the right monitoring approach for your setup, whether you’re just getting started or looking to go deeper.

## What this course covers

Grafana Cloud offers two primary approaches to database monitoring. This course introduces each one, explains when to use it, and gives you a hands-on learning path to try it out.

| Approach                   | What it does                                                    | Best for                                               |
|----------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------------|
| **Database Observability** | Deep query-level insights combined with database health metrics | MySQL and PostgreSQL                                   |
| **Database integrations**  | Database health metrics with pre-built dashboards               | MongoDB, Redis, Memcached, Cassandra, Oracle, and more |

## How this course works

You don’t need to go through every slide. Browse the approaches, pick the one that matches your database, and follow the hands-on learning path at your own pace.

## Databases covered

|            |           |
|------------|-----------|
| MySQL      | Memcached |
| PostgreSQL | Cassandra |
| MongoDB    | Oracle    |
| Redis      |           |