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I m looking to integrate Google SecOps SOAR with Grafana or Power BI to build custom intelligence dashboards focused on system health checks and performance monitoring.

Key Questions:

  1. Is there a native API or export method to pull health and performance data from SecOps SOAR?

  2. Has anyone successfully connected SOAR to Grafana or Power BI for this purpose?

  3. Are there recommended practices or tools to enable this integration?

Any insights or examples would be appreciated.

There will be more native dashboards utilizing the SOAR platform data.  But yes you should be able to use the swagger tied to your instance and generate an API key that alllows you that access.  Some other thoughts: 


You can extract this data using a few methods:



  1. Google SecOps APIs & Data Export:

    • Data Export API: Google SecOps (Chronicle) offers a Data Export API that allows you to export raw log data, which can include SOAR-related logs, to Google Cloud Storage (GCS) buckets. This data is typically in JSON format. While designed for log data, it can be a source if health/performance indicators are logged.

    • Other APIs: Explore other Google SecOps APIs (e.g., those related to playbooks, actions, or system logs if available) that might expose health or performance indicators.



  2. Google Cloud Logging (Logs Explorer):

    • Google SecOps SOAR logs (capturing data from ETL, playbook, and Python functions, including performance aspects) can be managed and monitored in Google Cloud Logs Explorer. You can create sinks to export these logs to GCS, BigQuery, or Pub/Sub for further processing and ingestion into Grafana/Power BI.




Yes, you can integrate Google SecOps SOAR with Grafana or Power BI to build custom intelligence dashboards for system health checks and performance monitoring. This typically involves extracting data from Google SecOps SOAR and then ingesting it into your chosen visualization tool. There isn't a direct, one-click native connector for SOAR-specific health and performance metrics into Grafana or Power BI, but several viable methods exist.


Here's how you can approach this integration:


Data Extraction from Google SecOps SOAR


The first step is to get the relevant health and performance data out of Google SecOps SOAR. Key data points for system health and performance might include:



  • Playbook Execution Metrics: Success/failure rates, execution times, number of active playbooks, errors per playbook.

  • Action & Integration Health: Status of connectors and integrations, API call success/failure rates, latency of integrated tools.

  • Queue & Worker Performance: Message queue lengths, processing times, resource utilization of SOAR components (if available).

  • ETL & Data Ingestion: Logs related to data ingestion, parsing, and normalization within SOAR.

  • System Logs: General health logs of the SOAR platform itself.


You can extract this data using a few methods:



  1. Google SecOps APIs & Data Export:

    • Data Export API: Google SecOps (Chronicle) offers a Data Export API that allows you to export raw log data, which can include SOAR-related logs, to Google Cloud Storage (GCS) buckets. This data is typically in JSON format. While designed for log data, it can be a source if health/performance indicators are logged.

    • Other APIs: Explore other Google SecOps APIs (e.g., those related to playbooks, actions, or system logs if available) that might expose health or performance indicators.



  2. Google Cloud Logging (Logs Explorer):

    • Google SecOps SOAR logs (capturing data from ETL, playbook, and Python functions, including performance aspects) can be managed and monitored in Google Cloud Logs Explorer. You can create sinks to export these logs to GCS, BigQuery, or Pub/Sub for further processing and ingestion into Grafana/Power BI.



  3. Native Dashboards Data (Indirectly):

    • Google SecOps has "Native Dashboards" that provide insights into detections, ingestion metrics, etc. While you can't directly query these dashboards from external tools, the underlying data sources they use might be accessible via the methods above.






Integrating with Grafana 📊


Grafana is highly flexible with data sources. Here's how to connect it to Google SecOps SOAR data:



  1. Via Google Cloud Monitoring:

    • If your SOAR health and performance metrics can be pushed or are already available in Google Cloud Monitoring (either as standard metrics or custom metrics derived from logs), Grafana has a built-in Google Cloud Monitoring data source. You can configure this in Grafana to query those metrics directly.



  2. Via Database Connectors (e.g., BigQuery, PostgreSQL):

    • Export to GCS, then Load to Database: Export SOAR logs/data to GCS.

    • Use a data pipeline (e.g., Google Cloud Dataflow, custom scripts) to load and transform this data from GCS into a database like BigQuery (Google's data warehouse) or a relational database like PostgreSQL.

    • Grafana has native connectors for BigQuery, PostgreSQL, and many other databases. You can then query this database from Grafana to build your dashboards.



  3. Via JSON API Data Source:

    • If you can expose the extracted SOAR data via a custom API endpoint (e.g., a Cloud Function that reads from GCS or BigQuery), Grafana's JSON API data source can be used to fetch this data




Yes, you can integrate Google SecOps SOAR with Grafana or Power BI to build custom intelligence dashboards for system health checks and performance monitoring. This typically involves extracting data from Google SecOps SOAR and then ingesting it into your chosen visualization tool. There isn't a direct, one-click native connector for SOAR-specific health and performance metrics into Grafana or Power BI, but several viable methods exist.


Here's how you can approach this integration:


Data Extraction from Google SecOps SOAR


The first step is to get the relevant health and performance data out of Google SecOps SOAR. Key data points for system health and performance might include:



  • Playbook Execution Metrics: Success/failure rates, execution times, number of active playbooks, errors per playbook.

  • Action & Integration Health: Status of connectors and integrations, API call success/failure rates, latency of integrated tools.

  • Queue & Worker Performance: Message queue lengths, processing times, resource utilization of SOAR components (if available).

  • ETL & Data Ingestion: Logs related to data ingestion, parsing, and normalization within SOAR.

  • System Logs: General health logs of the SOAR platform itself.


You can extract this data using a few methods:



  1. Google SecOps APIs & Data Export:

    • Data Export API: Google SecOps (Chronicle) offers a Data Export API that allows you to export raw log data, which can include SOAR-related logs, to Google Cloud Storage (GCS) buckets. This data is typically in JSON format. While designed for log data, it can be a source if health/performance indicators are logged.

    • Other APIs: Explore other Google SecOps APIs (e.g., those related to playbooks, actions, or system logs if available) that might expose health or performance indicators.



  2. Google Cloud Logging (Logs Explorer):

    • Google SecOps SOAR logs (capturing data from ETL, playbook, and Python functions, including performance aspects) can be managed and monitored in Google Cloud Logs Explorer. You can create sinks to export these logs to GCS, BigQuery, or Pub/Sub for further processing and ingestion into Grafana/Power BI.



  3. Native Dashboards Data (Indirectly):

    • Google SecOps has "Native Dashboards" that provide insights into detections, ingestion metrics, etc. While you can't directly query these dashboards from external tools, the underlying data sources they use might be accessible via the methods above.






Integrating with Grafana 📊


Grafana is highly flexible with data sources. Here's how to connect it to Google SecOps SOAR data:



  1. Via Google Cloud Monitoring:

    • If your SOAR health and performance metrics can be pushed or are already available in Google Cloud Monitoring (either as standard metrics or custom metrics derived from logs), Grafana has a built-in Google Cloud Monitoring data source. You can configure this in Grafana to query those metrics directly.



  2. Via Database Connectors (e.g., BigQuery, PostgreSQL):

    • Export to GCS, then Load to Database: Export SOAR logs/data to GCS.

    • Use a data pipeline (e.g., Google Cloud Dataflow, custom scripts) to load and transform this data from GCS into a database like BigQuery (Google's data warehouse) or a relational database like PostgreSQL.

    • Grafana has native connectors for BigQuery, PostgreSQL, and many other databases. You can then query this database from Grafana to build your dashboards.



  3. Via JSON API Data Source:

    • If you can expose the extracted SOAR data via a custom API endpoint (e.g., a Cloud Function that reads from GCS or BigQuery), Grafana's JSON API data source can be used to fetch this data.



  4. Via Google Sheets Data Source (Simpler, for smaller datasets):

    • For less complex or lower volume data, you could potentially get data into Google Sheets (e.g., from GCS exports) and use a Google Sheets data source plugin in Grafana.




Building Dashboards in Grafana: Once connected, use Grafana's query builder to select the relevant metrics (e.g., playbook success rates, execution times, error counts). Utilize various panel types (graphs, singlestats, tables, gauges) to visualize system health and performance. Set up alerts in Grafana for critical thresholds.




Integrating with Power BI 📈


Power BI offers robust data connectivity options:



  1. Via Google Cloud Storage Connector:

    • Export SOAR data/logs to GCS as JSON or CSV files.

    • Power BI can connect to GCS (often via its Web connector by providing the GCS object URL or by using Power Query to access GCS). You'll then parse the JSON/CSV data within Power BI.



  2. Via Database Connectors (e.g., BigQuery, SQL Server):

    • Similar to the Grafana approach, load your exported SOAR data into a database that Power BI supports.

    • Power BI has native connectors for BigQuery, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, and many others. Connect to your database and import or DirectQuery the data.



  3. Via Web Connector for APIs:

    • If you have API endpoints (either native to Google SecOps SOAR for health data or custom ones you build), Power BI's "Get Data from Web" feature can be used. You'll need to handle authentication and pagination as required by the API.




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