The nodejs grafana-backend example is broken due to the SimpleJSON plugin being deprecated

[sriedmue79]

Describe the bug
The SimpleJSON grafana plugin is deprecated and no longer appears in the "store". This renders the grafana-backend example nonfunctional.

To Reproduce
Search for SimpleJSON in the grafana plugin section

Expected behavior
When the SimpleJSON plugin was available, this example worked brilliantly. I found that "Infinity" is the replacement plugin, but it functions very differently from SimpleJSON. I think the grafana-backend example was implemented specifically for SimpleJSON, and the functionality of Infinity is very different.

Screenshots
If applicable, add screenshots to help explain your problem.

Additional context
I was able to use the Infinity plugin to pull some data from grafana-backend on IBM i into grafana, but it requires jumping through a lot of hoops for each and every piece of data. For example, the endpoint URL must be entered in the query editor for each query, rather than being defined once in the plugin config. Also with SimpleJSON all of the metrics were auto discovered and available automatically. With Infinity I have to provide the IBM i endpoint URL and also modify the request body in order to request any particular metric.

If anyone is interested in looking at this together, I'd be happy to get involved. I'm not a developer though, so I may only slow you down!

[abmusse]

@sriedmue79

Thanks for reporting this!

Additional context
I was able to use the Infinity plugin to pull some data from grafana-backend on IBM i into grafana, but it requires jumping through a lot of hoops for each and every piece of data. For example, the endpoint URL must be entered in the query editor for each query, rather than being defined once in the plugin config. Also with SimpleJSON all of the metrics were auto discovered and available automatically. With Infinity I have to provide the IBM i endpoint URL and also modify the request body in order to request any particular metric.

Perhaps there is some migration guide to move from SimpleJSON -> Infinity?

[sriedmue79]

@abmusse Thanks for the response! There is a "migration guide" but that also seems to be out of date already.
grafana/grafana-infinity-datasource#740
"Approach 1" involves getting rid of your existing custom json server, but that node.js server is the main gateway in the existing solution
"Approach 2" refers to using the "Base URL" but even in the screenshot itself you can see this is deprecated.

Anyway, maybe it's possible but simply is beyond my abilities to make it work smoothly. With SimpleJSON it worked brilliantly. I had presented a session at an IBM i conference showing people how to use this last year, but had to abandon the session this year as it doesn't work anymore.

Edit: I do have a publicly-accessible IBM i LPAR that we could use to try and figure this out, if you're willing to assist. I was able to pull data in, but it required a lot of "ugly" steps especially compared to the original solution.