Clarify Grafana usage on Cloud monitoring page (#582)

* Clarify Grafana usage on Cloud monitoring page

The Cloud Prometheus endpoint is a scrape (exposition) endpoint, not a
PromQL query API, so users who plug the Console-displayed URL/credentials
straight into a Grafana Prometheus data source get 401 Unauthorized.

Add a "Connect Grafana" section explaining the architecture and showing
the Prometheus/Alloy/Mimir-in-the-middle pattern, label the scrape YAML
explicitly, and move the rpk generate grafana-dashboard tip next to the
Grafana steps where readers will look for it.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* minor edit after testing

* Move Connect Grafana section before Configure Datadog

Places the Grafana section directly after Configure Redpanda monitoring,
since the scrape YAML already mentions Grafana-compatible scrapers and
the Grafana section back-references that config. Datadog moves after.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

Author: micheleRP

modules/manage/pages/monitor-cloud.adoc

@@ -14,15 +14,16 @@ Redpanda Cloud exports Redpanda metrics for all brokers and connectors from a si
 - Operating system-level and node-level metrics (such as CPU, memory, disk, and network usage) are not available through this endpoint. For infrastructure monitoring, use your cloud provider's native monitoring tools (such as Azure Monitor, AWS CloudWatch, or Google Cloud Monitoring).
 ====
 
+[#configure-redpanda-monitoring]
 == Configure Redpanda monitoring
 
 To monitor a Redpanda Cloud cluster:
 
-. On the Redpanda Cloud *Overview* page for your cluster, under *How to connect*, click the *Prometheus* tab. 
+. On the Redpanda Cloud *Overview* page for your cluster, under *How to connect*, click the *Prometheus* tab.
 
-. Click the copy icon for *Prometheus YAML* to copy the contents to your clipboard. 
+. Click the copy icon for *Prometheus YAML* to copy the contents to your clipboard.
 +
-The YAML contains the Prometheus scrape target configuration, as well as authentication, for the cluster.
+The YAML is a Prometheus scrape configuration. Use it with Prometheus, or with any Prometheus-compatible scraper such as Grafana Alloy, Grafana Agent, Grafana Mimir, Thanos, or VictoriaMetrics.
 +
 image::shared:cloud_metrics.png[How to connect screenshot]
 +
@@ -45,9 +46,35 @@ image::shared:cloud_metrics.png[How to connect screenshot]
 * `<prom_pass>`: Copy and paste the onscreen Prometheus password.
 
 
+[#connect-grafana]
+== Connect Grafana
+
+The Redpanda Cloud metrics endpoint (`/api/cloud/prometheus/public_metrics`) is a Prometheus exposition (scrape) endpoint, not a Prometheus query API. You cannot point a Grafana Prometheus data source at it directly. Grafana issues PromQL queries to paths such as `/api/v1/query`, which the endpoint does not serve, so the requests fail with `401 Unauthorized`.
+
+To use Grafana with Redpanda Cloud metrics, run a Prometheus-compatible scraper between Redpanda Cloud and Grafana:
+
+. Configure a scraper to pull metrics from Redpanda Cloud, using the Basic Auth scrape configuration from <<configure-redpanda-monitoring>>. Compatible scrapers include:
++
+* Prometheus
+* Grafana Alloy or Grafana Agent
+* Grafana Mimir, Thanos, or VictoriaMetrics
+
+. In Grafana, add a Prometheus data source pointing at your scraper, not at the Redpanda Cloud endpoint.
+
+. Import a sample dashboard into Grafana. Use xref:reference:rpk/rpk-generate/rpk-generate-grafana-dashboard.adoc[`rpk generate grafana-dashboard`] to generate a dashboard from the https://github.com/redpanda-data/observability/tree/main/cloud[redpanda-data/observability^] repository, or browse the https://github.com/redpanda-data/observability#grafana-dashboards[example Grafana dashboards^] directly.
++
+For example, to generate the sample Serverless dashboard, run:
++
+[,bash]
+----
+rpk generate grafana-dashboard --dashboard serverless
+----
+
+For an end-to-end example with Prometheus and Grafana running in Docker, see the https://github.com/redpanda-data/observability#sandbox-environment[Redpanda Cloud sandbox^] in the same repository.
+
 == Configure Datadog
 
-To monitor a BYOC or Dedicated cluster in https://www.datadoghq.com/[Datadog^]: 
+To monitor a BYOC or Dedicated cluster in https://www.datadoghq.com/[Datadog^]:
 
 . Follow the steps to configure Redpanda monitoring.
 
@@ -76,19 +103,7 @@ For hands-on learning, Redpanda provides a repository with examples of monitorin
 
 image::https://github.com/redpanda-data/observability/blob/main/docs/images/Ops%20Dashboard.png?raw=true[Example Redpanda Ops Dashboard^]
 
-It includes https://github.com/redpanda-data/observability#grafana-dashboards[example Grafana dashboards^] and a https://github.com/redpanda-data/observability#sandbox-environment[sandbox environment^] in which you launch a Dockerized Redpanda cluster and create a custom workload to monitor with dashboards.
-
-[TIP]
-====
-Use xref:reference:rpk/rpk-generate/rpk-generate-grafana-dashboard.adoc[`rpk generate grafana-dashboard`] to generate a sample dashboard from the examples repository that you can import into a Grafana instance.
-
-For example, to generate the sample Serverless dashboard, run:
-
-[,bash]
-----
-rpk generate grafana-dashboard --dashboard serverless
-----
-====
+It includes https://github.com/redpanda-data/observability#grafana-dashboards[example Grafana dashboards^] and a https://github.com/redpanda-data/observability#sandbox-environment[Redpanda Cloud sandbox^] in which you launch a Dockerized Redpanda cluster and create a custom workload to monitor with dashboards.
 
 == Monitor health and performance