Definition
How many time series a metric makes
Labels must be bounded and enumerable before the code runs.
Worked examples, recomputed
Every number the mechanisms quote for this relationship is recomputed from it, so none of them disagrees with it.
- 20 × 50 × 5 = 5,000 series
- add 200,000 customers → 1,000,000,000 series
- five labels → 5,000,000 series; one more label of 100 → 500,000,000
- adding user_id to city × status → 120,000,000 series
Where it appears
Each mechanism states it in its own names. The general symbol each name stands for is shown with it.
- Observability & Operations
What is the smallest description of a running system from which we can find a fault, fast enough to matter, at a cost we can still pay while the system is failing?
- Specialized Processing Models
What do you build when a query predicate cannot be reduced to a range over an ordered key?