1. What is the Architecture of Prometheus Monitoring?
Prometheus follows a simple yet effective architecture. It employs a pull-based model, where Prometheus servers periodically scrape metrics from instrumented targets (e.g., application services or infrastructure components). These metrics are stored locally in a time-series database. Users can then query this database using PromQL (Prometheus Query Language) to gain insights into system performance and behavior.
2. What are the Features of Prometheus?
Prometheus boasts a range of features that make it a top choice for monitoring:
Multi-dimensional Data Model: Prometheus uses key-value pairs to represent data, allowing for flexible querying and aggregation.
Powerful Query Language: PromQL enables users to express complex queries for extracting valuable insights.
Alerting: Prometheus supports alerting rules that can be configured to trigger notifications when predefined conditions are met.
Scalability: Its pull-based architecture allows easy horizontal scalability by adding more Prometheus servers.
Exposure of Metrics: Prometheus provides an HTTP-based endpoint for instrumented applications to expose metrics.
Service Discovery: It integrates with various service discovery mechanisms for dynamic target discovery.
3. What are the Components of Prometheus?
Prometheus is composed of several core components:
Prometheus Server: Responsible for scraping, storing, and querying metrics data.
Instrumented Targets: These are the entities (applications, servers, services) from which Prometheus collects metrics.
Time-Series Database: Metrics data is stored locally in this database, allowing for efficient querying.
Alertmanager: Used for handling alerts generated by Prometheus.
Pushgateway (Optional): Allows short-lived jobs to push metrics, useful for batch jobs.
4. What database is used by Prometheus?
Prometheus employs its custom time-series database, designed specifically for fast and efficient querying of time-series data. It's optimized for Prometheus' use cases, making it a core part of its architecture.
5. What is the default data retention period in Prometheus?
By default, Prometheus retains data for 15 days. However, this retention period is configurable. Users can adjust it based on their specific needs. Longer retention periods may require additional storage resources.