Prometheus: Monitoring with a Dimensional Data Model
Prometheus models system health as labeled time series, not just flat metrics. It pulls data from targets, making it ideal for dynamic cloud environments like Kubernetes. The footgun is using high-cardinality labels, which can overwhelm its storage.
Prometheus views system health not as flat metrics, but as a multi-dimensional space of labeled time series data (e.g., `http_requests_total{method="POST"}`). It's the standard for cloud-native monitoring, pulling metrics from dynamic targets like Kubernetes pods. Its powerful query language, PromQL, is designed to slice and dice this dimensional data. The main footgun is using high-cardinality labels (like user IDs), which creates a new time series for each value and can quickly overwhelm the database.
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