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Metrics and Alerting
6.1The Role of Metrics in ObservabilityMetrics are aggregated numerical measurements over time. Unlike logs (one entry per event) or traces (one per request), metrics are…6.2The Three Pillars ComparedMetrics are the first line of defense: they tell you something is wrong. Traces tell you where. Logs tell you why.6.3Prometheus Metric TypesPrometheus is the de facto standard for metrics collection in cloud-native environments:6.4Instrumenting Application MetricsTwo frameworks for choosing what to measure:6.5Multi-Burn-Rate AlertsThe most important advance in alerting over the past decade is multi-burn-rate alerts. Instead of a single threshold ("error rate > 1%")…6.6Alert Design Principles1. Alert on symptoms, not causes. Alert on "users are seeing errors" not "CPU is high." High CPU that causes no user impact is not an…6.7Alert Classification Matrix6.8Alert Fatigue: The Enemy of ObservabilityAlert fatigue occurs when on-call engineers receive so many alerts that they begin ignoring them. This is the single biggest risk to an…