dns.default == dns.time?

[Dieterbe]

what is the dns.default metric and why does it look identical to dns.time?

( and also i noticed it doesn't show up for hosts that don't resolve, which may be ok)

[nopzor1200]

Basically so the compare dashboard can work without having to have a
separate dashboard per protocol. It makes templating easier.

Kind of like a temporary hack to make "default" unit/metric alias more
templatable in Grafana.

-r

Raj Dutt

co-founder/ceo, raintank
+1-917-664-1310
[email protected]

On Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 12:29 AM, Dieter Plaetinck <[email protected]

wrote:

what is the dns.default metric and why does it look identical to dns.time?

( and also i noticed it doesn't show up for hosts that don't resolve,
which may be ok)

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#36.

[Dieterbe]

ah i see.
and for http default is equivalent to total.

i think with some better naming structure we can make templating easier and remove the need to store the same data twice.
maybe like so:

proto.time_total
proto.time.$subitem # where appropriate

this way time_total can replace both time and default for dns, and make it easy to compare across protocols

[woodsaj]

how would you compare this with Ping? Ping doesnt have a "time_total" measurement. instead the default is "mean" or "time_mean" if you want to standardize format.

[Dieterbe]

for ping i just wouldn't make mean part of the metric name. i see how "total" could be misleading. just calling it "time" should do then. and for protocols that want to split it up can do so in a subcategory as long as it has a different name, like time_sub.

[woodsaj]

but if you had

• time.min
• time.max
• time.avg
• time

how would you know that time actually meant "mean"?

[Dieterbe]

by convention i suppose. or documentation.

it seems much more of a stretch to know that default means time (and total time and mean time depending on protocol).
case in point, i've been wondering what default means until today.

btw isn't our avg also the same as mean? i just tried a few and they look exactly the same. what's the difference?

[woodsaj]

A user browsing the metric tree doesnt need to know what "default" is as it is simply an 'alias' to another of the metrics (we obviously dont have a way to create a real alias, so just duplicate the metric).

btw isn't our avg also the same as mean?

Good point that is a pretty big oversight as what we are storing as mean is actually the 'median'