Proper use of metric graphic names

Question

I am creating a web analytics tool and consider using Graphite. This is a very simple tool with a few interesting parameters, but with measurements there are several dimensions. For example, when a user lands on a site, I want to track geography, browser, etc. The name of the metric will probably be:

usa.chrome.windows8.organic... 

Then I can use wildcards to make interesting queries.

Is this an abuse of metric names (and Graphite in general), or is this a good approach while I only care about a small number of metrics.

Answer 1

I think this approach will be great, although there are some important considerations when naming metrics. Since Graphite will store a .wsp file for each metric name , you will have to redo or change the storage settings if you decide to change your configuration. In addition, the graphical user interface will have a “folder” for each metric name so that you can easily make the UI unusable.

Graphite recommends that "Flying components should be kept as deep as possible in the hierarchy . " This essentially means that if you can click on parts of indicators that are often unique at the end of the bucket without affecting your grouping requests, you should try to do this.

Here's a great post on using Graphite that includes naming guidelines. And here is another one with additional information from Jason Dixon (an excellent source for all graphite).

Answer 2

This is basically a redirected answer to my question from another question ...

I come across a good guide (also mentioned in the accepted answer) someone put together on this topic though. From the manual:

<namespace>.<instrumented section>.<target (noun)>.<action (past tense verb)>

Example:

accounts.authentication.password.attempted

You have already considered the needs that you have, but try and anticipate a bit, and do not limit yourself to expanding opportunities. If you do not have results at each level, it will be difficult / tedious to compare the indicators. Perhaps we’ll look at some of the indicators that you would usually like to compare, and start by highlighting them.