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Metrics and Metric Types

Monitoring in XAUTOMATA is based on a structured model that separates metric definitions from metric values.

This distinction allows the platform to organize monitoring data consistently across different infrastructure components.

Understanding this structure helps clarify how monitoring data is collected, stored, and visualized in dashboards.

The Monitoring Data Model

Monitoring data follows a hierarchical structure:

flowchart TD

O["Object<br>(monitored resource)"]
MT["Metric Type<br>(measurement definition)"]
M["Metrics<br>(time-series values)"]

O --> MT
MT --> M

Each level of this hierarchy represents a different concept.

Object

An Object represents a monitored infrastructure resource, such as:

  • a server
  • a network device
  • an application service
  • a virtual machine

Objects are the entities from which monitoring data is collected.

Metric Type

A Metric Type defines a category of measurement associated with an object.

It describes what kind of data can be collected from the object.

Examples include:

  • CPU usage
  • memory consumption
  • network latency
  • service availability
  • traffic volume

An object may have multiple metric types, each representing a different monitoring dimension.

Metrics

A Metric represents the actual monitoring data collected over time.

Metrics are time-series measurements produced by probes and stored by the platform.

Examples of metric values include:

  • CPU usage at 14:05 → 62%
  • latency at 14:05 → 12 ms
  • service status at 14:05 → OK

These values are continuously collected and stored to allow historical analysis.

How Monitoring Data Is Used

The monitoring data collected through metrics is used throughout the platform.

Typical uses include:

  • infrastructure monitoring dashboards
  • anomaly detection
  • performance analytics
  • service availability tracking
  • automated actions triggered by dispatchers

Widgets and dashboards visualize the metric data in various formats such as charts, tables, and alerts.

Relationship with the User Interface

In the user interface, the monitoring model appears through several sections:

  • Objects represent monitored infrastructure resources
  • Metric Types define the measurements associated with those resources
  • Metrics represent the collected time-series data

These entities are managed in the Data Manager section of the platform.

The collected metrics then feed the Dashboards and Widgets used for operational monitoring and analysis.

Summary

The monitoring system separates metric structure from metric data:

Concept Description
Object The monitored resource
Metric Type The type of measurement
Metric The actual time-series data

This structure allows XAUTOMATA to organize monitoring data efficiently and support advanced analytics and automation.