Exploring Prometheus' time series data format

I like bytes, they're handy! I also like laying them in the right way to make things work and work fast. It turns out I'm far from the only byte-nerd out there :) In this post I'll dive deep into how Prometheus, an open source metrics and monitoring service, represents time series information on the disk. To write this post, I've read Prometheus' implementation, played around with real data and also read this series of posts by Ganesh Vernekar. My goal is not to provide full documentation, instead I want to explore and learn with others' designs. I'll also speculate why some things are the way they are and compare trade-offs with other alternatives I know. This is the first post of a two-post series. The second installment will come soon, stay tuned with the RSS feed or the newsletter! The basic model Prometheus' database subsystem is called tsdb (for Time Series Data Base) and stores "series". A series is uniquely identified by a set of labels, for example: __name__ = cpu_usage, host…