PromCon EU 2019: PromQL for Mere Mortals

Speaker: Ian Billett

PromQL can feel intimidating at first for those new to the Prometheus ecosystem, but it is an essential skill to learn when starting out monitoring and alerting in the Prometheus ecosystem. In this beginner-focused, demo-driven talk Ian Billett will walk through the thought processes, mental models and coping strategies he uses to tame PromQL and effectively query metrics data. We will demystify instant vector selectors from range vector selectors, understand how aggregate functions work, and, time-permitting, even touch on some PromQL engine internals.

[rossbrunson]

This slide at 7:27 solved a huge disparity for me! Whole talk is killer, love your "One geek's journey through confusing territory" method, very effective...

[Zwartepiet]

Why have I only found this now!? Crying my eyes out : ) Thanks so much - brilliantly done!

[mbigras]

Thanks for the great talk about a challenging problem: understanding how PromQL works!

[tinfever]

Very good presentation. Clear, engaging, and funny.

[shubhamc]

Thanks for the talk, I learned a great deal from here about PromQL!

[setudixit]

The mental model slide was awesome …!!

[saeidghafouri]

Fantastic explanation! you're a lifesaver!

[cccc]

@6.11, scrapping time for different time-series may be different but intervals at which they are scrapped is same.

[josephmbimbi]

I actually have a hard time understanding what is being computed in the demo starting at 11:45 .
having a visual illustration of the time series and the operators, as you did earlier to explicit your "mental model", would have helped a lot

[praveenkumar-uctu]

Thanks for the video. Can u guide how to write promQL to get the metrics for concatenating couple of nodes in k8s cluster not for all the nodes.

[DimiterStanev]

PromQL stands for Pro-mortals Query Language ;)