Metrics are units of measurement that describe the size of something, such as the amount of memory in a computer system or the length of a desktop in centimetres. In Grafana, metrics are most useful when they are gathered often over time. This allows us to compare things like how system resource availability is altered when a programme is run.
In a time-series database (TSDB) like Prometheus, these types of metrics are recorded and associated with a time stamp. Although each TSDB has its unique data schema, they all share these two characteristics, and Grafana Cloud can visualize their varied metrics formats.
Visualization is a graph that shows how resource utilization has changed over time. Using visualizations to compare these time-stamped measurements over time makes it quick and straightforward to spot changes in a computer system, particularly as events occur.