Derived telemetry

Metrics emission isn't standardized. Users use different forms of naming for metrics, or use different label names to convey the same information or emit metrics in specific ways expecting to compute complex expressions.

Derived metrics let you create aliases for queries, effectively giving queries user-friendly names. Derived metrics execute at query time, which means they incur computing overhead only at query time, during execution. Your query might be complex and time-consuming, but when you're viewing the results, you're almost always working with a subset of data.

Derived labels are a Chronosphere Observability Platform-specific construct. They're non-destructive and are specifically designed for efficient operation on individual time series at scale. For example, you might have a service named k8s_cluster, and another named kubernetes_cluster, with the intent that they're both related to the same thing. Use derived labels to standardize on one name for the same service, usable across Observability Platform.

Unlike Prometheus relabel rules, which overwrite existing data, derived labels standardize your label names without overwriting them permanently.