monitoringelement

Monitoringelement is a modular unit used in IT monitoring systems to define what should be observed, how data should be collected, and what actions should be taken as a result. It encapsulates the target resource, the metric or event to collect, and the rules governing data processing, alerting, and reporting.

A monitoring element typically includes: an identifier or name; the scope (for example, host, service, or application); the data source or collection method (polling interval, streaming, log parsing); the metric or event type; any transformations or derived metrics; alert thresholds and notification channels; and data retention or aggregation settings. Configurations are commonly stored in a structured format (JSON, YAML) or defined in a graphical user interface.

Usage: a monitoring element is used to create concrete monitors or probes within a monitoring stack. It produces time series data, supports aggregation, and can trigger alerts when limits are exceeded. It can be composed into higher-level constructs such as services or applications and linked to dashboards.

Considerations: performance impact, accuracy of collected data, security and access control, data privacy, and scalability. When designing monitoring elements, operators balance sampling rate, storage requirements, and the number of monitored resources.

See also: metrics, probes, sensors, alerting, dashboards, monitoring systems.