About M3DB namespaces and aggregation
M3DB has a concept of namespaces, which can be compared to tables in a traditional database setup.
- there is always one unaggregated namespace
- optionally, you may configure additional aggregated namespaces.
Both the retention (how long the data is kept for) and the resolution (how detailed the data is) are measured in short time format. This is a number followed by a letter:
| Notation | Meaning |
|---|---|
| s | seconds |
| m | minutes |
| h | hours |
| d | days |
So for example to set the retention to 2 weeks, use 14d.
Unaggregated namespace
Incoming data points are written to the unaggregated namespace. It's the default table, if you like.
Aggregated namespace
An aggregated namespace has some data, usually downsampled to a lower resolution, and retained for a different period of time. You can see a screenshot of the configuration options below:
