What Is a Scrape Interval?
A scrape interval is the fixed period between successive pulls when a monitoring system collects metrics from an instrumented target. A shorter interval captures finer detail but produces more data points to store and process, while a longer one is cheaper but blurs short spikes. It directly sets the granularity of every series gathered from that target.
Why it matters
The interval bounds how quickly a metric-based alert can react and how much history a system retains. Tuning it trades observability resolution against storage and query cost.
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