The following key concepts and terms are used throughout the monitoring documentation.

Core concepts

• Service. An Akamai Cloud service that produces operational data. For example, Linodes, Object Storage, Databases, and so on.
• Entity. An object that can be monitored. For example, a compute instance, container, or database cluster.
• Region. A geographic location where workloads run or where operational data is collected or delivered.
• Workload. A deployable or runnable unit of work that generates observable behavior over time. For example, an application.

Metrics concepts

• Metric. A numerical measurement collected from a cloud service at regular, defined intervals to track service health, performance, or operational trends.
• Dimension. A descriptive attribute attached to a metric that adds context and enables filtering or grouping. For example, the region where a service is running.
• Dashboard. A visual representation of key metrics that shows how a service is performing over time.
• Widget. A dashboard component that displays time series metric data in chart and table form.
• Aggregation function. A mathematical operation such as average, sum, minimum, or maximum used to combine metric data points over a defined time period.
• Aggregation interval. The time interval over which metric data points are aggregated.

Alerts concepts

• Alert. An event generated when alert criteria are met.
• Alert definition A configuration that specifies an alert's properties and the evaluation criteria used to determine if the alert should fire.
• System alert. A predefined alert automatically generated by the system to notify users of significant or critical conditions impacting one or more entities.
• User alert. An alert that fires when user-configured evaluation criteria are met.
• Notification. A message sent when an alert's evaluation criteria are met. Email notifications are currently supported.
• Notification channel. The method used to deliver alert notifications. Email is currently supported.

Logs concepts

• Audit log. A time-stamped JSON record of authentication events or configuration activity within your environment.
• Destination. A storage location where logs are streamed for retention and analysis.
• Destination type. The type of storage location where log data is delivered and stored. Akamai Object Storage buckets are currently supported.
• Stream. A continuous flow of log data sent from Akamai Cloud services to a configured destination. Streams collect request and response events and deliver them in batches.
• Stream type. The category of log stream, which reflects the kind of content being delivered. audit_logs is currently the only supported type.