Lightning Talk: ObservabilityWithout Monitoring - A Thought Experiment - Igor de Sousa

Presenters Igor de Sousa Source PromCon EU 2025 Beyond Monitoring: The Urgent Need for True Observability 🚀 Let’s be honest, the tech world is obsessed with monitoring. We’re drowning in alerts, dashboards, and metrics – but are we really understanding what’s happening beneath the surface? This presentation challenged that very notion, arguing that true observability goes far beyond simply tracking data. Let’s dive into the key takeaways and explore a crucial shift in how we approach system health. ...

December 19, 2025 · 4 min

Lightning Talk: Prometheus Rules management and validation - Hervé Nicol

Presenters Hervé Nicol Source PromCon EU 2025 🚀 Mastering Prometheus Rules: A Deep Dive into Rule Management 💡 Let’s be honest, Prometheus rules are essential for any serious monitoring operation. But let’s also be real – managing them can feel like navigating a complex maze. How do you keep them consistent? How do you ensure they’re actually working as intended? At James Swam, we’ve been wrestling with these questions, and we’ve found some surprisingly effective strategies. Let’s break down our approach and explore some best practices. ...

December 19, 2025 · 3 min

Lightning Talk: Scrape Trolley Dilemma - Bartek Protka

Presenters Bartek Protka Source PromCon EU 2025 🤖 The Trolley Problem of Metrics: Navigating Collection Resiliency 🚀 Hey everyone! 👋 Let’s talk about a surprisingly relevant thought experiment that’s impacting how we manage our data pipelines – the Trolley Problem. It might sound a bit heavy, but it perfectly illustrates a critical challenge in collection resiliency and how we’re tackling it. 🤯 The Trolley Problem in Data Collection The classic Trolley Problem asks: if you can divert a runaway trolley to save five people, but doing so will kill one, what do you do? In the world of data collection, we’re facing a similar dilemma. Imagine your data collection system – think Prometheus, OpenTelemetry collectors, or any other metric pipeline – is nearing its memory limit. You’re staring down a massive influx of data, potentially high-cardinality data (meaning lots of unique values), and you know that processing it could lead to a crash. ...

December 19, 2025 · 3 min

Lightning Talk: Would you like your rate smoothed or anchored? - Björn “Beorn” Rabenstein

Presenters Björn “Beorn” Rabenstein Source PromCon EU 2025 Rate Smoothing & Anchoring: A Deep Dive into Prometheus Rate Function Evolution 🚀 Hey everyone! 👋 Let’s talk about something that’s been buzzing in the monitoring world: the Prometheus rate function. It’s a fundamental piece of the puzzle for calculating rates from time series data, but it’s also a surprisingly complex and often misunderstood component. Today, we’re going to break down the recent changes and explore the new approaches of “anchored” and “smooth” rates – and why they matter for your observability stack. ...

December 19, 2025 · 3 min

Lightning Talk: Prometheus adoption stats - Richard “RichiH” Hartmann

Presenters Richard “RichiH” Hartmann Source PromCon EU 2025 🚀 Prometheus: Still Reigning Supreme – A Look at Adoption & Community 💪 Hey tech enthusiasts! 👋 Let’s dive into a fascinating update on the world of observability, specifically focusing on the powerhouse that is Prometheus. This presentation offered a behind-the-scenes look at adoption trends and a surprisingly calm perspective on the future of this critical tool. Let’s break it down! 📊 The Numbers Don’t Lie: Prometheus Adoption is Strong 💪 The speaker kicked things off with a tradition – a yearly deep dive into Prometheus adoption statistics. Now, these numbers are extremely sensitive, a closely guarded secret for obvious reasons. However, they graciously revealed one exception: Prometheus itself. ...

December 19, 2025 · 3 min