The database under a metrics platform: a WAL and head block, compressed chunks, a label index, rollups, compaction and blocks in S3.
Data engineers building storage, streaming and processing systems.
Your approach: Use diagrams or prose for data contracts, state ownership, throughput, ordering and recovery where the brief requires them.
Design a Time-Series Database. The database under a metrics platform: a WAL and head block, compressed chunks, a label index, rollups, compaction and blocks in S3. Work from the scoping questions below. State assumptions for any unspecified load, guarantee or target, then trace your design end to end. Explain one difficult case and a credible alternative; the worked example is a reference, not a required implementation.
Resolve the scoping questions for a Time-Series Database. Separate stated behavior from assumptions, and identify what is outside your design.
Declare relevant volume, latency, freshness, quality or cost targets with units. Show calculations or an evaluation plan that can test them; unspecified targets are your assumptions, not hidden pass criteria.
Explain how your guarantees hold in a difficult case relevant to this subject. Address: Late samples? Consistency?
Identify users, required behavior and exclusions. Answer: Scale? Retention?
Define the information owned by the system and the inputs, outputs and errors at its boundaries. Resolve: Query mix? Can an acknowledged sample be lost?
Estimate the dominant workload and resource demand with units and explicit assumptions. For a learned system, also state how quality is measured and what data is available.
Draw or describe the responsibilities needed for a Time-Series Database. Trace a representative request, event or job from its input to a visible result; identify durable state owners.
Walk through a difficult case step by step, including detection and recovery. Consider: Tenants? Late samples? Consistency?
Compare a credible alternative using your chosen workload and guarantees. Explain a remaining risk, a signal to watch and when you would change the design.