From Single‑Node to Distributed Monitoring Storage: Scaling TSDB for Million‑QPS
The article explains how a single‑machine Prometheus TSDB initially works well but eventually hits five scalability walls—capacity, single‑point failure, short retention, lack of global view, and throughput limits—and then details the step‑by‑step evolution to remote_write with object‑storage‑backed Thanos and finally to native distributed TSDBs such as Cortex, Mimir, and VictoriaMetrics, including their trade‑offs, costs, and practical selection guidance.
