Automatically set Prometheus step interval

By computing the step interval passed to the query_range Prometheus API
call we improve the performance on the Prometheus server and GitLab by
reducing the amount of data points sent back and prevent Prometheus
from sending errors when requesting longer intervals.

1 files changed, 27 insertions, 5 deletions

diff --git a/lib/gitlab/prometheus_client.rb b/lib/gitlab/prometheus_client.rb
index 45828c77a33..b4de7cd2bce 100644
--- a/lib/gitlab/prometheus_client.rb
+++ b/lib/gitlab/prometheus_client.rb
@@ -6,6 +6,14 @@ module Gitlab
     Error = Class.new(StandardError)
     QueryError = Class.new(Gitlab::PrometheusClient::Error)
 
+    # Target number of data points for `query_range`.
+    # Please don't exceed the limit of 11000 data points
+    # See https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus/blob/91306bdf24f5395e2601773316945a478b4b263d/web/api/v1/api.go#L347
+    QUERY_RANGE_DATA_POINTS = 600
+
+    # Minimal value of the `step` parameter for `query_range` in seconds.
+    QUERY_RANGE_MIN_STEP = 60
+
     attr_reader :rest_client, :headers
 
     def initialize(rest_client)
@@ -23,12 +31,18 @@ module Gitlab
     end
 
     def query_range(query, start: 8.hours.ago, stop: Time.now)
+      start = start.to_f
+      stop = stop.to_f
+      step = self.class.compute_step(start, stop)
+
       get_result('matrix') do
-        json_api_get('query_range',
-                     query: query,
-                     start: start.to_f,
-                     end: stop.to_f,
-                     step: 1.minute.to_i)
+        json_api_get(
+          'query_range',
+          query: query,
+          start: start,
+          end: stop,
+          step: step
+        )
       end
     end
 
@@ -40,6 +54,14 @@ module Gitlab
       json_api_get('series', 'match': matches, start: start.to_f, end: stop.to_f)
     end
 
+    def self.compute_step(start, stop)
+      diff = stop - start
+
+      step = (diff / QUERY_RANGE_DATA_POINTS).ceil
+
+      [QUERY_RANGE_MIN_STEP, step].max
+    end
+
     private
 
     def json_api_get(type, args = {})