Thanos is an open-source project designed to provide a highly available and scalable solution for managing and storing Prometheus metrics. Thanos consists of several components, including the Thanos Query Layer, Thanos Sidecar, and Thanos Receive.
The Thanos Query Layer acts as a single pane of glass for querying multiple Prometheus servers. It simplifies the process of querying large and complex datasets by allowing users to write queries against all of their Prometheus instances as if they were a single instance.
The Thanos Sidecar is a component that runs alongside Prometheus and collects metadata about the metrics being scraped by Prometheus. This metadata, known as exemplars, is used by the Thanos Query Layer to enable efficient querying and filtering of data across multiple Prometheus instances.
The Thanos Receive component is responsible for ingesting and storing metrics from multiple Prometheus instances. It provides a centralized location for long-term storage and retains the ability to query and retrieve data from the past.
By integrating Thanos with Prometheus, organizations can gain a unified way to query over multiple clusters and make Prometheus highly available and scalable. Thanos also supports various storage backends, including MinIO and Google Cloud Storage, making it a flexible solution for different use cases and infrastructure requirements.
Thanos is actively maintained by a community of developers and contributors from various companies and backgrounds. The project is open-source, and users are encouraged to contribute feedback, suggestions, and improvements. Regular community meetings are held to discuss updates, critical release information, and governance updates for Prometheus and the Thanos ecosystem.
