The becquerel as an SI unit for request rate
11 hours ago
- #SI Units
- #Metrics
- #Request Rate
- Request rate refers to the number of requests arriving, serviced, or leaving within a specified period.
- It's crucial to specify the period length when measuring request rate, often overlooked in dashboards.
- Requests per second is recommended as the standard period length for consistency across different dashboard views.
- Two SI units relevant to request rate: Hertz (Hz) for periodic events and Becquerel (Bq) for average frequency events.
- Hz implies regular, predictable timing, while Bq accounts for irregular, average-based occurrences.
- Hz suits regular load testing; Bq better represents organic traffic with average request rates.
- Using 'kBq' simplifies expressing high request rates compared to verbose 'requests per second'.
- Becquerel is officially for radioactive decay, but applying it to request rates is suggested for future adoption.