If I were to ask you 'what are the (database) metrics?', what do you think I'm asking? Thats an interesting question and something that requires some thought so lets handle this by actually looking at the following two alternative questions. 'What am I trying to archive [with database metrics]?' and 'how will I know when I have achieved it [by having database metrics]'?

Define the problem

What are we really doing
What are we trying to achieve?

• Know how much capacity we have
• Know that our databases are fast

How do we know when we have achieved it?

• When we can forward plan upgrades when we are near a capacity limit
• To be alerted of when things are not fast we can we investigate

So, what is capacity

Capacity is knowing how much extra we can do without making things 'slow'. Its a …