Stage 1 · Lesson 2 of 6
Choosing SLIs users would recognise
An (service level indicator) is a measurement of service quality from the user's side. The most useful form is a ratio: good events divided by valid events. For a web API that might be requests that did not return a 5xx , or requests answered within 300 milliseconds.
For a data pipeline it might be records processed within an hour. Measure as close to the user as you can, such as at the load balancer rather than inside one pod. Pick two or three SLIs per service, usually availability and latency, and write down exactly which events count and which are excluded, such as health checks.
Common trapmeasuring what is easy rather than what users feel, such as CPU usage or pod restarts, so the SLI stays green during an outage.
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Resources for this stage
Start with· follow one of these
- BookFreeGoogle Site Reliability Engineering Book
Google · Advanced
Free online: read the chapters on embracing risk and service level objectives first
- BookFreeThe Site Reliability Workbook
Google (O'Reilly) · Intermediate
Free online: the Implementing SLOs chapter walks through a worked example and an error budget policy