Data model

The individual units of data flowing through Vector are known as events. Events must fall into one of Vector’s defined observability types.

Event types

Vector defines subtypes for events. This is necessary to establish domain-specific requirements enabling interoperability with existing monitoring and observability systems.

FAQ

Why not just events?

We really like the idea of an event-only world in which every service is perfectly instrumented with events that contain rich data and context. But in reality, services often emit logs and metrics of varying quality. By designing Vector to meet services where they are, we serve as a bridge to newer standards. This is why we place events at the top of our data model, whereas logs and metrics are derived categories.

Finally, a sophisticated data model that accounts for the various data types allows for correct interoperability between observability systems. For example, a pipeline with a statsd source and a prometheus sink would not be possible without the correct internal metrics data types.