Quiz Entry - updated: 2026.10.01
What is "trending" in operations, and why can't a platform run without it?
Trending is collecting load metrics over time to forecast capacity, so you know when to order hardware before you run out.
New hardware is not available overnight. Choosing, ordering, delivering, cabling and commissioning servers takes weeks, in the worst case months. To order in time, an operator has to measure the platform's utilisation continuously and check how much headroom is left, then extrapolate from the growth of recent months.
So trending answers a different question from monitoring:
| Monitoring | Trending | |
|---|---|---|
| Question | Is it healthy now? | Where is it heading? |
| Data needed | Current value | Long series of values |
| Result | An alert | A forecast (capacity plan) |
Together with alerting, the three form MAT: Monitoring, Alerting and Trending.
Go deeper:
Capacity planning — Wikipedia — the discipline trending data feeds.