Switching between the sum/min/max/avg aggregators doesn't change the value

When using the sum/min/max/avg aggregators, you are looking across multiple series, not at points within a single series. So if the query is scoped to its most granular level, it’s possible that switching between those aggregators doesn’t change the values you’re seeing.

For example, if you break down web requests by host and path, where you get a series for each combination. The data at a particular time may look like:

Metric NameTagsValue
web.requestshost: a, path: /test15
web.requestshost: a, path: /test23
web.requestshost: b, path: /test12
web.requestshost: b, path: /test28

You get different results per aggregation method when grouping by host, since there are two series per host that must be combined.

Queryhost: ahost: b
sum:web.requests(*) by {host}810
min:web.requests(*) by {host}32
max:web.requests(*) by {host}58
avg:web.requests(*) by {host}45

If you group by host and path in this example, this results in four series where the sum/min/max/avg are the same per series as that is the most granular level for this data.

Further reading

Additional helpful documentation, links, and articles: