> A theodolite is a precision optical instrument for measuring angles between designated visible points in the horizontal and vertical planes. -- <cite>[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodolite)</cite>
> A theodolite is a precision optical instrument for measuring angles between designated visible points in the horizontal and vertical planes. -- <cite>[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodolite)</cite>
Theodolite is a framework for benchmarking the horizontal and vertical scalability of cloud-native applications.
Inspired by its namesake, Theodolite is a framework for benchmarking the horizontal and vertical scalability of [cloud-native applications](https://github.com/cncf/toc/blob/main/DEFINITION.md).
It relies on Kubernetes, the de-facto standard for orchestrating cloud-native applications, as a platform to define and execute benchmarks.
Theodolite adopts established definitions of scalability in cloud computing for its benchmarking method. It quantifies
Theodolite adopts established definitions of scalability in cloud computing for its benchmarking method. It quantifies
scalability by running isolated experiments for different load intensities and provisioned resource amounts, which assess whether specified SLOs are fulfilled. [Two metrics are available](metrics): The demand metric describes how the amount of minimal required resources evolve with increasing load intensities, while the capacity metric describes how the maximal processable load evolves with increasing resources. Hence, both metrics are functions. <!--Example?-->
scalability by running isolated experiments for different load intensities and provisioned resource amounts, which assess whether specified SLOs are fulfilled. [Two metrics are available](metrics): The demand metric describes how the amount of minimal required resources evolve with increasing load intensities, while the capacity metric describes how the maximal processable load evolves with increasing resources. Hence, both metrics are functions. <!--Example?-->
