ceiling

Use the ceiling function to round a numeric value up to the smallest integer greater than or equal to the input. This function is useful when you need to ensure that fractional values always round up, such as when calculating resource allocations, pagination counts, or bucket sizes.

Use ceiling when you want to convert decimal numbers to whole numbers by rounding up. For example, if you have 7.2 requests per second and need to provision whole server instances, ceiling ensures you allocate 8 instances rather than 7.

Usage

Syntax

ceiling(number)

Parameters

Returns

An integer representing the smallest whole number greater than or equal to the input value.

Use case examples

['sample-http-logs']
| extend duration_bucket = ceiling(req_duration_ms) * 100
| summarize request_count = count() by duration_bucket
| order by duration_bucket asc

['otel-demo-traces']
| extend duration_seconds = ceiling(duration / 1s)
| summarize avg_duration_seconds = avg(duration_seconds) by ['service.name']
| order by avg_duration_seconds desc

List of related functions

• floor: Rounds down to the largest integer less than or equal to the input. Use ceiling when you need to round up instead.
• bin: Rounds values down to a multiple of a specified bin size. Use ceiling for simple upward rounding to integers.
• round: Rounds to the nearest integer or specified precision. Use ceiling when you always need to round up.

Other query languages