Yes, solution (b)aligns better with Prometheus' design principles. Prometheus works by scraping metrics at regular intervals and storing time-series data. By tracking the total number of rows in the table and comparing it with the previous scrape, you can detect changes reliably. Ensure you expose the row count as a metric via a custom exporter or a monitoring tool compatible with Prometheus (e.g., PostgreSQL Exporter). This method avoids data gaps or duplicate notifications during Prometheus downtime and ensures consistency with its pull-based model.