# Namespaces and groups
<a name="v9-alerting-rules-grouping"></a>

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This documentation topic is designed for Grafana workspaces that support **Grafana version 9.x**.  
For Grafana workspaces that support Grafana version 12.x, see [Working in Grafana version 12](using-grafana-v12.md).  
For Grafana workspaces that support Grafana version 10.x, see [Working in Grafana version 10](using-grafana-v10.md).  
For Grafana workspaces that support Grafana version 8.x, see [Working in Grafana version 8](using-grafana-v8.md).

Alerts can be organized using Folders for Grafana-managed rules and namespaces for Mimir, Loki, or Prometheus rules and group names.

**Namespaces**

When creating Grafana-managed rules, the folder can be used to perform access control and grant or deny access to all rules within a specific folder.

**Groups**

All rules within a group are evaluated at the same **interval**.

Alert rules and recording rules within a group will always be evaluated **sequentially**, meaning no rules will be evaluated at the same time and in order of appearance.

**Tip**  
If you want rules to be evaluated concurrently and with different intervals, consider storing them in different groups.