Observability Fundametals

It’s amazing. It’s brand new. Everyone needs it. It is “the next best thing”.

Only half of these statements are true, it is not new and it is not the next best thing. It is branding an existing paradigm that many companies use and rely on — but it is amazing and everyone should want it. If you’re new to the concept, what does observability really mean and how can it help transform your operations?

Investing in observability is about creating insight.

Collecting data from logs is great. Monitoring your resources — also very handy. But these items are only giving you one-dimensional fragments of a complete picture. They are words or sentences of chapters in a story that is your environment. Once you assemble enough fragments and organize them in a way to glean actionable knowledge of your environment, you are creating that insight. Observability is about intersecting multiple items to generate a deep understanding of the true health, the real issues, and what should be changed to improve your environment.

Let’s dig into some of these tenets.