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Monitoring & Observability

A list of best practices and methodologies for Monitoring & Observability. Learn about basic concepts, benefits, challenges, and implementation methods for each practice.

Three Pillars of Observability

intermediate

Method to understand system internal state by integrating metrics, logs, and traces. Comprehensive monitoring approach enabling problem identification and performance analysis in distributed systems.

Benefits

  • Comprehensive visibility
  • Rapid issue identification
  • Root cause analysis

Key Principles

  • Metrics: Numerical data
  • Logs: Event records
  • Traces: Request tracking

Related Tools

Prometheus, Grafana, Jaeger, ELK Stack

SLI-SLO-SLA

intermediate

Method to measure and manage service quality by defining Service Level Indicators (SLI), Objectives (SLO), and Agreements (SLA). Connects business requirements with technical performance.

Benefits

  • Clear quality standards
  • Quantified user experience
  • Improved reliability

Key Principles

  • User-centric
  • Measurable
  • Achievable

Related Tools

Datadog, New Relic, Splunk, CloudWatch

Distributed Tracing

advanced

Method to track request flows across microservices and identify performance bottlenecks or failure points. Assists in problem-solving in complex distributed systems.

Benefits

  • End-to-end visibility
  • Performance analysis
  • Dependency understanding

Key Principles

  • Trace ID generation
  • Span creation
  • Context propagation

Related Tools

Jaeger, Zipkin, AWS X-Ray, Honeycomb

Golden Signals

intermediate

Method to monitor system health using four key metrics: latency, traffic, errors, and saturation. Fundamental monitoring principles advocated by Google SRE.

Benefits

  • Simple monitoring
  • Early critical issue detection
  • Standardized metrics

Key Principles

  • Latency monitoring
  • Traffic measurement
  • Error tracking

Related Tools

Prometheus, Grafana, DataDog, AppDynamics

Alert Fatigue Prevention

advanced

Method to build monitoring systems that reduce excessive alerts and false positives, allowing focus on critical issues. Design principles for practical, actionable alerts.

Benefits

  • Clear prioritization
  • Rapid response
  • Improved team productivity

Key Principles

  • Actionability
  • Severity classification
  • Context provision

Related Tools

PagerDuty, Opsgenie, Alertmanager, VictorOps

Related Resources