Monitoring / Observability
TLDR: Monitoring and observability are practices aimed at understanding the health, performance, and behavior of systems in real time. While monitoring focuses on tracking predefined metrics like CPU usage or response times, observability delves deeper into system internals, enabling the detection and diagnosis of unknown issues. Together, they form the backbone of reliable and scalable IT operations in modern DevOps and cloud-native environments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observability
Monitoring relies on tools like Nagios, Prometheus, and Datadog to collect and display metrics, alerting teams to potential problems. For instance, monitoring can identify when server load exceeds thresholds or application latency increases. Observability extends this capability by analyzing logs, traces, and events to provide context and root cause analysis. Solutions like Grafana and Elastic Stack integrate both approaches, offering a unified view of system behavior and dependencies.
The importance of monitoring and observability has grown with the rise of microservices and distributed systems, where issues can arise from complex interactions between components. Observability’s focus on three key pillars — metrics, logs, and traces — ensures comprehensive visibility and faster troubleshooting. By integrating these practices into CI/CD pipelines and operational workflows, organizations enhance system reliability, improve user experience, and support continuous delivery.