Observability has become an important practice for modern digital enterprises. No other strategy so effectively enables engineers to deliver excellent customer experiences with software, despite the complexities and distributed nature of their application and infrastructure landscape.
But before we go any further, let’s get two things out of the way:
1. Observability is not a fancy synonym for monitoring.
Monitoring gives software teams instrumentation, which collects data about their systems and allows them to quickly respond when errors and issues occur. Observability, on the other hand, is the practice of instrumenting those systems with tools to gather actionable data that provides not only the when of an error or issue, but, more important, the why.
2. Observability must be end-to-end, providing visibility into the entire landscape.
From the experience of the frontend UI to the container resources configured for Kubernetes deployments, you must apply the principles of full-stack observability to your full IT environment.
With full-stack observability, modern software teams are better equipped to:
- Deliver high-quality software at speed and scale
- Build a sustainable culture of innovation
- Optimize investments in cloud and modern tools
- See the real-time performance of their digital business
Full-stack observability bridges the gaps between site reliability engineering (SRE) and DevOps teams, developers, and business leaders.
So, how do you establish full-stack observability in your environment? And what results can you expect when you achieve it? Read on to learn about the three core elements of full-stack observability.