Join Liz Fong-Jones, Field CTO at Honeycomb, as she discusses the importance of observability engineering, the role of Honeycomb in popularizing this concept, and the evolution of observability. They delve into Service-Level Objectives (SLOs) & indicators (SLIs), critical user journeys, common mistakes in setting up SLOs, and cultivating an observability-driven development culture.
Observability engineering allows software engineers to understand and mitigate issues quickly, transforming the industry and improving software system management.
Observability goes beyond monitoring, enabling better debugging and problem-solving by continuously understanding a system's internal state.
Implementing observability may face resistance to change, but the benefits of resolving issues quickly and improving system understanding outweigh the initial challenges.
Deep dives
Observability Engineering: Importance and Benefits
Observability engineering is becoming increasingly important for software engineers working on distributed systems and complex architectures. It allows engineers to understand and mitigate issues quickly, ensuring efficient problem-solving. Observability helps in transforming the industry and improving how software systems are managed.
Defining Observability and Differentiating from Monitoring
Observability is the ability to understand a system and its internal state based on the data it produces. It goes beyond monitoring and allows for better debugging, problem-solving, and system understanding. Observability is a continuous process and requires the right tools and practices to be effective.
Misconceptions About Observability
There are several misconceptions about observability, including the belief that observability and monitoring are the same, confusing telemetry data types with observability outcomes, and thinking of observability as a standalone concept without considering the role of people and their ability to use the data.
Challenges in Implementing Observability
The main challenge in implementing observability is the resistance to change and the belief that there's no time to invest in observability due to firefighting and high workloads. However, the benefits of observability in resolving issues quickly and improving overall system understanding far outweigh the initial challenges.
Setting Up Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and Indicators (SLIs)
When setting up SLOs and SLIs, it is important to define critical user journeys and identify measurable success criteria. Start with a few key SLOs per service and prioritize similar endpoints or user journeys. Use SLIs, such as response times and success rates, to evaluate performance and compose SLOs based on those metrics.
Join host Kaivalya Apte in this episode of The Geek Narrator Podcast as he discusses observability engineering with field CTO at Honeycomb, Liz Fong-Jones. They delve into the importance of observability for software engineers, the role of Honeycomb in popularizing this concept, and how observability has evolved over the years. Liz shares her experiences transitioning from being an SRE at Google to advocating for observability at Honeycomb and walking the journey from developer advocate to Field CTO. They discuss the definitions and misconceptions surrounding observability and elucidate on Service-Level Objectives (SLOs) & indicators (SLIs) and challenges they solve. Tune in for an informative and in-depth conversation on observability engineering.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:08 Understanding Observability Engineering
00:37 Guest Introduction: Liz Fong Jones
00:53 Liz's Journey to Field CTO at Honeycomb
27:38 Understanding Site Reliability Workbook Materials
27:57 Identifying Critical User Journeys
29:49 Different Types of Services and Their SLOs
33:05 Setting Up SLOs: Granularity and Number
42:42 Understanding Service Level Indicators (SLIs)
50:26 Common Mistakes in Setting Up SLOs
52:09 Cultivating an Observability-Driven Development Culture
References:
Observability Engineering: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/observability-engineering/9781492076438/
@Google SRE book: https://sre.google/books/
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