Grafana's Big Tent

From the saddest log line in the multiverse to how metrics, logs, and traces are like a mother sauce, our intrepid hosts, Mat Ryer, Matt Toback, and Tom Wilkie, have been joined by distinguished guests to tackle a wide-range of discussions (not to mention a few conversational detours). For a special bonus episode to cap off the first season, Mat, Matt, and Tom got together to share their favorite episodes from the past season and plot their plans for the next one.

Note: This episode contains a couple of curse words. If you have sensitive ears nearby, maybe save it for later.In this special episode, Grafana Labs' founders Raj Dutt, Anthony Woods, and Torkel Ödegaard answered a wide range of questions about the past, present, and future of the company — and how the people behind the products have always been the driving force behind its success. Recorded live at GrafanaFest, the company-wide event that brought together more than 600+ Grafanistas from around the world in Whistler, British Columbia, Raj reminded everyone who was gathered, "we're in this together. We are building relationships that are going to last beyond this company, whatever our personal journeys are."

Darren Murph, Head of Remote at GitLab and author of Living the Remote Dream, joins host Matt Toback to discuss all the advantages of adopting a remote work culture and, in turn, creating a more positive, results-only environment. "There shouldn’t be a focus on availability and visibility," says Darren. "The idea is that we focus on the results. We care a lot less about how you get there, or the clothes you wear while you’re doing it, or at what time of the day or week you accomplish it." Luckily, they also won't care if you take time to listen to this episode and learn more about the personal benefits of remote work and how you can advocate for this shift in your workplace. Added bonus: Instead of all those "This-could've-been-an-email" meetings, your in-person gatherings will quickly become more productive and meaningful. 

Three times a year, Grafanistas can take a week away from their day jobs and invest their creative energy into a company-wide hackathon. In this episode, winners from the recent Grafana Labs hackathons share what motivated their teams to deliver successful projects. (It's not just the prize money—though that helps.) You'll also learn more about the judging process and which projects landed on the product roadmap.

Nayana Shetty, a principal engineer at Lego Group specializing in observability, shares her insights with hosts Mat Ryer and Matt Toback. They discuss the importance of site reliability engineering in microservices and the evolution of monitoring practices in tech. Nayana emphasizes the value of incident drills for team preparedness and tackles the challenge of alert fatigue in managing feedback. She also reveals how she built her observability career brick by brick, all while sharing amusing anecdotes about public speaking and travel.

What's the saddest log line in the multiverse? How do you store logs efficiently? Grafana Labs Software Engineer and Grafana Loki tech lead Ed Welch covers everything you need to know about logs and shares some of his tricks for logging at scale with Grafana Loki. Plus: Learn about the logfmt chants you didn't know existed in the Go community!

Grafana Mimir maintainers have taken over the mic! Marco Pracucci and Cyril Tovena —both software engineers at Grafana Labs — will give you the origin story behind Grafana Mimir, the most scalable, most performant open source time series database in the world. Plus: learn what new features will be coming to Mimir soon and find out the other Norse name the team considered for the project.

Matthias Loibl, co-creator of the open source SLO software Pyrra, and Grafana Labs’ principal software engineer Bjorn "Beorn" Rabenstein dive into the transformative power of Service Level Objectives (SLOs). They discuss the impact of SLOs on balancing rapid deployment and reliability, the importance of user feedback in shaping these objectives, and strategies for effective alert management. The episode also touches on the nuances of implementing SLOs in tech systems and the essential balance between innovation and reliability.

At KubeCon Europe 2019, Polar Signals Founder and CEO Frederic Branczyk predicted that continuous profiling was the future of observability. Fast forward three years, and he's not wrong. In this episode, we'll discuss how Polar Signals' open source tool Parca is leading the conversation around continuous profiling, how it reduces overhead costs thanks to eBPF, how Parca has grown its passionate community, and perhaps most importantly, what cute animal will become the Parca mascot. 

Explore the dynamic world of observability, diving into the critical distinctions from traditional monitoring. Learn how metrics, logs, and traces intertwine for effective system diagnostics. Discover the significance of cost-effective logging solutions and the complexities of tracing technologies. Uncover strategies to navigate organizational challenges and optimize alert systems, ensuring focus on symptoms over noise. Plus, enjoy a fun cooking analogy that ties modern methodologies to culinary art!