Observability is the software-based ability to explain any state of a system, based on its external outputs.
Often, the more powerful and capable a system, the more complex it becomes. Unfortunately, with this increased complexity comes increased unpredictability; failures, performance bottlenecks, bugs etc. occur, and determining the root cause of these occurrences isn’t always a simple matter. With complex modern systems, not only does the likelihood of unexpected failure increase, but so does the number of possible failure modes. To counter this trend, IT, development and operations teams began to implement monitoring tools capable of seeing into the systems themselves.
But progress moves forward, and the complexity of today’s systems is outpacing traditional monitoring capabilities. Today, the proven strategy for protecting systems against unknown failures isn’t monitoring; it’s making the system more monitorable, with observability.
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