Is monitoring a subset of observability?

Yes, monitoring is a subset of observability. Observability is a broader concept that involves monitoring; however, DevOps monitoring is a specific practice, also an important part of attaining observability.

Why is observability important in software systems?

Observability is particularly important in software systems, as it helps to examine its overall state based on the information generated, such as traces, metrics, and logs. It analyses the information and helps understand the software system thoroughly.

What metrics and data can be collected through observability and monitoring?

The metrics and data collected through observability, include: CI/CD Pipeline Metrics, Container Liveness and Readiness, Microservice Instances Count, Request Duration for Each Microservice, Total Application Requests. The metrics and data collected through monitoring: Resource utilization, Memory usage, CPU use, Detecting errors using meantime, Deployment failure, Deployment frequency, Productivity, Software efficiency.

Why is observability potentially better than traditional monitoring?

In today’s fast-tech world, only opting for software monitoring alone isn’t sufficient. While monitoring is an ideal technique to recognize the issue, it hardly talks about the other part of the story, like why the issue occurred. And this is where you need observability.

Observability vs Monitoring: Understanding the Key Differences