Traditional observability tools aim to provide insights into system performance by collecting logs, traces, and metrics. However, they often neglect critical signals such as application behavior, internal configurations, and interactions among tools, which results in blind spots. This oversight burdens engineering teams in the short term and can degrade user experience in the long run. The article discusses two significant causes of hidden failures: the dependency on internal systems which gate user experiences, and undetected issues in offline processing jobs that may not surface until caches expire, highlighting the importance of comprehensive monitoring.
Traditional observability tools only monitor a small subset of complex systems, creating blind spots in critical signals like application behavior and system interactions.
Fixing observability issues starts with understanding the widespread problem of hidden failures caused by dependencies on internal systems and offline processing jobs.
External changes in health can unexpectedly affect system performance, creating additional blind spots for teams unaware of other dependencies.
When offline processing jobs fail, users may not notice right away, leading to delayed issues appearing only when caches expire.
Collection
[
|
...
]