Observability in Distributed Systems

Observability is the ability to understand and debug complex systems based on the data they produce. In distributed systems, where a single user request might touch 50 different services, it's not just important—it's essential for survival.

The Three Pillars of Observability

• Metrics: "Is there a problem?" - Aggregatable numbers (e.g., CPU, Memory, Request Rate).
• Logs: "What is the problem?" - Detailed text records of system events (errors, warnings).
• Traces: "Where is the problem?" - End-to-end request flows showing latency at every hop.

Implementation Best Practices

• Instrument all critical code paths using open standards like OpenTelemetry.
• Use correlation IDs for request tracing to stitch logs together.
• Aggregate logs and metrics centrally (ELK, Prometheus, Grafana).
• Set up intelligent alerting for anomalies, avoiding alert fatigue.