Summary

In this chapter, we have looked at some interesting considerations about monitoring and tracing our applications.

We started by reviewing some basic concepts about logging in Java, and why log aggregation is a good thing to do in microservices and cloud-native applications. We then moved on to the concept of metrics and health checks, and how applications can provide data in real time on the performance and health of our modules.

We then discussed tracing, which is very important when it comes to troubleshooting and managing distributed applications (such as microservices applications). APM was the next topic and is about putting all the information together (such as metrics, health checks, and logs) to create an overview of the application insights.

Last but not least, we saw how service monitoring involves linking business information with the technical KPIs behind it, to support troubleshooting and draw more insights from the collected data.

In the next chapter...