What this book covers

Chapter 1, Why Observe?, explains what observability is, what was used before observability, issues with traditional monitoring techniques, and the key benefits of observability.

Chapter 2, The Fundamentals of Observability, covers various types of data required for observability, how to map dependencies and relationships, how to handle configuration items, and KPIs used for measuring performance. When these concepts are combined, they form the building blocks for observability.

Chapter 3, The Real World and Its Challenges, presents some of the challenges that organizations may encounter while implementing observability and potential workarounds for the challenges.

Chapter 4, Collecting Data to Set Up Observability, outlines the different layers of data collection that make up the observability landscape. These layers are infrastructure, then application, business service, and organization. It also covers efficient methods for data collection across all the layers.

Chapter 5, Observability Outcomes: Dashboards, Alerts, and Incidents, discusses dashboards, alerts, and incidents in detail in the context of observability. We will look at what they mean, what the benefits are, who sets them up, who the consumer is, and how to maintain these outcomes.

Chapter 6, Gauging the Organization for Implementing Observability, is intended to encourage you to analyze the culture of your organization and find out whether it is clan, control, create, or complete culture. This will help in planning and implementing a suitable observability strategy and also helps to gauge the effort required for successful implementation. It also introduces the concept of a governance model that helps in developing and maintaining standards and frameworks for observability.

Chapter 7, Achieving and Measuring Observability Success, introduces maturity levels, namely Initial, Defined, Managed, and Quantitatively Managed, and provides guardrails to guide you through the implementation process. This chapter also emphasizes the importance of the skills required by the organization, particularly the application teams, for this cultural shift.

Chapter 8, Identifying the Stakeholders, discusses how Drivers, Users, Actors, and Supporters are the stakeholders of observability. It also provides a RASCI matrix to help you understand how all these stakeholders work together, clearly calling out their responsibilities and ownership.

Chapter 9, Deciding the Tools for Observability, provides guidance on selecting the appropriate observability toolsets for the organization, along with references to tools across different categories. You will find some guidelines on what to consider before buying, building, or leveraging observability tools.

Chapter 10, Kickstarting Your Own Observability Journey, provides ideas on what an observability implementation looks like in the real world and discusses four case studies of fictitious companies that can be used as inspiration totally or in part as suits the organization.