Today, we embark on an exciting journey into the realm of network observability, where the world of network monitoring gets a vibrant makeover. While network monitoring has long been the stalwart guardian of network operations, network observability swoops in like a caped hero, adding a whole new level of awesomeness to the game.

Oh, I didn't see you there. Hi, I'm Kevin, a developer here at Honeybadger. I've worked for the last year or so developing Honeybadger Insights, our new logging and observability platform. Let's peek into some of the design decisions and philosophy behind the product. In modern software development, the hunt for observable systems has traditionally revolved around the holy trinity of logs, metrics, and traces.

The results are in! Learn why Cisco Full-Stack Observability was recognized as a Leader in GigaOm Radar for Cloud Observability in 2024. I’m pleased to announce that Cisco Full-Stack Observability was recently recognized as a Leader in the 2024 GigaOm Radar for Cloud Observability.

Relying on their traditional observability 1.0 tool, Pax8 faced hurdles in fostering a culture of ownership and curiosity due to user-based pricing limitations and an impending steep price increase. Pax8’s platform engineering team was keen on modernizing the company’s cloud commerce platform, but they were hitting obstacles with their traditional observability 1.0 tool, which relied on the three pillars of logs, metrics, and traces.

These days, systems and applications evolve at a rapid pace. This makes analyzing the internal performance of applications complex. Observability emerges as a path to efficient and effective operational insights. Imagine a team of doctors monitoring a patient’s vitals—heart rate, temperature, blood pressure. These readings, combined with observation of symptoms, paint a picture of the patient’s health. This allows doctors to diagnose issues and provide care.

Software debugging has undergone many transcendental shifts. These shifts are as fascinating as the transition from the biological origins of the term ‘debugging’ to its computer science incarnation. The moth that caused the first computer bug has led to a metamorphosis of the debugging scope to cover a much broader role in software development over the years. Live debugging is the latest manifestation of this evolution.

When Google Cloud welcomed StackState to offer our full-stack observability solution to their network of customers, we were thrilled. Our excitement only grew when Google invited us to join other partners this week at Google Cloud Next ’24 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas.

This article touches on how we at Birdie handled our transition from logs towards using OpenTelemetry as the primary mechanism for achieving world-class observability of our systems.

Three different businesses, one shared problem: SailPoint, Kushki, and Flexcity were all looking for a hosted solution to help them optimize their telemetry storage, gain more insights from their observability strategy, and keep costs manageable. But what they gained from migrating to Grafana Cloud and working with Grafana Labs was much more. “The engineering team is super sharp. They’re experts. This is the best of the best," said Omar Lopez, head of the observability team from SailPoint.

Many often wonder, “Is there a difference between observability and monitoring?” The thing is as IT environments have become more complex, monitoring alone has become increasingly less effective. That’s because while monitoring is crucial, it isn’t particularly suited to tracking unforeseen or unexpected turns of events. That’s what observability is meant for. This guide will clarify what observability and monitoring are – and how they differ.