Application performance monitoring (APM) has been around for a long time. Odds are if you’re tasked with overseeing app performance, you’ve had to deal with this technology to get an understanding of your applications and any issues that can arise in the name of troubleshooting. But there’s a new approach you should consider: application observability.

Platform Engineering is a hot topic these days. We’ve seen the hype around it in 2023, and I expect we shall see it becoming production-grade as we move into 2024. I wanted to look into this topic, and learn from those who’ve already implemented it at scale: the e-commerce hyperscaler Shopify. In the latest episode of OpenObservability Talks, I had the pleasure of hosting Aparna Subramanian, the Director of Production Engineering at Shopify.

Despite what you may have seen and heard, the intersection of logging, metrics and tracing does not tell the whole story about observability. Our systems emit telemetry, and those previously noted telemetry signals are considered the “three pillars” of observability. They’re all important, but by themselves, they aren’t observability. Many users I see day in and day out find themselves with broken observability even though they’re collecting those three pillars.

At Logz.io, we recently announced the release of App 360, a new solution that aims to shift the paradigm around application performance monitoring (APM) systems. To better give our customers a look at the new solution within the Logz.io Open 360™ platform for essential observability, we recently hosted a webinar explaining App 360 in greater depth and provided a detailed product demonstration. Let’s take a closer look at the key highlights and insights we shared during the webinar.

In the labyrinth of IT systems, logging is a fundamental beacon guiding operational stability, troubleshooting, and security. In this quest, however, organizations often find themselves inundated with a deluge of logs. Each action, every transaction, and the minutiae of system behavior generate a trail of invaluable data—verbose, intricate, and at times, overwhelming.

In the ever-evolving landscape of software development and IT operations, monitoring tools play a pivotal role in ensuring the performance, reliability, and availability of your applications. Two key disciplines in this domain are observability and Application Performance Management (APM). This post will help you understand the nuances between observability and APM, exploring their unique characteristics, similarities, benefits and differences.

As we continue to iterate and help organizations meet their observability goals, Logz.io is thrilled to announce we’ve earned over a dozen Winter 2023 G2 Badges for our Logz.io Open 360™ essential observability platform! G2 Research is a tech marketplace where people can discover, review, and manage the software they need to reach their potential. Here are the Winter 2023 G2 Badges we’ve taken home for Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Log Analysis.

With 2023 drawing to a close, the final OpenObservability Talks of the year focused on what happened this year in open source, DevOps, observability and more, with an eye towards the future. I was delighted to be joined by a special guest, Kelsey Hightower, a renowned figure in the tech community, especially known for his contributions to the Kubernetes ecosystem.

For businesses reliant on customers’ positive digital experiences to achieve their goals, the seamless operation of cloud applications and infrastructure is paramount for financial success. Observability holds a pivotal role in modern enterprises, offering critical insights into your IT system’s health and performance. However, persistent issues of complexity and high costs have plagued the observability landscape.

As we continue to navigate the ongoing evolution of the observability landscape, Logz.io is constantly striving to provide our customers with the advanced platform capabilities needed to make sense of their increasingly complex environments. Sometimes that means taking a new approach to long-standing practices.