What is observability?

Leading software vendors have completed the expansion from traditional monitoring to full observability. However, there’s still a knowledge gap for customers interested in observability. As a result, some are left feeling a bit cloudy about observability for the cloud. Hopefully, this article will help add clarity to this topic.

So, observability meaning what exactly? Let’s start with the official definition. As defined by Wikipedia: “Observability is a measure of how well the internal states of a system can be inferred from knowledge of its external outputs.”

We’re already familiar with traditional monitoring. So, observability is simply a superset of monitoring. All elements of monitoring are also elements of observability. See the above diagram. The term observability has been defined and applied to cloud computing to achieve actionable insights using full-fidelity data.

Well-performing applications are critical to the growth of many online businesses and organizations, which require observability backed by traditional monitoring methods.

Leave a Comment