Observability: Monitoring Distributed Systems

Observability enables understanding system behavior from external outputs. This guide covers implementing the three pillars: logs, metrics, and traces.

The Three Pillars#

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                   OBSERVABILITY                      │
├─────────────────┬─────────────────┬─────────────────┤
│      LOGS       │     METRICS     │     TRACES      │
│                 │                 │                 │
│  What happened  │   How much/     │   Request flow  │
│  in detail      │   how often     │   across        │
│                 │                 │   services      │
└─────────────────┴─────────────────┴─────────────────┘

Structured Logging#

Metrics with Prometheus#

Distributed Tracing#

Best Practices#

Use structured logging: JSON logs are easier to query
Include correlation IDs: Track requests across services
Alert on symptoms, not causes: Focus on user impact
Use high-cardinality data wisely: Traces, not metrics
Set up SLOs: Define and monitor service level objectives

Observability requires investment across all three pillars. Start with structured logging, add key metrics, then implement tracing for request flow visibility. The goal is reducing time to detect and resolve issues.

Observability: Monitoring Distributed Systems

The Three Pillars#

Structured Logging#

Logger Implementation#

Request Logging Middleware#

Error Logging#

Metrics with Prometheus#

Custom Metrics#

Metrics Middleware#

Business Metrics#

Distributed Tracing#

OpenTelemetry Setup#

Custom Spans#

Context Propagation#

Alerting#

Alert Rules (Prometheus)#

Dashboards#

Key Metrics to Display#

Best Practices#

Conclusion#

Share this article

Related articles

Logging and Observability Best Practices

Monitoring and Alerting Strategies for Production Systems

Logging Best Practices: Effective Application Logging