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DevOps Intermediate

What is Observability?

The ability to understand a system's internal state from its external outputs through metrics, logs, and traces.

Observability rests on three pillars: Metrics (numerical measurements over time — CPU, request rate, error rate), Logs (discrete events with context — error messages, audit trails), and Traces (request flow across services — distributed tracing).

OpenTelemetry is the emerging standard for instrumentation. Tools include Prometheus (metrics), ELK/Loki (logs), Jaeger/Zipkin (traces), and Datadog/New Relic (all-in-one). Observability goes beyond monitoring — it helps answer questions you did not anticipate.

Related Terms

Immutable Infrastructure
An approach where servers are never modified after deployment — changes require building and deploying entirely new server instances.
YAML
A human-readable data serialization language commonly used for configuration files in DevOps tools and applications.
GitFlow
A branching model for Git that defines a strict workflow with feature, develop, release, hotfix, and main branches.
Rolling Update
A deployment strategy that gradually replaces old application instances with new ones, maintaining availability throughout.
Service Mesh
An infrastructure layer that handles service-to-service communication, providing load balancing, encryption, and observability.
Container Orchestration
The automated management of containerized applications including deployment, scaling, networking, and health monitoring across clusters.
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