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Data Engineering
Peering Beneath the Surface of Distributed Architectures
Strategies and Lessons Learned for Comprehensive System Visibility
Over the years, I’ve come to realize that one of the most overlooked aspects of software delivery is how we watch, measure, and interpret the inner workings of our systems.
Early on, I was so focused on perfecting code structure that I paid little attention to telemetry once the application was deployed.
I used to assume a handful of well-placed logs and a couple of metrics were enough to track performance.
It wasn’t until I faced several production fires in the middle of the night — struggling to figure out why CPU spikes were triggering endless restarts — that I recognized the power of a thorough monitoring and observability setup.
My memories started back in the days when monolithic applications were the default.
We deployed everything on a small cluster of virtual machines, appended logs into text files, and occasionally checked them if something went wrong, which wasn’t too bad for smaller user loads, but as soon as the system expanded, sifting through unstructured logs felt like trying to find a needle in a digital haystack.
