Glossary
Observability
Definition
Observability is the ability to understand a system’s internal state from the data it produces, mainly metrics, logs and traces, including for problems nobody anticipated.
Why it matters when you’re buying
Distributed systems fail in new ways, and fixed dashboards can’t cover them all. Buyers weigh query power and correlation across signals against cost, which tends to grow with data volume.
How it relates to other terms
OpenTelemetry is the common way to collect the data, distributed tracing is one of its main signals, and SLOs define what good looks like.
Where to go next
- Observability: news, companies and community questions
- How to evaluate Observability vendors: criteria, questions to ask and red flags
- Observability and monitoring: the latest stories and threads on this topic
Written by Techarda editors · Updated . Think a definition is wrong or missing something? Email engage@techarda.com. All terms.