A modern infrastructure needs more than just monitoring. The exponential growth of data, the adoption of microservices and multi-cloud environments have increased the technical complexity of systems. Against this backdrop, IT observability has become a critical component to ensure the stability, performance and availability of digital services.
But where do you start? How do you structure a solid strategy based on the three fundamental pillars: metrics, logs and traces?
The basis of any observability strategy: metrics, logs and traces
Before going into tools or visualizations, it is key to understand the function of each of these three elements:
- Metrics: numerical values that show the health of the system (latency, availability, memory usage, etc.).
- Logs: detailed records of events that allow you to understand exactly what happened, when and why.
- Traces: tracing a request through different system components, especially useful in distributed architectures.
By combining these three elements into a single strategy, organizations can correlate problems, identify their source and act more quickly on any anomalies.
Step by step: how to build your IT observability strategy
Defines observability objectives
Not all companies need to look at the same thing. A logistics organization will not have the same priorities as an ecommerce company. At ToBeIT we help our clients identify which systems, processes and metrics really impact the business.
The goal is clear: measure what matters to anticipate failures, avoid bottlenecks and maintain a smooth digital experience.
Centralize information with Elastic Observability
Elastic Observability enables the integration of metrics, logs and traces in a single platform, facilitating the collection of data from multiple sources (applications, containers, cloud services, etc.). This unification eliminates information silos and provides a holistic view of the state of the IT infrastructure.
In addition, tools such as Beats and Elastic APM enable non-intrusive, real-time data collection without penalizing system performance.
Visualize with Grafana for total control
Once the information has been collected, the next step is to visualize the data clearly and effectively. Grafana is one of the most powerful tools for creating dashboards that allow you to quickly analyze the evolution of metrics, detect anomalies and share information with other teams.
At ToBeIT, we design customized dashboards that help technical and business teams make decisions based on real data.
Set up smart alerts
A good observability strategy is not just about “looking”. It is also about acting in time. Elastic allows you to set up alerts based on rules or anomalous behavior, triggering notifications when an unusual situation is detected.
These alerts can be integrated with communication channels such as Slack, Microsoft Teams or ITSM platforms, drastically reducing mean time to resolution (MTTR).
Automates tasks and improves over time
Observability should be a continuous process of improvement. As environments grow or change, it is necessary to adjust what is observed, how it is viewed and what alert thresholds are defined.
In addition, platforms such as Elastic allow the integration of Machine Learning to detect behavioral patterns, predict future failures and automate responses without human intervention.
Advantages of a well-implemented observability strategy
- Downtime reduction
- Full visibility of complex environments
- Improved team collaboration
- Data-driven decision making
- Increased resilience to critical incidents
At ToBeIT, we help our clients implement real observability strategies, based on open tools such as Elastic and Grafana.
Our approach adapts to each client, from companies with traditional IT environments to organizations with distributed or multi-cloud architectures.
