Observability tools should simplify the time and resource-intensive tasks of configuring dashboards, setting up data pipelines, contextualizing data for insights, and maintaining the entire setup. The current complexity often leads to teams failing to build helpful observability solutions.
I don’t get why so many people think observability just means “having a database for telemetry.” Yesterday on Reddit, someone asked for an observability tool to help find why their containers were restarting and losing DB connections. They wanted something that could help with root cause analysis. The top answer? “Start with Prometheus and Grafana. If that doesn’t help, try Loki and Tempo.” Now, I love Prometheus and Grafana — they’re great at storing and visualizing metrics. But the thing is: when you install them, they don’t magically show you anything. You need to install exporters, configure them, set up dashboards, and hope they cover the data you actually need. Why does this part always get glossed over? To me, that’s the real work. And without it, you won’t get far in understanding or fixing anything. Curious — am I the only one who feels this way?