Monitoring¶
Tools and practices for observing cloud and cloud-native systems, including metrics, logs, and traces in dynamic and distributed environments.
| Name | Description | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Grafana | Visualization and analytics platform commonly used for cloud-native monitoring dashboards. | https://grafana.com |
| Prometheus | Cloud-native metrics collection and alerting system designed for dynamic environments. | https://prometheus.io |
| VictoriaMetrics | Scalable time-series database optimized for high-volume cloud monitoring workloads. | https://victoriametrics.com |
Cloud Monitoring Fundamentals¶
Monitoring Types¶
- Infrastructure monitoring - Compute, network, and storage resources
- Application monitoring - Cloud-native and distributed applications
- Service monitoring - Managed services and APIs
- Security monitoring - Signals related to cloud security posture
Monitoring Stack Components¶
Data Collection¶
- Metrics collection - Numerical measurements over time
- Log aggregation - Centralized log collection and storage
- Distributed tracing - Request flow across services
- Synthetic monitoring - Proactive testing and monitoring
Data Storage¶
- Time series databases - Optimized for metric data
- Log storage - Scalable log storage solutions
- Data retention - Policies for data lifecycle management
- Data compression - Efficient storage utilization
Visualization and Alerting¶
- Dashboards - Visual representation of metrics
- Alerting systems - Proactive issue notification
- Reporting - Regular performance reports
- Anomaly detection - Automated issue identification
Best Practices¶
Metrics Strategy¶
- Choose meaningful metrics - Focus on business-relevant indicators
- Avoid metric explosion - Don't monitor everything
- Use labels wisely - Organize metrics with appropriate labels
- Set up SLIs/SLOs - Define service level indicators and objectives
Dashboard Design¶
- User-focused dashboards - Design for specific audiences
- Hierarchical structure - From high-level to detailed views
- Consistent styling - Use consistent colors and layouts
- Performance optimization - Ensure dashboards load quickly
Alerting Strategy¶
- Alert on symptoms, not causes - Focus on user impact
- Reduce alert fatigue - Minimize false positives
- Escalation procedures - Clear escalation paths
- Runbook integration - Link alerts to troubleshooting guides
Popular Monitoring Stacks¶
Prometheus + Grafana¶
- Prometheus - Metrics collection and storage
- Grafana - Visualization and dashboards
- Alertmanager - Alert handling and routing
- Exporters - Metrics collection from various sources
Cloud-Native Solutions¶
- AWS CloudWatch - AWS native monitoring
- Azure Monitor - Azure monitoring platform
- Google Cloud Monitoring - GCP monitoring solution
- Datadog - SaaS monitoring platform
ELK Stack¶
- Elasticsearch - Search and analytics engine
- Logstash - Data processing pipeline
- Kibana - Visualization and exploration
- Beats - Lightweight data shippers
TICK Stack¶
- Telegraf - Data collection agent
- InfluxDB - Time series database
- Chronograf - Visualization and dashboards
- Kapacitor - Real-time streaming data processing
Have any suggestions, additions, best-practices or references? Please contribute to help others learn!