Google Cloud Observability

A Google Cloud Observability is a cloud monitoring framework that provides comprehensive tools for visibility into the performance, operations, and configuration of applications on the Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

• Context:
  • It can (typically) collect and analyze Telemetry Data from Cloud Services and On-Premises Systems.
  • It can (often) utilize components like Cloud Monitoring, Cloud Logging, Error Reporting, and Cloud Trace to provide detailed insights and alerts.
  • It can range from basic monitoring and logging to advanced error analysis and distributed tracing.
  • It can enable Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) practices by aligning organizational activities with Service Level Objectives (SLOs).
  • It can integrate with open standards such as OpenTelemetry for custom application instrumentation.
  • ...
• Example(s):
  • Google Cloud Observability, 2023-12.
  • ...
• Counter-Example(s):
  • Standalone Monitoring Tools, which may offer specific functionalities but lack the integrated, comprehensive view provided by Google Cloud Observability.
  • ...
• See: Cloud Monitoring, Cloud Logging, Error Reporting, Cloud Trace, OpenTelemetry, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Service Level Objectives (SLOs), Google Cloud Platform, Google Cloud Managed Service for Prometheus (GMP).

---

---

References

2023

• Perplexity
  • Google Cloud Observability is a suite of services that provides end-to-end visibility into the performance, operation, and configuration of applications running on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). It enables you to proactively detect issues, troubleshoot problems, debug applications, plan for changes, and gain insights into your applications. The key components of Google Cloud Observability are:
  • ## Cloud Monitoring
    1. Collects metrics from GCP services, AWS services, and on-premises systems
    2. Visualizes metrics in dashboards and charts
    3. Defines Service Level Objectives (SLOs) to monitor reliability
    4. Sends alerts when issues occur
  • ## Cloud Logging
    1. Ingests logs from GCP services, on-premises systems, and third-party software
    2. Provides log analysis and exploration capabilities
    3. Allows creating metrics from log data
    4. Sends alerts based on log entries
  • ## Error Reporting
    1. Aggregates and displays errors from running cloud services
    2. Provides error reporting API for custom applications
  • ## Cloud Trace
    1. Distributed tracing system to track request flows and latencies
    2. Visualizes traces with latency analysis
    3. Alerts on changes in latency profiles[3]
  • The observability suite automatically collects telemetry data from GCP services out-of-the-box. It supports open standards like OpenTelemetry for custom application instrumentation. The data can be routed to various destinations like Cloud Storage, BigQuery, and Pub/Sub for further analysis, archiving or integration with third-party tools.[1]
  • Google Cloud Observability provides a unified view across infrastructure, platform services, and application components, enabling teams to quickly identify and resolve issues. It aligns with Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) practices and helps drive organizational alignment with SLOs.[4]
  • Citations:

[1] https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/management-tools/observability-on-google-cloud
[2] https://www.observeinc.com/resources/gcp-observability-and-monitoring-the-ins-and-outs/
[3] https://cloud.google.com/stackdriver/docs
[4] https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/observability_in_google_cloud_one_pager.pdf
[5] https://www.elastic.co/observability/google-cloud-monitoring

---