Title

AWS re:Invent 2022 - Full-stack Observability in a World that Prioritizes Applications (PRT201)

Summary

Speaker: Carlos Pereira, Fellow and Chief Architect at Cisco.
Topic: Full-stack observability and its importance in application-centric environments.
Key Points:
- Full-stack observability is the evolution from traditional monitoring, focusing on metrics, events, logs, and traces (MELT).
- It adds business context to IT operations, integrating security as a first-class citizen.
- Observability is crucial for cloud-native applications which are distributed, ephemeral, and often stateless.
- The industry shift towards full-stack observability is driven by the need for digital transformation, user experience as a digital currency, and the availability of pervasive resources.
- Cisco's approach to full-stack observability includes an entity-based model, cross-domain operations, and business context.
- Cisco has developed a Full Stack Observability (FSO) platform that leverages OpenTelemetry and provides extensibility for partners and customers.
- Demonstrations included enhancements to the user interface and extending the Kubernetes entity model for AWS EKS.

Industry Evolution: The shift from monitoring to observability reflects a broader industry trend towards proactive and comprehensive IT operations management.
Business Context: Incorporating business context into observability practices aligns IT operations with business objectives, ensuring that technical metrics translate into business impact.
Security Integration: The convergence of security and observability acknowledges the intertwined nature of these domains and the need for a unified approach to manage risks effectively.
OpenTelemetry: Cisco's adoption of OpenTelemetry as a standard for telemetry data collection and transport underscores the industry's move towards open-source solutions for interoperability and flexibility.
Platform Extensibility: The Cisco FSO platform's extensibility features empower customers and partners to tailor observability solutions to their specific needs, which is particularly valuable for managed service providers.
Real-time Data: The emphasis on real-time data feeds and streaming telemetry highlights the importance of immediate insights for dynamic cloud-native environments.
User Experience: The focus on end-user experience as a key performance indicator (KPI) reflects the user-centric approach that modern businesses must adopt to remain competitive.