Challenges in implementing application observability

While implementing observability practices offers many benefits for organizations, there are challenges to be aware of in order to adopt these solutions successfully. Let's have a look at the common challenges in implementing application observability.

1. Data volume and management

The sheer volume of telemetry data generated from monitoring applications and infrastructure can overwhelm teams if not properly managed. Careful planning is required to store and analyze large datasets while balancing data retention with actionable insights.

2. Tool selection and integration

With a wide array of observability tools available, selecting options that suit your specific needs and integrate with existing technologies can be complex. This process requires thorough evaluation and testing to ensure optimal compatibility and functionality.

3. Skill gaps and training requirements

Observability practices often demand specialized knowledge that your existing employees may lack. Addressing these skill gaps through targeted training and development programs requires investment in time and resources, but is essential for long-term operational success.

4. Privacy and security concerns

Collecting and storing vast amounts of data raises compliance challenges, particularly with regulations such as CCPA, EU-US DPF, and GDPR that protect customer information. Implementing robust data protection measures is crucial to maintain compliance and customer trust.

5. Cost considerations

Implementing observability solutions can strain budgets due to expenses related to tool licensing, infrastructure for data collection and analysis, and potential additional personnel or training costs. Careful financial planning and ROI analysis are necessary to justify these investments.

6. Cultural resistance

Shifting from traditional monitoring to new observability practices may face resistance within the organization. Effective change management strategies are essential to gain acceptance and promote adoption across teams.

7. Noise and alert fatigue

Without careful tuning, excessive alerts can overwhelm teams and lead to critical issues being overlooked. Diligent setting of proper thresholds and filters is necessary to maintain an effective alert system that highlights truly important issues.

Complexity in distributed systems

Tracing issues across microservices and serverless components in modern distributed systems presents unique challenges. Advanced techniques are required to effectively correlate data from various sources and gain a comprehensive understanding of system behavior.

How Fastly can help address challenges in implementing observability

Overcome the hurdles of implementing observability and get the deep, real-time insights you need with Fastly’s monitoring and observability features. 

Fastly provides a holistic view of your IT infrastructure. Our approach integrates real-time logging, 180 different service-level metrics, and tracing capabilities across Fastly's platform for end-to-end visibility. Easy to visualize customizable dashboards help you manage your data and make informed decisions.

Fastly’s Observability features cater to multiple needs. From cloud-native startups to enterprises managing complex, hybrid multi-cloud environments, we have the right solution for you, and our team will make sure you have the support you need to get you and your team up and running and feeling confident. 

Fastly easily connects with third-party integrations. In addition to providing you with the tools to configure alerts to your liking, Fastly can integrate with popular monitoring and analysis tools like Datadog, New Relic, and Splunk.