My Authors
Read all threads
This is a great question, and I have made a note to write an article and chapter about it.

The tldr: I think of observability as being a tight feedback loop around building, fixing, changing code in systems, which relies on your having *some* ability to instrument.
But maybe this a tension between the technical definition I espouse (can you ask+answer novel questions to understand any system state), and what constitutional lawyers would call its penumbra.

There's no reason you *must* be able to instrument, just in practice you usually do.
There are certainly ways of assembling and approximating this data without new instrumentation, *if* the software is emitting it in the first place.

I am thinking of what I've done with databases in the past, like MongoDB and Mysql.
For Mysql, we approximated o11y through an unholy mix of sampled full query logging, streaming over tcpdump and reconstructing transactions on a separate host, plus a cron job that connected to the terminal and dumped stats every could seconds.

Gross, but works pretty well.
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh.

Enjoying this thread?

Keep Current with Charity Majors

Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime, convert it as a PDF, save and print for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video

1) Follow Thread Reader App on Twitter so you can easily mention us!

2) Go to a Twitter thread (series of Tweets by the same owner) and mention us with a keyword "unroll" @threadreaderapp unroll

You can practice here first or read more on our help page!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just three indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3.00/month or $30.00/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!