The infrastructure industry has recently started co-opting a well-established software engineering practice and is doing so badly. Observability is being overhyped as something revolutionary that you can only practice using the latest new shiny tool. Real observability provides insight only when we take the time to understand what we’re monitoring, why it matters to our organization, and how each metric connects to our goals.

This talk critiques the tool-centric approach that has taken over infrastructure monitoring, encouraging infrastructure teams to step out of their offices, touch grass, and talk with their organizations to answer the essential question: What is it you want monitored anyway and why?

We’ll explore the power of applying observability as a practice, not just a product, and highlight F/L/OSS tools that offer powerful, adaptable solutions without the hype.

If you’re tired of replacing one flashy dashboard with the next, or if you’ve ever wondered whether observability is really the game-changer it’s made out to be, this talk is for you. Let’s take a cue from our software engineering friends and approach observability as a collaborative, cross-functional practice that builds on strategy rather than the next tool.