book

Practical Monitoring

by Mike Julian

October 2017

Beginner to intermediate

170 pages

3h 58m

English

O'Reilly Media, Inc.

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Who Should Read This BookWhy I Wrote This BookA Word on Monitoring TodayNavigating This BookOnline ResourcesConventions Used in This BookUsing Code ExamplesO’Reilly SafariHow to Contact UsAcknowledgments
Anti-Pattern #1: Tool ObsessionMonitoring Is Multiple Complex Problems Under One NameAvoid Cargo-Culting ToolsSometimes, You Really Do Have to Build ItThe Single Pane of Glass Is a MythAnti-Pattern #2: Monitoring-as-a-JobAnti-Pattern #3: Checkbox MonitoringWhat Does “Working” Actually Mean? Monitor That.OS Metrics Aren’t Very Useful—for AlertingCollect Your Metrics More OftenAnti-Pattern #4: Using Monitoring as a CrutchAnti-Pattern #5: Manual ConfigurationWrap-Up
Pattern #1: Composable MonitoringThe Components of a Monitoring ServicePattern #2: Monitor from the User PerspectivePattern #3: Buy, Not BuildIt’s CheaperYou’re (Probably) Not an Expert at Architecting These ToolsSaaS Allows You to Focus on the Company’s ProductNo, Really, SaaS Is Actually BetterPattern #4: Continual ImprovementWrap-Up
What Makes a Good Alert?Stop Using Email for AlertsWrite RunbooksArbitrary Static Thresholds Aren’t the Only WayDelete and Tune AlertsUse Maintenance PeriodsAttempt Automated Self-Healing FirstOn-CallFixing False AlarmsCutting Down on Needless FirefightingBuilding a Better On-Call RotationIncident ManagementPostmortemsWrap-Up
Before Statistics in Systems OperationsMath to the Rescue!Statistics Isn’t MagicMean and AverageMedianSeasonalityQuantilesStandard DeviationWrap-Up
Business KPIsTwo Real-World ExamplesYelpRedditTying Business KPIs to Technical MetricsMy App Doesn’t Have Those Metrics!Finding Your Company’s Business KPIsWrap-Up
The Cost of a Slow AppTwo Approaches to Frontend MonitoringDocument Object Model (DOM)Frontend Performance MetricsOK, That’s Great, but How Do I Use This?LoggingSynthetic MonitoringWrap-Up
Instrumenting Your Apps with MetricsHow It Works Under the HoodMonitoring Build and Release PipelinesHealth Endpoint PatternApplication LoggingWait a Minute…Should I Have a Metric or a Log Entry?What Should I Be Logging?Write to Disk or Write to Network?Serverless / Function-as-a-ServiceMonitoring Microservice ArchitecturesWrap-Up

Standard OS MetricsCPUMemoryNetworkDiskLoadSSL CertificatesSNMPWeb ServersDatabase ServersLoad BalancersMessage QueuesCachingDNSNTPMiscellaneous Corporate InfrastructureDHCPSMTPMonitoring Scheduled JobsLoggingCollectionStorageAnalysisWrap-Up
The Pains of SNMPWhat Is SNMP?How Does It Work?A Word on SecurityHow Do I Use SNMP?Interface MetricsInterface and LoggingRecapConfiguration TrackingVoice and VideoRoutingSpanning Tree Protocol (STP)ChassisCPU and MemoryHardwareFlow MonitoringCapacity PlanningWorking BackwardForecastingWrap-up
Monitoring and ComplianceUser, Command, and Filesystem AuditingSetting Up auditdauditd and Remote LogsHost Intrusion Detection System (HIDS)rkhunterNetwork Intrusion Detection System (NIDS)Wrap-Up
Business KPIsFrontend MonitoringApplication and Server MonitoringSecurity MonitoringAlertingWrap-Up
Demo AppMetadataEscalation ProcedureExternal DependenciesInternal DependenciesTech StackMetrics and LogsAlerts

Overview

Do you have a nagging feeling that your monitoring needs improvement, but you just aren’t sure where to start or how to do it? Are you plagued by constant, meaningless alerts? Does your monitoring system routinely miss real problems? This is the book for you.

Mike Julian lays out a practical approach to designing and implementing effective monitoring—from your enterprise application down to the hardware in a datacenter, and everything between. Practical Monitoring provides you with straightforward strategies and tactics for designing and implementing a strong monitoring foundation for your company.

This book takes a unique vendor-neutral approach to monitoring. Rather than discuss how to implement specific tools, Mike teaches the principles and underlying mechanics behind monitoring so you can implement the lessons in any tool.

Practical Monitoring covers essential topics including: