Release It!, 2nd Edition

Wrapping Up

Every solution creates new problems. As our systems have scaled up and out, we’ve virtualized everything. Workload runs across containers and VMs, one or more clouds, and physical data centers. Just keeping tabs on this far-flung network requires new tools and techniques.

We’ve looked at the ways we can create visibility across whole systems so we can answer two fundamental questions: Are users receiving a good experience? And is the system producing the economic value we want? To answer those, we need to collect information across instances and services. We need tracing tools to understand where bottlenecks, inhibitors, and points of failure exist.

Once we know what’s happening across the system, we also need ways to intervene. ...