From Firefighting to Innovation: Using Observability to Boost Software Delivery
Observability is the key to shifting from reactive troubleshooting to proactive problem-solving. By embedding observability into pipelines and workflows, teams can monitor performance, catch issues early, and improve software delivery. In a recent demo, Liatrio demonstrated how Backstage and observability tools like Honeycomb enabled better developer workflows, faster responses, and optimized delivery.
What Is Observability and Why Is It Crucial?
Observability involves analyzing logs, metrics, and traces to understand a system’s internal state and detect issues. Telemetry automates the collection and analysis of this data, enabling teams to monitor performance and troubleshoot efficiently. Instead of reacting to issues after they escalate, teams can proactively identify and resolve problems using real-time telemetry.
Identifying Issues and Setting Clear Objectives
When we first began our observability journey, we struggled with extracting actionable insights. Our initial setup, which used a basic collector connected to Grafana, highlighted the need to establish clear objectives. We focused on Service Level Objectives (SLOs) related to error rates—especially those affecting template functionality and user accessibility.
Once onboarded to Honeycomb, we encountered millions of daily traces. By filtering out unnecessary data, we reduced the event count to under 500,000 meaningful traces, saving time and reducing telemetry-related costs for clients who are billed by event volume.
Implementing SLOs, SLIs, and Actionable Alerts
To ensure proactive monitoring, we created SLOs and Service Level Indicators (SLIs) for error rates, latency, and availability. Error monitoring became our main focus, with two key types of burn rate alerts in place:
- General Alerts: Triggered when 10% of the error budget is burned, allowing the team to investigate before users are affected.
- Immediate Alerts: Triggered when 8% of the error budget is consumed within two hours, signaling critical issues that require immediate action.
These alerts ensured that small issues didn’t escalate, providing teams with early warning signals to maintain system stability.
Using Dashboards to Drive Continuous Improvement
Dashboards built with Honeycomb provided actionable insights into system performance, template usage, traffic, and latency. By tracking metrics such as template adoption and usage patterns, we identified areas where developer workflows could be optimized. Telemetry data also enabled teams to make data-driven decisions, continuously refining their workflows to improve user experience and delivery efficiency.
Why Observability Transforms Delivery
Observability is more than a technical necessity—it’s a competitive advantage. By proactively identifying bottlenecks and errors, teams can reduce downtime, optimize their workflows, and deliver software more reliably. This approach builds trust between teams and stakeholders by ensuring stable and predictable deployments.
Liatrio’s experience with Backstage and Honeycomb showcases how observability can transform software delivery for organizations of all sizes. Contact Liatrio today to learn how we can help your organization implement observability practices and accelerate software delivery.