Observability on AWS: Understanding the Key Services
When we talk about monitoring applications and resources in the cloud, two concepts often come up: monitoring and observability.
Although they are related, they are not exactly the same.
Monitoring focuses on tracking metrics and identifying when something is outside the expected behavior. Observability goes further: it helps us understand what is happening, why it is happening, and how the system is behaving, using information such as metrics, logs, and traces.
On AWS, different services contribute to this process. But what does this look like in practice?
What is happening?
The first step is to identify that something has changed or is not behaving as expected.
Amazon CloudWatch
Amazon CloudWatch helps monitor applications and AWS resources through metrics, logs, and alarms.
For example, it can help identify an increase in errors, CPU utilization, or other changes in system behavior.
AWS Config
AWS Config focuses on the configuration of AWS resources and changes to those configurations.
While CloudWatch helps us understand how a resource is behaving, AWS Config helps us understand how that resource is configured.
Why did this happen?
After noticing that something is wrong, the next step is to investigate what happened.
AWS CloudTrail
AWS CloudTrail records activity in the AWS environment, including API calls and resource changes.
It can help answer questions such as:
What was changed? When did it happen? What action was performed?
CloudWatch Logs and Logs Insights
CloudWatch Logs stores logs generated by applications and AWS services.
With Logs Insights, these records can be searched and analyzed to find information that helps us understand what happened.
AWS X-Ray
AWS X-Ray traces requests across different components of an application.
This helps identify where a request is failing or where a performance issue is occurring within the flow.
What can we do?
After identifying and investigating the problem, we can take action.
Amazon EventBridge
Amazon EventBridge allows applications and AWS services to respond to events. It can start a workflow when a specific event occurs.
AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda runs code in response to events, allowing predefined actions to be performed automatically.
AWS Systems Manager
AWS Systems Manager provides management and operational automation capabilities, allowing predefined procedures to be executed to help manage or resolve issues.
Putting it all together
The services can be connected through three simple questions:
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☁️ OBSERVABILITY
What is happening?
→ CloudWatch
→ AWS Config
↓
Why did this happen?
→ CloudTrail
→ CloudWatch Logs
→ AWS X-Ray
↓
What can we do?
→ EventBridge
→ Lambda
→ Systems ManagerThis brings us back to the difference between monitoring and observability.
Monitoring helps identify that there is a problem. Observability provides the context needed to understand what is happening and investigate why.
On AWS, these services provide different pieces of that context, helping turn signals from the environment into detection, investigation, and action.
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