Monitoring & Logging: Tools to Keep Servers Healthy and Secure

Observability requires metrics, logs, and traces. Use the right tools to detect issues early, perform root cause analysis, and meet SLAs.

Tooling

• Prometheus + Grafana for metrics
• ELK (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) or OpenSearch for logs
• Jaeger/Zipkin for distributed tracing

Best practices

• Alert on symptoms, not raw metrics
• Implement structured logging
• Keep retention policies and cost in mind