05 — Glossary · Technology & Operations
Observability
GL-450 · also O11y
The degree to which a system's internal state can be understood from what it emits, such as metrics, logs and traces, so teams can explain unfamiliar failures, not only detect known ones.
Often used as a synonym for monitoring. Monitoring checks for conditions you anticipated; observability lets you ask new questions after something unexpected happens.
See also
In the catalog
Read next
Observability primer (OpenTelemetry) ↗
The definition above is written in our own words; the source is linked, not copied.