Implementing Enterprise Observability for Success by Manisha Agrawal and Karun Krishnannair takes a novel approach to implementing observability in the enterprise. Unlike other books that focus on the how to get data into a specific system, this book looks at it from an architectural and IT management perspective and is largely vendor agnostic (which I loved).
I found this book interesting following an Open Door session I ran a few weeks ago with friend and colleagues on LinkedIn where we discussed a number of ideas and concepts. One of the key challenges that we discussed was the challenges of gaining organisational support for Observability when there are so many competing factors. This book answers some of those questions with a systematic approach broken into three easy to read parts:
- Part 1 – Understanding Observability in the Real World
- Part 2 – Planning and Implementation
- Part 3 – Case Studies
Part 1 – Understanding Observability in the Real World
This book provides an introduction to Observability discussing the need for Observability and where it fits in the enterprise. It’s easy to say that we care about observability because it empowers a focus on our customers digital experience, this book breaks this down in a consumable to multiple audiences.
The architecture that the authors discusses starts at the infrastructure layer which is a critical part of building an observability architecture. The book then moves on the application layer and APM, followed by Digital Experience Management, and lastly the organisational layer which is where the business data and insights lay.
This approach is contrary to so many other books I’ve read which focus a specific technology or component of observability instead of the end-to-end and business outcomes. One of the reasons I like this book so much is that it gives us the why behind observability which can help us build business cases that get attention.
Part 2 – Planning and Implementation
With Part 2 we go through the planning and implementation of an observability solution. Because this book is focused on an architectural and IT director audience we focus more on the authors maturity model, gaining stakeholder buy in, and RASCI models. The authors go into quite a bit of detail on the maturity models and how different services will be at different levels depending on the criticality of the service.
Team structures and building an observability and customer focused culture is discussed, and the authors recommend starting small and defining success using measurable outcomes.
The observability team discussed in this book could be part of a Platform Operations or SRE team. The book recommends a dedicated to team to ensure standards across the organisation, and providing observability to service specific teams helping them become power users of the toolsets to increase adoption.
Part 3 – Case Studies
The last part goes through 4 case studies identifying the customers challenges and how observability can be implemented and adopted to solve those problems.
Summary
I really enjoyed that this book really spoke to the why? of enterprise observability and enabled Architects and IT directors to build an observability business case. Being technology agnostic and focused on adoption is something I’ve done for many years and it’s great to have a book like this to point to when discussing this with my own customers.
If you made it this far, why not pick up a copy of this book our one of the others in my book recommendations!
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