Observability in a microservices context

In the first few chapters of this book, we discussed the advantages of a microservices architecture and how it allows applications to be developed as a set of independent components that work cohesively. However, we have overlooked one thing, which is the complexity it adds to the process of monitoring and recovery from failure. One thing that we want to make clear at the beginning of this chapter is that monitoring is not the same as observability. While observability is a feature of the overall system, monitoring is a process that we execute to capture the details (external outputs). Having said that, both observability and monitoring are interconnected.

In a monolithic application, it is not that difficult to identify the root causes of a failure since there is only one place to look. From that place, we can dig into the details and identify the root cause. In the real world, this may not be as easy as it sounds. But comparatively, it...