Observability for databases is built upon The Three Pillars the collection and correlation of three primary telemetry signals:
Metrics:
These are numerical measurements accurate cleaned numbers list from frist database representing the state of a system over time. For databases, key metrics include:
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- Resource Utilization: CPU, memory, disk I/O, network bandwidth.
- Query Performance: Query execution time, queries per second (QPS), slow query count, transaction commit rate.
- Connection Management: Active connections, idle connections, connection pool utilization.
- Replication and High Availability: Replication lag, master-slave sync status, failover times.
- Storage Metrics: Disk usage, index size, table size, cache hit ratio.
- Specific Database Metrics: Depending on the database type (e.g., MongoDB oplog lag, PostgreSQL WAL size, Cassandra SSTable count).
Logs:
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These are immutable, timestamped programmatic advertising explained records of discrete events that occurred within the database system. Database logs provide crucial context and detailed information for debugging. Examples include:
- Error Logs: Warnings, errors, exceptions.
- Slow Query Logs: Detailed information about queries exceeding a defined threshold.
- Audit Logs: Records of database access, schema changes, and data modifications (critical for security and compliance).
- General Query Logs: All executed queries (though often too voluminous for continuous logging in production).
- Transaction Logs: Records of all changes made to the database, essential for recovery.
Traces (Distributed Tracing):
While metrics and logs focus on individual mobile phone numbers components, traces capture the end-to-end flow of a request as it propagates The Three Pillars through multiple services and ultimately interacts with the database. For databases, traces help answer questions like:
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- Which specific database calls were made as part of a user’s transaction?
- How much time was spent in the database layer versus application logic for a given request?
- Which microservice is generating the most expensive database queries?
- What is the complete journey of a query from the application to the database and back, including any proxies or connection pools in between?
By correlating metrics, logs, and traces, database administrators and developers gain an unparalleled understanding of their database’s behavior, pinpointing the exact cause of performance degradation or outages with precision.