Stage 6 · Operate
Observability & Monitoring Stack
See production clearly across metrics, logs, traces, and alerts so teams get paged only when users are at risk.
9 modules54 lessons6.3h of reading54/54 live today
Prerequisite
Kubernetes + CI/CD.
What this course leaves you with
- Instrument systems with Prometheus and exporters
- Write PromQL and build SLO dashboards
- Wire actionable alerts and response signals
PrometheusGrafanaAlertingOpenTelemetry
Why this stage matters — Telemetry is flowing — now turn it into calm operations.
Progress
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01
6 lessons
Metrics with Prometheus
Collect, label, and store time-series metrics from hosts, services, and Kubernetes.
- 01Prometheus Data ModelUnderstanding metric names, labels, samples, time series, staleness markers, and scrape timestamps.7 min
- 02Scrape ConfigurationConfiguring scrape_configs, relabel_configs, scrape intervals, timeouts, and target labels.7 min
- 03Exporters OverviewChoosing blackbox_exporter, postgres_exporter, redis_exporter, and custom client-library instrumentation.6 min
- 04node_exporterCollecting CPU, memory, disk, filesystem, and network metrics from Linux hosts with node_exporter.7 min
- 05Service DiscoveryDiscovering targets with Kubernetes service discovery, Consul, EC2, file_sd_config, and relabeling.8 min
- 06Pushgateway PatternsUsing Pushgateway for batch jobs while avoiding stale metrics, instance labels, and lifecycle traps.6 min
02
6 lessons
PromQL in Depth
Query counters, gauges, histograms, and derived signals with precise PromQL expressions.
- 01Instant and Range SelectorsUsing label matchers, offsets, subqueries, range vectors, and @ modifiers in PromQL.7 min
- 02rate and irateCalculating counter velocity with rate(), irate(), increase(), reset handling, and scrape interval tradeoffs.8 min
- 03Aggregation OperatorsGrouping with sum by, avg without, topk, count_values, vector matching, and label joins.8 min
- 04Histograms and QuantilesComputing latency percentiles with histogram_quantile(), classic buckets, native histograms, and le labels.8 min
- 05Recording RulesPrecomputing expensive PromQL expressions with rule groups, evaluation intervals, and promtool tests.7 min
- 06Query DebuggingTroubleshooting missing series, many-to-many matching errors, NaN values, and high-cardinality queries.7 min
03
6 lessons
Alerting with Alertmanager
Turn symptoms into actionable alerts with routing, suppression, and reliable paging.
- 01Alerting RulesWriting Prometheus alert rules with for durations, labels, annotations, severity, and runbook URLs.7 min
- 02Routing TreesDesigning Alertmanager routes with matchers, continue behavior, receiver inheritance, and team ownership.7 min
- 03Grouping and DeduplicationTuning group_by, group_wait, group_interval, repeat_interval, and HA Alertmanager deduplication.7 min
- 04Inhibition and SilencesSuppressing dependent alerts with inhibition rules and managing maintenance windows with silences.6 min
- 05Receivers and TemplatesSending alerts to Slack, email, webhooks, Opsgenie, and PagerDuty with Go templating.7 min
- 06Paging IntegrationsMapping severities to PagerDuty services, escalation policies, schedules, and incident priorities.6 min
04
6 lessons
Dashboards with Grafana
Build dashboards that explain service health, user impact, and operational context quickly.
- 01Datasources and FoldersConfiguring Prometheus, Loki, Tempo, folders, permissions, and provisioning YAML in Grafana.6 min
- 02Panels and TransformationsUsing time series, stat, table, heatmap, logs panels, thresholds, overrides, and transformations.7 min
- 03Template VariablesCreating datasource, query, interval, custom, and ad hoc variables for reusable dashboards.6 min
- 04Golden SignalsVisualizing latency, traffic, errors, saturation, and Apdex with Prometheus queries.7 min
- 05Annotations and EventsOverlaying deploys, incidents, feature flags, and Kubernetes events on Grafana timelines.6 min
- 06Dashboards as CodeManaging dashboards with JSON models, Grafonnet, Terraform provider, and provisioning files.8 min
05
6 lessons
Logs & Traces
Correlate events and requests across services with structured logs and distributed traces.
- 01Loki FundamentalsUnderstanding Loki labels, chunks, indexes, LogQL selectors, and retention configuration.7 min
- 02promtail PipelinesParsing container logs with promtail stages, relabeling, JSON extraction, and tenant labels.7 min
- 03Structured LoggingEmitting JSON logs with trace_id, span_id, request_id, severity, and stable field names.6 min
- 04Tempo and Jaeger TracingCollecting spans with Tempo, Jaeger, OTLP, tail sampling, and trace retention policies.7 min
- 05OpenTelemetry InstrumentationUsing SDKs, auto-instrumentation, resource attributes, propagators, and the OpenTelemetry Collector.8 min
- 06Correlation and ExemplarsLinking metrics, traces, and logs with exemplars, span links, trace IDs, and Grafana Explore.7 min
06
6 lessons
SLOs & Production Observability
Use service objectives, cost controls, and operational methods to focus on user-impacting reliability.
- 01SLIs, SLOs, and Error BudgetsDefining availability and latency SLIs, objective windows, budget policies, and user-journey targets.8 min
- 02Multi-Window Burn-Rate AlertsImplementing fast and slow burn alerts with Prometheus rules from Google SRE workbook patterns.8 min
- 03Cardinality and Cost ControlControlling label explosion with relabeling, drop rules, aggregation, sampling, and metric naming reviews.7 min
- 04Long-Term StorageScaling retention with Thanos, Cortex, Mimir, remote_write, object storage, and downsampling.7 min
- 05RED and USE MethodsApplying request rate, errors, duration, utilization, saturation, and errors to services and resources.6 min
- 06Incident ObservabilityCombining alerts, dashboards, traces, logs, runbooks, and post-incident review data during outages.7 min
07
6 lessons
OpenTelemetry Pipelines
Standardize instrumentation and telemetry flow from services to observability backends.
- 01OpenTelemetry SDKsConfiguring OpenTelemetry SDKs, resources, meters, tracers, loggers, and semantic conventions.7 min
- 02Auto-InstrumentationEnabling Java agents, Node.js loaders, Python sitecustomize hooks, and Kubernetes injection.7 min
- 03Collector ArchitectureComposing receivers, processors, exporters, extensions, and pipelines in the OpenTelemetry Collector.8 min
- 04Sampling StrategiesUsing head sampling, tail sampling, probabilistic sampling, and span attributes to control volume.7 min
- 05Telemetry EnrichmentAdding Kubernetes metadata, cloud resource attributes, environment labels, and deployment versions.6 min
- 06Collector OperationsMonitoring Collector queues, memory_limiter, batch processors, retry settings, and exporter failures.8 min
08
6 lessons
Logging Operations
Run log pipelines that preserve useful context without overwhelming storage budgets.
- 01Log Schema DesignChoosing stable JSON fields for severity, service, trace_id, user actions, and error classes.6 min
- 02Log Aggregation PatternsShipping logs with Fluent Bit, Vector, Logstash, promtail, and Kubernetes sidecars.7 min
- 03Loki QueryingFiltering streams with LogQL selectors, parsers, label_format, line_format, and unwrap.7 min
- 04ELK Index ManagementManaging Elasticsearch templates, ILM policies, rollover aliases, shards, and Kibana data views.8 min
- 05Retention and RedactionApplying retention windows, sampling, PII redaction, drop filters, and storage tiering.7 min
- 06Log CorrelationJoining logs with traces, metrics, deploy events, request IDs, and Grafana Explore links.6 min
09
6 lessons
Tracing Practice
Use distributed traces to diagnose latency, dependency errors, and request paths.
- 01Span ModelingNaming spans, setting attributes, recording events, and avoiding high-cardinality span data.7 min
- 02Context PropagationPropagating W3C traceparent, baggage, and correlation IDs through HTTP, gRPC, and queues.8 min
- 03Trace BackendsComparing Jaeger, Tempo, Zipkin, storage indexes, retention, and query workflows.7 min
- 04Trace-Derived MetricsGenerating RED metrics, service graphs, exemplars, and latency histograms from span streams.7 min
- 05Tail-Based SamplingKeeping rare error traces with policy groups, latency thresholds, and probabilistic fallbacks.8 min
- 06Trace Debugging WorkflowsFollowing critical paths, dependency fanout, retries, database spans, and downstream error causes.7 min