Implement dependency telemetry

Implementing Dependency Telemetry for Observability
Dependency telemetry is critical for monitoring the health and performance of the external services and components that your workload relies on. By capturing metrics, logs, and traces related to dependencies, such as DNS, databases, or third-party APIs, you can identify bottlenecks, performance issues, and failures that may affect your workload’s stability and performance.

Monitor Reachability and Health of Dependencies

Track the reachability of external services and components your workload depends on, such as databases, DNS services, or third-party APIs. Monitoring reachability helps you quickly identify whether dependencies are available and accessible, allowing you to respond proactively to potential disruptions.

Capture Metrics on Latency and Timeouts

Instrument your application to emit telemetry that captures metrics on latency and timeouts related to dependencies. Understanding how long it takes to communicate with dependencies can reveal performance bottlenecks and help optimize your workload for better efficiency. Monitoring timeouts also helps identify dependencies that may need to be optimized or replaced to improve responsiveness.

Use Logs and Traces for Detailed Insights

Implement logging and distributed tracing for interactions with external dependencies. Logs provide information about the status of requests, errors, and other events related to dependencies, while traces provide a detailed view of how external services are used within your application. Together, they help identify specific parts of the dependency chain that may be causing issues, enabling more targeted troubleshooting.

Proactively Detect Dependency Failures

Use telemetry data to detect potential dependency failures before they impact the workload. This includes monitoring the health status, response codes, and failure rates of dependencies. Proactive detection of dependency issues allows teams to take corrective actions, such as using fallback mechanisms, retrying requests, or shifting traffic to healthy components.

Analyze Dependency Telemetry to Optimize Performance

Use the collected telemetry data to analyze how dependencies affect your workload’s overall performance. Metrics, logs, and traces provide insights into where optimization is needed, such as improving cache strategies, changing dependency configurations, or modifying application logic to handle failures more gracefully.

Supporting Questions

• How is reachability and health of external dependencies monitored?
• What telemetry is captured on latency, timeouts, and other performance metrics related to dependencies?
• How is telemetry data used to proactively detect and address dependency issues?

Roles and Responsibilities

Dependency Analyst
Responsibilities:

• Monitor the health and performance of external dependencies by analyzing metrics and logs.
• Identify potential bottlenecks and performance issues in external services and propose mitigation strategies.

Application Developer
Responsibilities:

• Instrument the application to emit telemetry related to dependency interactions, such as latency, timeouts, and errors.
• Use tracing to gain insights into the performance of external dependencies and identify any issues.

Operations Engineer
Responsibilities:

• Set up monitoring and alerting for dependency failures or reachability issues.
• Take corrective action when dependency-related incidents occur, ensuring minimal impact on workload performance.

Artifacts

• Dependency Telemetry Implementation Plan: A plan outlining the dependencies to be monitored, metrics to be collected, and how telemetry will be implemented.
• Dependency Health Dashboard: A visual representation of the health, reachability, latency, and other performance metrics of external dependencies.
• Incident Response Log: A log that captures incidents related to dependency failures, including actions taken and the outcome of those actions.

Relevant AWS Tools

Monitoring and Logging Tools

• Amazon CloudWatch: Monitors metrics related to the health and performance of dependencies, such as latency, availability, and error rates.
• AWS X-Ray: Implements distributed tracing to track requests through external dependencies, providing visibility into the interactions and identifying potential bottlenecks.

Logging Tools

• Amazon CloudWatch Logs: Centralizes logs related to dependency interactions, allowing teams to analyze events and troubleshoot failures.
• AWS CloudTrail: Captures API activity related to external services, helping correlate dependency telemetry with actions taken within your AWS environment.

Alerting and Visualization Tools

• Amazon Managed Grafana: Integrates with CloudWatch to visualize dependency metrics, helping teams monitor health and performance in real time.
• Amazon SNS (Simple Notification Service): Sends notifications when metrics indicate an issue with an external dependency, allowing teams to respond promptly to potential disruptions.