What is one of the challenges presented by traditional observability?

One of the challenges presented by traditional observability is related to application performance. Traditional observability practices often struggle to provide deep insights into how applications are performing, particularly in complex, distributed environments. This is largely due to a reliance on metrics and logging that may not fully capture the nuanced interactions and dependencies between different components of an application.

In scenarios where applications are microservices-based or involve significant user interactions, understanding performance from an end-user perspective can be particularly difficult. Traditional observability solutions might miss critical performance issues, such as latency or bottlenecks, because they do not account for the full spectrum of application flow and user experience.

Improvements in observability require a more holistic view that includes not just metrics but also traces and logs that can correlate events across the entire stack. This leads to better diagnosis of performance problems and a more proactive approach to maintaining application health.