API observability and monitoring go beyond technical details, requiring an understanding of API health and performance for optimal software experiences.
Four pillars underpin API observability
Logs: Detailed records of API interactions, essential for troubleshooting and understanding user behavior.
Metrics: Quantifiable measures of API health, like response times, for gauging performance and identifying bottlenecks.
Tracing: Visualization of request journeys across various services, helping pinpoint performance issues and debug complex problems.
Events: Alerts for significant API moments, like endpoint deprecation or traffic surges, enabling proactive responses.
These pillars, organizations gain a comprehensive view of API health and can ensure robust, efficient APIs. As technology evolves, I expect observability and monitoring practices to evolve as well, but these pillars remain the foundation for API understanding and management.
My final thought: Devs shy away from API management tools because we think we can handle issues ourselves. But if we're being honest, API issues have cost every senior and mid level dev a lot of money and terrible headaches.
I'd appreciate if you guys could recommend the best API monitoring tools in the comment
Top comments (2)
Try APItoolkit.io. They have a feature for each of the 4 pillars you named
Thanks bro. I'll check it out and drop my feedback