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Elli (Einav Laviv)
Elli (Einav Laviv)

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OTel for the rescue - dev first API observability

This article discusses how API observability powered by OTel distrubted tracing and instrumented data helps developers debug issues much faster and minimize MTTR in microservices.

We all know the davatages of APIs, today's SW developement pretty much relaes on them. But, here as well, distributed architectures make it hard to have control and visibility over all APIs across all microservices, and know where exactly they are used and how.

Actual instrumentated data improves the developer experience by providing API observability and troubleshooting capabilities. In short, it enables visibility into API inventory, specs & runs and therefore is helping identify and debug issues instantly and minimize MTTR. This article is written by a developer at Helios, using API observability features in the platform to monitor and troubleshoot the app she works on.

Specifically, she talks about applying API observability in the following ways:

  • Using an auto-generated API catalog, enabling discovery of the entire API inventory used by an application
  • Using API overview and spec tools, providing access to API documentation and performance as calculated automatically based on instrumented API calls
  • API troubleshooting, allowing immediate access to different kinds of API errors and failures – including the full E2E context coming from distributed tracing and context propagation

Continue to the full article to learn more and review examples:

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