The article by Akshay Mankumbare emphasizes the critical importance of monitoring Apache NiFi clusters using Acceldata Pulse to ensure the performance and reliability of data pipelines. As NiFi is integral to modern data platforms, its scalability and resilience are essential, but without adequate observability, even minor issues can cause significant disruptions, such as data delays and SLA violations. Platform teams face challenges like unnoticed node-level failures and resource management difficulties, while application teams struggle with hidden flow failures and performance blind spots. Acceldata Pulse offers real-time insights, customizable dashboards, and alert systems that help teams proactively manage these challenges, enhancing collaboration and improving overall system health. By integrating smart observability practices, teams can transform chaos into control, minimize surprises, and achieve better service level agreements (SLAs), thus allowing more time for development rather than troubleshooting.