How SpotOn overhauled its observability strategy with standardized tagging and Grafana Cloud

SpotOn, a provider of restaurant point of sales systems, recently improved its observability strategy by migrating from multiple tools to Grafana Cloud and implementing a standardized tagging taxonomy. This change streamlined alerting and incident response, reduced costs, and enhanced data-driven insights. The tagging system, applied at both the infrastructure and application layers, categorizes assets by products/services, domain/teams, and system/components, utilizing tools like OpenTelemetry and Grafana Alloy. This new approach allows for efficient troubleshooting and cost management, with Grafana Cloud dashboards providing a unified view across business domains. The migration also fostered a cultural shift within the company, emphasizing collaboration and focusing on business metrics, ultimately transforming observability into a comprehensive team effort.