How Do I Do Availability Checks in Honeycomb?

Andrew Kuipers from iQmetrix seeks guidance on implementing Availability Checks using Honeycomb for their services, prompting a discussion on the concept and relevance of such checks in modern cloud environments. Availability Checks traditionally involve third-party services pinging endpoints to ensure communication, primarily serving as a last-resort alert system if other monitoring fails. However, the text argues that these checks provide limited actionable insights and suggests that a more effective approach involves monitoring specific metrics and Service Level Objectives (SLOs) tailored to the infrastructure and user experience. By focusing on detailed metrics, such as Azure Front Door and AppService health, and incorporating SLOs for latency and errors, organizations can better pinpoint issues and enhance the reliability of their systems, ultimately providing on-call engineers with more useful information and reducing burnout. The text concludes by emphasizing the importance of a holistic observability strategy that goes beyond reactive measures to proactively improve system performance and user experience.