Why Observe - Part 1: The Early Days

Observe, founded by a team in collaboration with Sutter Hill Ventures, set out in 2017 to create a novel Observability product focused on unifying diverse machine data sources to provide insightful correlations and analyses. The company aims to transform raw data like logs, metrics, and traces into a graph of related events to help users efficiently navigate and derive insights, supporting use cases such as application performance monitoring and business performance analysis. While the industry often focuses on combining the "three pillars of observability," Observe realized that existing methods like tagging or comprehensive tracing were insufficient for heterogeneous environments. Instead, they emphasize context and the relationships between events to address broader questions about service health and user engagement. The company's approach involves integrating diverse data from commodity collectors while offering tailored workflows akin to premium Application Performance Monitoring products. This led to the development of the "Resources" abstraction, which forms the foundation of Observe's product, facilitating a versatile platform that extends beyond conventional monitoring strategies.