Observability vs monitoring for data pipelines

Data teams face increasing challenges with the evolving complexity of the Modern Data Stack, requiring robust processes in data monitoring and observability to manage failure points and maintain trust in data. Observability, distinct from monitoring, involves the proactive identification and prevention of issues across data pipelines, while monitoring addresses known problems as they arise. Snowplow offers tools to enhance data pipeline observability, providing transparency and control over data with both open-source and managed SaaS options. By adopting a white box approach, Snowplow allows users to monitor pipeline health using metrics like latency and event volume through platforms like AWS CloudWatch and GCP Stackdriver. This setup enables teams to identify potential issues quickly, preventing data downtime by ensuring events conform to predefined schemas before entering data warehouses. Snowplow's design facilitates a deeper level of monitoring, helping users maintain reliable data systems by resolving validation errors preemptively and allowing immediate issue resolution based on alerts.