From Blind to Insightful

Observability in Spring Boot Microservices

Learn how to transform your distributed systems from blind to insightful using modern observability tools. This workshop covers logs, metrics, and distributed tracing with real, production-ready implementations.

👨‍💻

Omar Bautista

Software Engineer

As a Software Engineer, I am driven by my passion for technology and constantly seek opportunities to expand my skillset. Currently, my expertise encompasses a range of technologies including Java, Spring, Spring Boot, Groovy, Grails, Hibernate, Jenkins, Docker, Unit and Integration Testing, Spock Framework, and Relational Databases, among others. In addition to my technical proficiency, I have gained valuable experience collaborating with both remote and on-site teams. I strongly believe in the power of knowledge sharing and actively engage in exchanging insights with my peers, fostering a culture of continuous self-improvement.

What We'll Learn During This Session

1. Understanding the Problem

Why traditional monitoring fails in microservices and the challenges of debugging distributed systems.

2. The Three Pillars

Logs, Metrics, and Traces working together to provide complete system visibility.

3. Centralized Logging

ELK Stack implementation with Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana for centralized log management.

4. Metrics Collection

Prometheus and Grafana for collecting, storing, and visualizing performance metrics.

5. Distributed Tracing

MDC (Mapped Diagnostic Context) propagation across service boundaries for request tracking.

6. Service Discovery

Consul for service registry, discovery, health checking, and load balancing.

7. Real-World Debugging

Step-by-step problem investigation using all observability tools working together.

8. Best Practices

Building observable systems from day one with proven patterns and practices.

Workshop Objectives

🎯 Hands-On Understanding

Gain practical experience with production-ready observability tools and see real implementations in action.

🔍 Debug Effectively

Learn proven techniques for debugging distributed systems using logs, metrics, and traces together.

🔗 Implement Correlation IDs

Master distributed tracing with correlation IDs that track requests across all services.

🐳 Complete Stack

Build a complete observability stack with 11 Docker containers that you can run today.

Workshop Sections

1
Introduction

Welcome to the workshop. Learn what we'll cover and the technology stack we'll use.

2
The Monitoring Gap

Why traditional monitoring fails in microservices and what challenges we face.

3
The Three Pillars

Logs, Metrics, and Traces working together for complete observability.

4
Our Observability Stack

Real-world implementation with 11 Docker containers running the complete stack.

5
Logs with ELK Stack

Centralized logging with Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana.

6
ELK in Action

Following a request across services with distributed tracing.

7
Metrics with Prometheus

Know your system's vital signs with time-series metrics.

8
Custom Metrics

32 custom metrics tracking everything from CRUD operations to performance.

9
Grafana Visualization

Making metrics beautiful with 3 dashboards and 20+ panels.

10
Distributed Tracing

Connect the dots with MDC propagation across service boundaries.

11
Service Discovery

Consul as the glue: registry, discovery, health checks, and load balancing.

12
The Complete Flow

All components working together in one cohesive observability system.

13
Real-World Debugging

From problem report to solution using all three pillars together.

14
Best Practices

Seven essential practices for building observable systems from day one.

15
Getting Started

Your next steps, resources, and how to run this stack locally today.

Technology Stack

Logs

Elasticsearch • Logstash • Kibana

Metrics

Prometheus • Grafana

Discovery

Consul • Spring Cloud

All open source • Production ready • Runs in Docker Compose