7 Best Books on Observability in 2024
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In cloud computing, observability refers to software tools and practices for aggregating, correlating, and analyzing a steady stream of performance data from a distributed application and the hardware it runs on. It gives the ability to measure the internal states of a system by examining its outputs.
Are you looking for the best observability books? This blog will talk about some must-read books on observability that suit your requirements.
Why Learn Observability
Here are a few reasons why you should learn observability:
Observability gives engineers a proactive approach to optimizing their systems.
When working on complex distributed systems, identifying a broken link in the chain can be nearly impossible without an observability solution. Observability allows you to trace requests and bottlenecks through all parts of a distributed system.
Observability provides a connected real-time view of all the operational data in your software system, as well as the flexibility to ask questions on the fly about your applications and infrastructure to get the answers you need.
What Makes Best Books on Observability?
When looking for the best books to learn observability, one question to ask is this: what makes the best books on observability?
Here are our criteria to select books on observability:
It must have a structured, clear, and logical progression of topics.
The book is concise and easy to understand.
Contain exercises, examples, and practice problems for hands-on experience.
Engaging and able to hold the attention of readers.
The book should have a clear layout and must be friendly toward self-taught programmers.
Best Books on Observability
When it comes to learning observability, books have become the best source for learning it. Enjoy our list of six best books on observability.
1. Best book for Linux programmers: Linux Observability with BPF: Advanced Programming for Performance Analysis and Networking
Linux Observability with BPF by David Calavera and Lorenzo Fontana helps you harness the power of BPF to make any computing system more observable. You’ll not only dive into the BPF program lifecycle but also learn to write applications that observe and modify the Linux kernel’s behavior
The book helps you in familiarizing yourself with the essential concepts used on a day-to-day basis and augment your knowledge about performance optimization, networking, and security. Here's what you'll learn from the book:
Write applications that use BPF to observe and modify the Linux kernel’s behavior on demand
Inject code to monitor, trace, and observe events in the kernel in a secure way—no need to recompile the kernel or reboot the system
Explore code examples in C, Go, and Python
Gain a more thorough understanding of the BPF program lifecycle
The book is divided into nine different chapters to show you what you can accomplish by using BPF. You can read some chapters in isolation as reference guides, but if you’re new to BPF, we recommend you to read them in order.
Chapter 1 gives you the introduction
Chapter 2 guides you to run your first BPF Programs
Chapter 3 covers BPF Maps
Chapter 4 talks about tracing with BPF
Chapter 5 covers BPF Utilities
Chapter 6 talks about Linux Networking and BPF
Chapter 7 covers Express Data Path
Chapter 8 covers Linux Kernel Security, Capabilities, and Seccomp
Chapter 9 talks about real-world use cases
This book is a gem for those who are new to the world of observability.
2. Best book for completionists: Kubernetes Security and Observability: A Holistic Approach to Securing Containers and Cloud Native Applications
Kubernetes Security and Observability by Brendan Creane and Amit Gupta guide you toward holistic security and observability strategy for building and securing cloud-native applications running on Kubernetes. The book gives you best practices and tools to help you as you move applications to Kubernetes.
After reading the book, you'll be able to:
Learn why you need a security and observability strategy for cloud-native applications and determine your scope of coverage
Understand key concepts behind the book's security and observability approach
Explore the technology choices available to support this strategy
Discover how to share security responsibilities across multiple teams or roles
Learn how to architect Kubernetes security and observability for multi-cloud and hybrid environments
The book is divided into eleven chapters and includes the following topics:
Chapter 1 covers Security and Observability Strategy
Chapter 2 talks about Infrastructure Security
Chapter 3 covers Workload Deployment Controls
Chapter 4 talks about Workload Runtime Security
Chapter 5 covers Observability
Chapter 6 talks about Observability and Security
Chapter 7 covers Network Policy
Chapter 8 talks about Managing Trust Across Team's
Chapter 9 talks about Exposing Services to External Client's
Chapter 10 covers Encryption of Data in Transit
Chapter 11 covers Threat Defense and Intrusion Detection
By the end of the book, you will be able to implement these best practices for security and observability for your Kubernetes clusters.
3. Best book for serious learners: Observability Engineering: Achieving Production Excellence
Observability Engineering: Achieving Production Excellence by Charity Majors, Liz Fong-Jones, and George Miranda explains the value of observable systems and shows you how to build an observability-driven development practice. The book explains what constitutes good observability and shows you how to make improvements from what you're doing today.
Here's what you'll explore in the book:
The value of practicing observability when delivering and managing complex cloud-native applications and systems
The impact observability has across the entire software engineering cycle
Software ownership: how different functional teams help achieve system SLOs
How software developers contribute to customer experience and business impact
How to produce quality code for context-aware system debugging and maintenance
How data-rich analytics can help you find answers quickly when maintaining site reliability
The authors provide practical dos and don'ts for migrating from legacy toolings, such as metrics monitoring and log management. You'll also learn the impact observability has on organizational culture.
4. Best book for understanding Linux kernel and application performance: BPF Performance Tools
BPF Performance Tools by Brendan Gregg is the definite guide to use BPF tools to optimize performance, fix problems, and see inside running systems. The author presents more than 150 ready-to-run analysis and debugging tools, expert guidance on applying them, and step-by-step tutorials on developing your own.
The book guides you from basic to advanced tools to generate deeper, more useful technical insights for improving virtually any Linux system or application. To help understand the observability purpose of each of the standard and BPF-specific Linux tools, the book includes helpful diagrams showing which parts of the kernel each tool addresses.
Here's what you'll get from the book:
Learn essential tracing concepts and both core BPF front-ends: BCC and bpftrace
Master 150+ powerful BPF tools, including dozens created just for this book, and available for download
Discover practical strategies, tips, and tricks for more effective analysis
Analyze compiled, JIT-compiled, and interpreted code in multiple languages: C, Java, bash shell, and more
Generate metrics, stack traces, and custom latency histograms
Use complementary tools when they offer quick, easy wins
Explore advanced tools built on BPF: PCP and Grafana for remote monitoring, eBPF Exporter, and kubectl-trace for tracing Kubernetes
The book explores a wide spectrum of software and hardware targets. The authoritative guide summarizes performance engineering and kernel internals that you need to understand.
5. Best Book for Cloud Engineers: Cloud Observability in Action
Cloud Observability in Action by Michael Hausenblas teaches you how to set up an observability system that learns from a cloud application’s signals, logging, and monitoring, all using free and open source tools. The book gives you the background and techniques you need to successfully introduce observability into cloud-based serverless and Kubernetes environments.
After reading the book, you’ll be able to:
Apply observability in cloud native systems
Understand observability signals, including their costs and benefits
Apply good practices around instrumentation and signal collection
Deliver dashboarding, alerting, and SLOs/SLIs at scale
Choose the correct signal types for given roles or tasks
Pick the right observability tool for any given function
Communicate the benefits of observability to management
The book provides in-depth insights into techniques for troubleshooting microservices, monitoring, alerts, and more. It is divided into eleven chapters and includes the following topics:
Chapter 1 covers End-to-end observability
Chapter 2 talks about Signal types
Chapter 3 covers Sources
Chapter 4 covers Agents and instrumentation
Chapter 5 talks about Backend destinations
Chapter 6 covers Frontend destinations
Chapter 7 talks about Cloud operations
Chapter 8 covers Distributed tracing
Chapter 9 talks about Developer observability
Chapter 10 covers Service level objectives
Chapter 11 talks about Signal correlation
The book does a fantastic job of explaining the key concepts for cloud observability. An important guide for practitioners!
6. Best Books for Hands-On Learners: End-to-End Observability with Grafana
End-to-End Observability with Grafana by Ajay Reddy Yeruva and Vivek Basavegowda Ramu is a comprehensive guide to observability and performance visualization with Grafana. It provides you with the knowledge and skills necessary to create impressive visualizations, establish dashboards, and optimize monitoring processes.
The book delves into various aspects of Grafana, including its interface, utilizing the Graph Panel for visualizing data, connecting it to data sources, organizing dashboards, and harnessing advanced features. With real-world examples and hands-on exercises, you'll be equipped to implement a robust observability stack tailored to your specific needs.
The step-by-step instructions and practical insights provided enable readers to unlock Grafana's full potential as a data visualization and monitoring platform. The flow and structure of the book is well organized and is written in simple language that anyone can understand. It is divided into twenty chapters and includes the following contents:
Chapter 1 gives the introduction to Data Visualization with Grafana
Chapter 2 talks about the Grafana Interface
Chapter 3 gives an introduction to the Graph Panel
Chapter 4 talks about Connecting Grafana to a Data Source
Chapter 5 talks about Visualizing Data in the Graph Panel
Chapter 6 talks about creating Your First Dashboard
Chapter 7 covers Visualization Panels in Grafana
Chapter 8 talks about organizing Dashboards
Chapter 9 covers Grafana Alerting
Chapter 10 talks about working with Advanced Dashboard Features
Chapter 11 talks about exploring Logs with Grafana Loki
Chapter 12 talks about Managing Authorization and Authentication
Chapter 13 covers Blackbox Exporter
Chapter 14 covers Synthetic Monitoring
Chapter 15 talks about Maximizing the Grafana Plug-in
Chapter 16 covers Kubernetes Monitoring
Chapter 17 covers Grafana Cloud
Chapter 18 covers AIOps Monitoring
Chapter 19 covers Dashboard Setup for Performance Testing and Engineering
Chapter 20 talks about Best Practices for Working with Grafana
This book is an invaluable resource for professionals seeking to unlock the full potential of Grafana. The book empowers professionals to optimize operations and make proactive decisions. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting on your observability journey, this book will guide you through the entire process.
7. Best Book for Application Developers: Learning OpenTelemetry
Learning OpenTelemetry by Ted Young and Austin Parker guides you how to set up, operate, and troubleshoot the OpenTelemetry observability system. The book covers every OpenTelemetry component and observability best practices for many popular cloud, platform, and data services such as Kubernetes and AWS Lambda.
Here’s what you’ll learn from the book:
The principles of modern observability
All OpenTelemetry components—and how they fit together
A practical approach to instrumenting platforms and applications
Methods for installing, operating, and troubleshooting an OpenTelemetry-based observability solution
Ways to roll out and maintain end-to-end observability across a large organization
How to write and maintain consistent, high-quality instrumentation without a lot of work
This book has two main parts. In Chapters 1 through 4, the current state of monitoring and observability is discussed and the motivation behind OpenTelemetry. Chapters 5 through 9 move into specific use cases and implementation strategies. These chapters discuss the “how” behind the concepts introduced in earlier chapters and give you pointers on actually implementing OpenTelemetry in a variety of applications and scenarios.
Chapter 1 talks about the State of Modern Observability
Chapter 2 talks about using OpenTelemetry
Chapter 3 gives an overview of OpenTelemetry
Chapter 4 covers the OpenTelemetry Architecture
Chapter 5 covers Instrumenting Applications
Chapter 6 covers Instrumenting Libraries
Chapter 7 covers Observing Infrastructure
Chapter 8 talks about Designing Telemetry Pipelines
Chapter 9 talks about Rolling Out Observability
This book is ideal for application developers, OSS maintainers, operators and infrastructure teams, and managers and team leaders.
More ways to learn Observability
It’s a known fact that programmers and developers are lifelong learners. These best books on observability provide a broad tour of observability from several different points of view.
If you are not really into books you can check out these courses:
Udemy: Microservices Observability, Resilience, Monitoring on .Net. The course teaches Microservices Observability with Distributed Logging, Health Monitoring, Resilient and Fault Tolerance with using Polly
Coursera: Logging, Monitoring and Observability in Google Cloud gives an overview of the various products which comprise Google Cloud’s logging, monitoring, and observability suite.
If you’re interested in free online resources, we have got something for you! Check out our article for over 70 coding resources that are free online.
If you know any other great books that have not been included in the above list, please let me know, I’d love to list them here!
Finally, never underestimate your creativity and the capability to do things differently and better.