Whether they know it or not, every company has become a data company. Data is no longer just a transactional byproduct, but a transformative enabler of business decision-making. In just a few years, modern data analytics has gone from being a science project to becoming the backbone of business operations to generate insights, fuel innovation, improve customer satisfaction, and drive revenue growth. But none of that can happen if data applications and pipelines aren’t running well.
API providers need to observe their APIs to get meaningful data about whether and how they are consumed in practice. API observability is a form of monitoring that passively logs API traffic to an observability service. Different from traditional API monitoring, with API observability you: Monitor interactions to improve developer experience Understand how customers use your API Troubleshoot your API Observing REST APIs is well understood and supported, but not every API is a REST API.
The term “observability” means many things to many people. A lot of energy has been spent—particularly among vendors offering an observability solution—in trying to define what the term means in one context or another. But instead of getting bogged down in the “what” of observability, I think it’s more valuable to address the “why.” What are we trying to accomplish with observability? What is the end goal?
To learn more about how Rookout's Dynamic Observability platform allows software engineers to instantly access the code-level data they need in order to troubleshoot and understand complex, modern applications, head over to www.rookout.com.
We are excited to announce the launch of Speedscale CLI, a free observability tool that inspects, detects and maps API calls on local applications or containers. The offering underscores the importance of continued and proactive API testing to quickly detect and debug defects within a shifting array of upstream and downstream interdependencies.
