2024 Observability Year-in-Review
In typical fashion, we like to reflect back on what we have achieved as a team throughout the calendar year. From successful project rollouts to team growth and adapting to organizational changes, 2024 has been a productive year. Here’s a look back at some of the highlights:
A Year of Team Growth and Transition
2024 marked our first full year as a standalone Observability team following the Infrastructure reorganization at the end of 2023. While another reorganization occurred at the end of 2024, its direct impact on our team was less significant. Unfortunately, we bid farewell to Marco who has moved over to the Durability team, but we gladly welcomed Bob into the fold. With the disbandment of the Scalability group, Observability will be taking on the responsibility of carrying forward the strong practices and disciplines that have been cultivated over recent years.
One of the most memorable moments of the year was the GitLab Summit in Las Vegas in March. It was a fantastic opportunity for us to connect as a team in person, with a strong turnout from Observability. We were also thrilled to welcome Taliesin as a new member during this event, traveling from Australia in his first week on the job!
Major Projects and Achievements
Migration to Mimir &1107
The year began with a critical focus: migrating to Mimir. This initiative saw incredible team collaboration and resulted in a successful rollout. The benefits of this migration have been transformative, providing us with a stable and accurate metrics offering.
Metrics Stack Optimizations &1362
Later in the year, we invested time in optimizing the Metrics stack. While we’ve already made some significant improvements, there remains untapped potential in this area. These optimizations have laid a solid foundation for future investments in 2025.
Tenant Observability &1229
Tenant Observability became a major focus this year. Initially, the goal was to establish observability fundamentals for Cells, but this evolved into an opportunity to design a system that better coordinates tenants across all of our platforms. This work has set the stage for even greater capabilities in the years ahead.
Sentry Ownership and Stabilization &1401
Taking on ownership of Sentry was a challenge but also a timely intervention. The service was on the brink of failure, and after it briefly fell over, we dedicated about a month to optimizing its infrastructure. These efforts stabilized the service and delivered impressive cost savings, turning a potential liability into a reliable tool.
Cost Visibility with FinOps Dashboards gitlab-com/content-sites/handbook!8097 (merged)
Tony’s addition to the team brought invaluable FinOps expertise, enabling us to create critical cost dashboards. These tools have significantly improved visibility into our expenses and supported efforts like monitoring ECU burndown in Elastic. The insights provided by these dashboards have been game-changers for cost management.
Capacity Planning Enhancements &1287
We made significant progress in capacity planning by introducing dimensional forecasting. This innovation provides a more granular view of individual service components, enabling faster diagnosis of potential issues. This has been a great investment toward proactive infrastructure management.
Process Improvements and Future Planning
Roadmap Development
This year, we introduced a formal roadmap with frequent reviews. This initiative has greatly improved how we manage our growing list of priorities and ensured better alignment across the team. The collaboration around this effort has been exceptional and is something we plan to continue refining in 2025.
Projects Setting Us Up for 2025
As the year wraps up, we’ve turned our attention to projects that will position us for success in 2025. These include:
- Starting work on the User Journey SLI initiative, which promises to bring a new level of insight into user experience. &1393
- Developing a clear logging strategy that will enable us to scale this critical aspect of our platform more efficiently. &1334
Looking Ahead
2024 has been a year of progress, learning, and laying the groundwork for the future. Whether it was the team’s collaboration during the Mimir migration, our commitment to stabilizing Sentry, or the innovations in Tenant Observability and capacity planning, the Observability team has demonstrated resilience, pragmatism, and a commitment to excellence.
As we head into 2025, we’re well-positioned to build on this year’s successes. Our list of priorities grows faster than we can work through it, so it's important we start the year with a good understanding of our goals to ensure we continue to succeed. Here’s to another year of collaboration, innovation, and making GitLab’s Observability platform stronger than ever.
Thank you to every member of the team for your hard work and dedication.