Understand user needs for tracing and logging
What’s this issue all about?
We've recently created the APM group within the Monitor Stage. This group is responsible for metrics, tracing and logging. We've done a decent amount of thinking about metrics and about how we can improve our current metrics dashboard, but we haven't done a lot of thinking about tracing and logging. Can we get a better understanding of the tools our customers currently use and what their needs are for tracing and logging so that we can better plan and prioritize our next steps for improving these features?
What questions are you trying to answer?
Right now, we are relying on a Jaeger integration for tracing. It has apparently been installed on 60 projects. We currently don't know:
- What tracing tools the rest of our customers are using
- How tracing fits into their workflows
- How important it is to them, as a feature
- What users of our current Jaeger integration feel about that integration. Is it sufficient for their purposes? If not, what needs improving? What direction would they like us to move in?
Right now, we allow users to see their Pod Logs, but we don't have any aggregated logging solution or integration. We are currently exploring integrations, such as with Loki. Too help us make this decision, it would be good to know:
- What logging tools the rest of our customers are using
- How reviewing logs fits into their workflows
- How important it is to them, as a feature
- How useful are the current Pod Logs?
What assumptions do you have?
I think it's less assumptions at this point, and more that we don't have much of any information currently
What decisions will you make based on the research findings?
Tracing
Primarily, if and how we should continue investing time and effort into the Jaeger integration or if we should start considering what it would look like to build our own tracing solution.
Logging
A better understanding of what our customers need and want so we can evaluate integration options, such as Loki.
What's the latest milestone that the research will still be useful to you?
12.4