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Post By Admin Last Updated At 2023-04-15
Why Monitoring-as-Code Will be a Must for DevOps Teams

Over the past ten years, we have observed an increase in the use of an infrastructure-as-code (IaC) process by operations teams and development teams for establishing cloud-based infrastructure. In that architecture, developers are given access to IaC tools like CDK, Pulumi, or Terraform to code, deploy, and maintain cloud-based infrastructure. Engineering teams are no longer bound by labor-intensive (and slow) manual infrastructure provisioning procedures thanks to the development of cloud services and IaC tools. For many organizations, the ability to codify infrastructure along with version-controlled application code changed the game.

An Introduction to Monitoring-as-Code

It is only logical that other components of the ecosystem, such as how testing and monitoring are carried out, adapt to the shift left paradigm as IaC becomes a more important tool for managing infrastructure.

The monitoring-as-code (MaC) notion enables us to refer to a monitoring infrastructure as code, similar to IaC. Today, many DevOps teams are utilizing MaC by creating, running, and managing their browser and API monitoring programs using some of the previous IaC tools, such as Terraform or Pulumi, along with monitoring platforms like Checkly. These examples allow for the definition of monitoring checks in JavaScript, TypeScript, or HCL, and the subsequent commit of those definitions together with the application code. Modern MaC develops quickly; it even enables MaC without the need for additional tools and does not even need old IaC tools. Modern platforms make this possible by including CLIs to accomplish this. There are numerous advantages and benefits of integrating monitoring into your codebase.

Here are a few reasons why, in the same way, that IaC has become an essential component of the new paradigm for managing cloud-based infrastructure, I think MaC will likewise become a requirement for modern DevOps teams.

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The Benefits That Make MaC a Must for DevOps Teams

Flexibility and Programmability


Adopting MaC allows you to make use of all the advantages that come with having your automated testing infrastructure treated as code and stored in your code repository alongside your application code. Monitoring and testing are no longer considered to be distinct from your application code.

Update Monitoring With Your Code Changes

MaC places your testing and monitoring close to your application code, as was indicated in the preceding point Thus, testing and monitoring are shipped concurrently with updates to your application code, speeding the process. Because MaC enables you to schedule tests continuously and round-the-clock from dispersed locations throughout the world, your testing and monitoring solutions are now deployable.

Monitor and Test on Staging


Synthetic monitoring used to be primarily intended for use in production; after your apps were deployed, monitoring commenced and notified you when something went wrong. The application code may now be tested and even continuously monitored on staging before being deployed on production thanks to MaC, which enables that monitoring to run locally alongside your application code in a CI/CD cycle.

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Speed and Automation Efficiency


In comparison to a non-MaC monitoring strategy, new checks can now be built up rapidly and in a lot less time because monitoring adopts the "as code" concept. All of that improved speed and effectiveness will have a practical impact on the development, operations, and quality assurance teams, saving engineers hours by automating previously compartmentalized manual and rigid work.

Scale as Needed

Finally, it's a lot simpler to monitor, manage, and comprehend what is being done because your tests are located right next to the application code. Scaling your testing and monitoring activities across teams, organizations, and even the world is made much simpler by this information and visibility. All of that increased productivity allows the development and quality assurance teams to concentrate on other projects while also delivering greater testing and monitoring assistance across the organization.

MaC Benefits in Action

As a case study, a sizable healthcare organization that just adopted a MaC workflow is making use of all of the above advantages. To automate its simulated monitoring tasks, that organization uses a MaC testing and monitoring workflow based on tests created in Playwright. The QA and development teams there were specifically able to swiftly build, validate, and deploy a whole suite of tests from their local development environment thanks to a MaC strategy.

The Future of Testing and Monitoring

MaC is currently moving in the same leftward direction as IaC, and this makes us optimistic about the accessibility, flexibility, and frictionless ness of monitoring in the future for any modern developer. MaC will also be based more and more on open-source frameworks for testing and automation, such as Playwright, Puppeteer, and others, which have been used and accepted for testing and automation for years.

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Benefits of monitoring as code

An organizational project called "monitoring as code" can be implemented gradually. Roll out as implementation becomes simpler over time, starting with a single interface or tool.

When monitoring is implemented as code, organizations may directly control monitoring together with all of their other automated operations. Monitoring is now synchronized with infrastructure and application changes rather than being a distinct concern from deployment. A unified workflow for IT innovation and IT operations is made possible by monitoring as code.

Through greater productivity through automation, consistent monitoring setup and configuration, decreased risk of human mistake, unifying throughout the entire organization enhances communication between teams and overall velocity. Teams can use their already-existing knowledge and equipment, and familiar tooling and workflows make onboarding less difficult. And using code to monitor codifies cultural knowledge that is frequently only known by a few chosen individuals.

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Infrastructure as code vs monitoring as code

You might now be interested in learning how monitoring as code and infrastructure as code are different. Both assist with the management of resources and dependencies as code. Both send those code configurations to APIs, which put the associated systems in the states they were intended to be in.

Infrastructure as code could be used to automate the installation of monitoring tools like agents, scrapers, and plugins in the most basic scenario. However, installing these components utilizing infrastructure as code is only a portion of the story. More than just a tool to build up your monitoring infrastructure, monitoring as code is a powerful approach.

Implement monitoring as code: People + Process + Tools

A method of repeatable procedures, individuals working in organizational alignment, and a facilitating technology are necessary for monitoring as code, as they are for many other efforts.

People

The first step in creating successful monitoring as a code endeavor is to include development, operations, and security. Everyone is capable of monitoring as code because everyone is already familiar with CI/CD workflows and toolchains.

Introduce the strategy to a small group of engineers, then gradually onboard more. Utilize your existing toolchain's knowledge to promote organic coordination across your organization. People in your organization will unite around their shared interest in the functionality and dependability of your systems as monitoring as code grows throughout your business.

Process

Teams may unite around a common workflow thanks to your monitoring as code methodology, which yields quick results. Instead of aiming to reduce noise and receive fewer warnings, IT teams can instead concentrate on obtaining better notifications that are 100% actionable, and handled as revision-controlled code changes, and new releases. Instead of concentrating on preventing downtime, engineering personnel might innovate in a way that increases top-line revenue.

Utilize the integration, standardization, acceleration, and innovation stages of a four-stage process.

Integration 

When you connect the observability pipeline with your current as-code tooling, such as cloud APIs, compute APIs, secrets management, and certificate infrastructure, setup time is included.

Standardization 

Finding tools that already exist that you can combine, such as Nagios-style monitoring scripts, StatsD apps, /health API endpoints, Prometheus exporters, and Telegraf measurements, is known as standardization. Work team by team to standardize monitoring as code workflows, starting with the interface or tool that is most widely used.

Acceleration

 When typical monitoring and observability business requirements can be packaged as declarative templates, you have reached acceleration. Adoption across business units is accelerated by each template you add, which is made accessible to other teams using the same tools and services in their app stacks.

Innovation 

It is a continuous process that calls for tweaking the templates you released throughout the acceleration stage. Code is used to manage every stage of an app's lifecycle, including development, modification, and continuing maintenance. Every enhancement made anywhere within the company is a change to the code for the unified as-code workflow.

Conclusion:

By reaching the end of this blog post, I hope you people have acquired enough information about Why Monitoring-as-Code Will be a Must for DevOps Teams, and how it is beneficial in the implementation of DevOps culture. OnlineITGuru is a world-class leader in providing DevOps Online Training by industry experts. By the end of this course, you will be acquiring enough skills to become a certified DevOps Professional