name: service-mesh-observability description: Implement comprehensive observability for service meshes including distributed tracing, metrics, and visualization. Use when setting up mesh monitoring, debugging latency issues, or implementing SLOs for service communication.
Service Mesh Observability
Complete guide to observability patterns for Istio, Linkerd, and service mesh deployments.
When to Use This Skill
- Setting up distributed tracing across services
- Implementing service mesh metrics and dashboards
- Debugging latency and error issues
- Defining SLOs for service communication
- Visualizing service dependencies
- Troubleshooting mesh connectivity
Core Concepts
1. Three Pillars of Observability
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Observability │
├─────────────────┬─────────────────┬─────────────────┤
│ Metrics │ Traces │ Logs │
│ │ │ │
│ • Request rate │ • Span context │ • Access logs │
│ • Error rate │ • Latency │ • Error details │
│ • Latency P50 │ • Dependencies │ • Debug info │
│ • Saturation │ • Bottlenecks │ • Audit trail │
└─────────────────┴─────────────────┴─────────────────┘