Logging
Logging records events and messages from apps and systems:
| Type | Examples |
|---|---|
| Error messages | Exceptions, stack traces |
| Access logs | Who accessed what, when |
| Audit logs | Compliance and security trails |
Monitoring
Monitoring continuously observes whether a system is healthy and efficient:
- CPU usage
- Memory usage
- Disk I/O and free space
- Network traffic
- Application performance (response time, throughput, error rate)
Alerts
With logging and monitoring in place, alerts notify you (call, SMS, Slack, page) when:
- A system goes down
- CPU usage crosses a threshold
- Error count spikes
Dashboards & status pages
| Surface | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Monitoring dashboards | Operators see live health |
| Status pages | Customers see uptime / incidents |
Logging tells you what happened. Monitoring tells you how the system is doing now. Alerts tell you when to wake up.