Observability is a critical aspect of any modern software development and operation. It helps teams identify and troubleshoot issues quickly, improve application performance, and ensure their systems are reliable. However, observability can also be expensive, especially when you scale up your operations. In this blog, we'll explore five ways to reduce observability costs and how SnappyFlow can help.
The first step to reducing observability costs is choosing the right tool. There are many observability tools available, each with its own set of features and pricing models. To avoid overspending, it's important to understand your observability goals and choose a tool that fits your needs. Additionally, try to combine multiple requirements into a single tool to avoid paying for unnecessary features. For teams requiring an on-premise or self-hosted setup, look for low-footprint solutions that offer the right feature set to avoid heavy infrastructure costs.
Many tools provide something called hot and cold storage for ingested data. Some can even compress logs and store them in cold storage for longer durations. It is important to note that the logs stored in Secondary storage logs are available anytime and on-demand. SnappyFlow provides secondary storage logs on-demand with millisecond-level search performance, allowing teams to access logs quickly and efficiently.
You don't need to monitor everything and ingest all data. Identify critical applications and dependencies and decide what data you need to bring into the system. Many observability tools charge for what you monitor or ingest, so look for solutions that offer a flat licensing fee or open-source solutions where you are in control of your license costs.
Retention policy is one of the most significant cost impacting elements when it comes to observability. Setting the right retention policy for logs, metrics, and traces will help reduce costs. A good starting point is logs for 7 days, metrics for 30 days, and traces for 1 day. However, the retention policy should be adjusted based on the level of historical data needed for observability.
As the number of users for your observability tool increases, costs can escalate quickly. Look at your user's individual requirements and bucketize them into categories. Use role-based access controls (RBAC) to segregate users and provide access only as per their needs. This will help reduce costs and ensure that only authorized users have access to the observability tool.
SnappyFlow provides multiple product options, including SnappyFlow Cloud, SnappyFlow Self-Hosted Lite, and SnappyFlow Self-Hosted Turbo. The Cloud version is ideal for startups and enterprises alike. The Self-Hosted Lite solution is a low-footprint version that's perfect for small ingest sizes (up to 500 GB/day). The Turbo version is a full-scale version of the tool that can handle terabyte-scale ingest.
SnappyFlow also provides advanced RBAC controls to limit what each user can access, ensuring that costs don't escalate due to unnecessary user access. Additionally, SnappyFlow provides the ability to selectively ingest logs and store them in primary, high-performance storage and secondary, low-cost storages. Logs are compressed by up to 40% before they are stored in secondary storage, providing a much higher cost optimization.
In conclusion, reducing observability costsis critical for organizations to remain profitable and competitive. By choosing the right tool, leveraging primary/secondary storage features, ingesting only what matters, setting the right retention policy, and limiting user access, organizations can reduce observability costs significantly. SnappyFlow provides multiple product options and features that can help organizations reduce observability costs without compromising on performance and functionality.
