Show HN: Monitoror – Unified monitoring wallboard • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Monitoror – Unified monitoring wallboard

#51

Post by jedberg » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 4:03 PM UTC

sunbear-lover wrote: post #47

CSDude wrote: post #6

I know people like wallboards and monitors but we found them anti-pattern. If you find yourself looking at a wallboard/dashboard, it should already be an automated alert.

By that logic a speedometer is an anti pattern and your car should just send up an alert when you're speeding... since when is getting accurate real-time information a bad thing?

That’s... actually true. It doesn’t matter how fast you’re going unless you’re speeding. And it distracts you by making you look down.

The only reason we don’t have that yet is because the car doesn’t know the speed limit everywhere all the time.

Re: Show HN: Monitoror – Unified monitoring wallboard

#52

Post by tilolebo » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 4:08 PM UTC

scoutt wrote: post #31

CSDude wrote: post #6

I know people like wallboards and monitors but we found them anti-pattern. If you find yourself looking at a wallboard/dashboard, it should already be an automated alert.

I don't think it is intended to be stared at it 8 hours-straight. I thinks it's more like a clock: you look at it several times a day, and not only when you hear an alarm.

Clocks are an anti pattern...

Why would you want to have the time displayed permanently? It's such a distraction for developers.

Just set automated alerts for lunch and end of day and that's it.

Re: Show HN: Monitoror – Unified monitoring wallboard

#53

Post by snug » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 4:08 PM UTC

soygul wrote: post #43

Care to explain why one would use this over something much more capable like Grafana? [1] [1] https://github.com/grafana/grafana

Grafana needs a backend datastore, and typically prometheus exporters on each app, etc to get timeseries data that gets into the backend.

This seems to be checking endpoints for data at that specific time, not really doing any complex calculations or anything of that nature.

Re: Show HN: Monitoror – Unified monitoring wallboard

#54

Post by _jal » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

SergeAx wrote: post #50

reaperducer wrote: post #48

Panic used to have an iOS app that did this. It was called Status Board, and was magnificent. You could put it on an old iPad on an easel on your desk and watch everything from RSS feeds to ping statistics. In an office setting, you'd hook the 'Pad up to a cheap flat screen TV so everyone could see. Sadly, Panic discontinued it when it decided to go after the video game market.

But why do you need an app where webpage is more than enough?

Because it cost like $10 and 5 minutes, could be set up by non-web-plumbers, and was pretty out of the box.

Re: Show HN: Monitoror – Unified monitoring wallboard

#55

Post by C1sc0cat » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 4:13 PM UTC

wjossey wrote: post #24

CSDude wrote: post #6

I know people like wallboards and monitors but we found them anti-pattern. If you find yourself looking at a wallboard/dashboard, it should already be an automated alert.

Strongly disagree. Understanding your metrics is a key part of so many roles, from devops, to product teams, to marketers... Yes, you should be automating alerts whenever possible. Yes, you should be putting up key metrics in a visible place so everyone can see how the product is performing. I can’t tell you how many times I caught an issue because I knew our metrics backwards and forwards, but it didn’t trip an aler…

An automated email is ok but seeing visually a graph flat line or a monitor turn red is much more likely to get noticed.

Re: Show HN: Monitoror – Unified monitoring wallboard

#56

Post by _jal » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 4:16 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #25

wjossey wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strongly disagree. Understanding your metrics is a key part of so many roles, from devops, to product teams, to marketers... Yes, you should be automating alerts whenever possible. Yes, you should be putting up key metrics in a visible place so everyone can see how the product is performing. I can’t tell you how many times I caught an issue because I knew our metrics backwards and forwards, but it didn’t trip an aler…

> I can’t tell you how many times I caught an issue because I knew our metrics backwards and forwards, but it didn’t trip an alert threshold. So how many times was an issue missed because you weren't in the office, or because you were looking at your own screen and not dashboards at the moment? Humans are incredibly powerful, but our whole job as SREs is to make things reliable, repeatable, and scalable. We're doing…

You're both right.

Instrumentation and alerts are vital - they leverage inhuman persistence, patience and low cost. But alerts do not substitute for a deep understanding of how your systems work.

A number of the more useful "pre-crime" alerts we have derived from that - if I hadn't been elbow-deep in our systems long enough to notice certain behaviors have non-obvious second- and third-order effects downstream, we wouldn't have the alerts at all.

Re: Show HN: Monitoror – Unified monitoring wallboard

#57

Post by pjmorris » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 4:18 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #25

wjossey wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strongly disagree. Understanding your metrics is a key part of so many roles, from devops, to product teams, to marketers... Yes, you should be automating alerts whenever possible. Yes, you should be putting up key metrics in a visible place so everyone can see how the product is performing. I can’t tell you how many times I caught an issue because I knew our metrics backwards and forwards, but it didn’t trip an aler…

> I can’t tell you how many times I caught an issue because I knew our metrics backwards and forwards, but it didn’t trip an alert threshold. So how many times was an issue missed because you weren't in the office, or because you were looking at your own screen and not dashboards at the moment? Humans are incredibly powerful, but our whole job as SREs is to make things reliable, repeatable, and scalable. We're doing…

> Similarly, if a human found an issue and alert didn't trip, I'd count that as a bug/missing feature in the monitoring.

The way that I took the GP's point was that humans can find things that haven't yet been automated, while automation can't (at least not yet, but I'd argue it'll take AGI for that.)

Re: Show HN: Monitoror – Unified monitoring wallboard

#58

Post by dvtrn » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 4:20 PM UTC

tilolebo wrote: post #52

scoutt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is intended to be stared at it 8 hours-straight. I thinks it's more like a clock: you look at it several times a day, and not only when you hear an alarm.

Clocks are an anti pattern... Why would you want to have the time displayed permanently? It's such a distraction for developers. Just set automated alerts for lunch and end of day and that's it.

Clocks are an anti-pattern

Well this is a first for me...

Re: Show HN: Monitoror – Unified monitoring wallboard

#59

Post by reaperducer » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 4:21 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #25

wjossey wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strongly disagree. Understanding your metrics is a key part of so many roles, from devops, to product teams, to marketers... Yes, you should be automating alerts whenever possible. Yes, you should be putting up key metrics in a visible place so everyone can see how the product is performing. I can’t tell you how many times I caught an issue because I knew our metrics backwards and forwards, but it didn’t trip an aler…

> I can’t tell you how many times I caught an issue because I knew our metrics backwards and forwards, but it didn’t trip an alert threshold. So how many times was an issue missed because you weren't in the office, or because you were looking at your own screen and not dashboards at the moment? Humans are incredibly powerful, but our whole job as SREs is to make things reliable, repeatable, and scalable. We're doing…

So how many times was an issue missed because you weren't in the office, or because you were looking at your own screen and not dashboards at the moment?

That's not a problem with dashboards. That's a problem with training and staffing people.

because you can't scalably fix problems with SSH.

The number of businesses that need to worry about scalability is vanishingly small compared to the number of businesses that don't. Let's not pretend that one company's problems are the same as another's.

you should eventually not rely on human intervention to actually keep incidents from happening.

He didn't state that the dashboard was the only way his organization kept tabs on things. He indicated that it was only one way, and specifically stated that an alert system also exists.

Re: Show HN: Monitoror – Unified monitoring wallboard

#60

Post by timdorr » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 4:23 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #51

sunbear-lover wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that logic a speedometer is an anti pattern and your car should just send up an alert when you're speeding... since when is getting accurate real-time information a bad thing?

That’s... actually true. It doesn’t matter how fast you’re going unless you’re speeding. And it distracts you by making you look down. The only reason we don’t have that yet is because the car doesn’t know the speed limit everywhere all the time.

Funny thing, this is actually a feature in Teslas. You can set it to chime once the speed limit is exceeded (in areas where it knows the limit). Although, I've never seen anyone turn that on.