You can't fix what you can't see. And right now, you can't see much.
Most SMBs have some monitoring — CloudWatch dashboards, a few alerts, maybe another tool or two. What they usually lack is a clean observability setup: structured logs, useful tracing, high-signal dashboards, and recurring review so operators can understand what is happening and respond faster.
The observability problems that slow down every incident
Monitoring tools don't automatically give you observability. These are the gaps we fix in every engagement.
Alert fatigue — everything is P1, nothing is actionable
When every alarm is critical, every alarm is ignored. Teams learn to tune out the noise, which means real problems get missed until customers complain.
You know something is wrong, but not where
A high error rate in your API — is it a slow database query, a third-party timeout, a bad deploy, or infrastructure? Without traces, you're guessing.
Dashboards exist, but they are not built for operators
A generic dashboard is not the same thing as an on-call view or an SLO dashboard. Teams often have graphs, but not the right graphs in the right place when incidents happen.
What's included
Concrete deliverables — not vague "advisory" work.
Observability stack design and implementation
AWS-first observability design that favors client-owned tooling, with CloudWatch and X-Ray by default unless another stack is already the better fit.
Structured logging setup
Consistent, queryable logging with the right core fields so logs are useful for debugging and can be correlated with traces and alerts.
Distributed tracing setup
AWS X-Ray, OpenTelemetry, or another client-approved tracing approach instrumented across the most important request paths first.
SLO dashboard setup
Purpose-built dashboards showing the agreed service indicators and targets for important workloads or user journeys.
Alert tuning review
Recurring review of alert quality and severity so the team is interrupted for the right issues and signal quality improves over time.
On-call dashboard setup
A high-signal responder dashboard with the service-health, alerting, and troubleshooting context on-call operators need first.
Observability review
Recurring review of instrumentation quality, dashboard usefulness, alert quality, and open observability gaps as the environment evolves.
How it works
A structured approach, not trial-and-error.
Baseline assessment
We audit the current instrumentation: what is being collected, what is missing, where the blind spots are, and which AWS-first approach makes the most sense.
Stack design
We recommend the right client-owned tooling for the environment, favoring AWS-native services by default unless another stack is already the better fit.
Implement and instrument
Logging, tracing, dashboards, and alerts are set up for the most important services and operator workflows first.
Tune and evolve
Recurring reviews keep dashboards, alerts, and instrumentation aligned as services evolve, and Reliability work can define the runbooks those alerts should point to.
What you can expect
Specific, measurable results — not "improved efficiency."
60–75%
Reduction in alert noise
Alert tuning and severity calibration means your on-call team responds to real problems — not false positives at 3am.
<5 min
Mean time to identify root cause
Correlated logs, metrics, and traces turn a 45-minute root cause investigation into a 5-minute trace lookup.
Clearer
Operator visibility during incidents
Structured logging, tracing, and responder-focused dashboards give operators useful context faster during live incidents.
Who this is for
This service works best for companies in a specific situation. Here's how to know if it's right for you.
Pricing
Observability & Intelligence is included in the Professional retainer ($2,500/mo) and Growth retainer ($4,000/mo). The standard bundle scope focuses on AWS-first observability setup and recurring review, with client-owned tooling as the system of record. Focused observability implementation work is also available as project scope when needed.
Related services
Most clients combine multiple services for complete cloud coverage.
Reliability & Resilience
SLOs require observability to measure, and runbooks belong in the Reliability layer. Combine both services for a complete reliability program.
Cloud Cost Intelligence
Cost Intelligence handles the AWS bill itself; Observability makes sure operators can see and debug the systems that generate that spend.