Application monitoring is one of the most underestimated aspects of production systems. As long as everything works, it is ignored. When a failure occurs, it is already too late.

In this article, we present a practical approach to monitoring: metrics, logs, and alerts.

Metrics – System Health in Numbers

Metrics help answer key questions:

• is the application working correctly?
• how does it respond to traffic growth?
• where are the bottlenecks?

Commonly monitored metrics include:

• response time,
• error rates,
• CPU and memory usage,
• background task queues.

Logs – Context and Details

Logs are essential for debugging:

• production errors,
• integration issues,
• unusual user behavior.

Good logs are:

• structured,
• readable,
• free of sensitive data.

Alerts – Less Is More

An alert should indicate a problem that requires action. Alerts such as:

“CPU > 80% for 30 seconds”

often lead to alert fatigue.

Better alerts focus on:

• user-facing errors,
• service unavailability,
• delays in critical processes.

Summary

Monitoring does not prevent failures, but it allows teams to respond faster and more effectively. Well-designed monitoring provides a real operational advantage.