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Monitoring, Logging, and Operational Visibility Questions

Understand that running systems need constant visibility. Know basic monitoring concepts: metrics (numerical measurements like CPU, memory, request count), logs (detailed event records), and alerts (notifications when issues occur). Know the monitoring tools: CloudWatch (AWS), Azure Monitor (Azure), Cloud Operations/Stackdriver (GCP). Understand what should be monitored: application health (uptime, error rates), infrastructure health (CPU, memory, disk), and security events (access logs, permission denials). Know that proper monitoring enables quick issue detection and troubleshooting. Be familiar with dashboard creation (visualizing metrics) and alert configuration (notifying on problems). Understand log aggregation—collecting logs from multiple sources for centralized analysis.

EasyTechnical
61 practiced
Compare the core monitoring services in the three major clouds: AWS CloudWatch, Azure Monitor, and GCP Cloud Operations (Stackdriver). For each, list key capabilities (metrics, logs, tracing, alerting, dashboards), differences in retention/ingestion, and scenarios where one has an operational advantage over the others (single-cloud vs multi-cloud, vendor features).
EasyTechnical
58 practiced
You own an HTTP web service running in a cloud environment. List at least 10 specific metrics and logs you would instrument and monitor to assess application and infrastructure health. For each item explain why it matters and how it helps detect or diagnose common issues like latency, errors, or resource exhaustion.
MediumTechnical
58 practiced
Write an AWS Lambda function in Node.js (pseudocode acceptable) that accepts a stream of JSON log events, redacts PII fields (for example 'email', 'ssn', 'credit_card'), and writes sanitized logs to an S3 bucket. Consider performance, memory, and error handling for high throughput streams.
EasyTechnical
62 practiced
Explain the differences between metrics, logs, and alerts in cloud monitoring. For each type give concrete examples relevant to a web application (e.g., CPU usage, request latency, HTTP 500 log entries, failed auth events). Describe when you would rely on a metric versus a log versus an alert during a production troubleshooting session, and how they complement each other.
HardSystem Design
58 practiced
Architect an end-to-end observability platform on AWS for a global SaaS with millions of users. The solution must collect metrics, logs, and traces across multiple accounts and regions, provide dashboards and alerting, scale to high ingestion rates, respect cost constraints, and meet basic compliance requirements. Describe components, cross-account access, dataflow, storage tiering, scaling, and validation/testing strategies.

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