Importance of identifying and tracking errors in DevOps

For almost three years I am curious about tracking errors in my daily work, there are lot of tools like Data dog, Splunk, Dynatrace etc... available as observability tools. it would have been easy to use those, rather I though why not build one. There is an advantage for projects that are small to rely on tools that are built around them. Standards set by industries are important, what if certain configuration don't align with general market standards. I think some developers agree with this approach.

The idea of tracking error is not new, but the way we categorise them is unique to different environments. the nature of these categories depends on infrastructure used, network topology, development strategy. A tool designed to handle them all might be bit over engineered for the purpose, because I think the value it creates by reducing our efforts in identifying problems is not more valuable than the product itself. Again this is my opinion on projects that are small but needs quality checks. For managing tens of thousands of projects investing in a standard tool may give better returns in long run.

What do we get out of all these error identifying and tracking, these are some of practical benefits I have observed with a tool I developed for tracking errors in continuous integration environment.

• Proactively identifying errors before they make huge impact.
• Faster response to stack holders regarding the issue instead of keeping them waiting.
• Reducing error related to configurations and dependencies.
• Reduced manual effort in finding RCA
• Better feed back loop for improving our practices and changes as teams learn from past mistakes.
• It reduces mean time to repair because if we already know the error then we also have to maintain different fixes for it.
• It is a handbook of things that may go wrong, it is the first thing to look for when things are not good.
• If the tool is developed in the same ecosystem as the product then it can adapt to different design constraints of the product, a vital tool for maintaining quality and standards.

in conclusion, By systematically tracking and analysing errors, teams build a robust CI infrastructure that supports faster, more reliable development cycles, aligning with the goal of DevOps and continuous delivery.