Software engineering teams that adopt “as-code” practices, like using configuration files and automated workflows instead of manual configuration and tools, gain major improvements in velocity. But even companies that enjoy the success of as-code practices for development and delivery lag behind in applying them to operational concerns like monitoring and observability.

If you have worked in any part of the application delivery lifecycle long enough, there’s a very good chance you have directly used or been a consumer of Nagios. For a period of time in the early 2000s, it was the go-to solution for basic server monitoring and alerts. Fast forward 20 years and you might be surprised how many organizations still rely on Nagios for mission critical workloads — although not without a fair amount of duct tape and super glue challenges.