Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

In Java applications, concurrency issues can be difficult to reproduce and debug. Because work is scheduled nondeterministically across threads, the conditions that have led to an error in one execution of the program may not trigger the same issue the next time around. Exceptions that are silently handled—also known as swallowed exceptions—can also be challenging to debug because they typically do not leave any trace in the logs.

Most SREs and IT Ops manage Java applications without source code access or communication with AppDev teams. When applications have performance issues those SREs or IT Ops teams deploying and maintaining the infrastructure often have to prove that it is the application at fault and supply information to the app supplier which provides evidence of the issue.

Many server-side applications are written in Java and often process tens of millions of requests per day. Key applications in various domains like finance, healthcare, insurance and education are often Java-based. When these applications slow down or fail, they affect the user experience and in turn, reduce business revenue. Behind many web forms or form-like GUIs there will often be a Java application.

As the second largest and active Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) project, OpenTelemetry is well on its way to becoming the ubiquitous, unified standard and framework for observability. OpenTelemetry owes this success to its comprehensive and feature-rich toolset that allows users to retrieve valuable observability data from their applications with low effort. The OpenTelemetry Java agent is one of the most mature and feature-rich components in OpenTelemetry’s ecosystem.

The benefits of automating deployments for your Java Spring Boot application are undoubtable. Not only is it possible to set up images and run tests or compatibility checks before updating the production environment, but CI/CD providers like CircleCI take a step further by streamlining the entire delivery process from code changes to deployment. Many teams assume that the specifics of their development stack or deployment process will make automation difficult to achieve.

In our journeys as developers, we frequently encounter the need for speed and efficiency. But often, integrating development tools can feel like a time-consuming venture, more so than our usual build processes. If you’ve ever found yourself delving into java logs looking for needles in logstacks, you’ll appreciate the beauty of this 1-click OpenTelemetry.