Site Reliability & Observability
Infrastructure teams modernize platforms but inherit the same operational blind spots — no SLOs, fragmented alerting, manual runbooks, and incident response that depends on tribal knowledge.
Our Approach
Build SRE practices that fit the team's size and maturity — starting with observability, alert hygiene, and runbook automation, then adding SLOs and error budget governance as confidence grows.
What This Service Covers
SRE and observability advisory for infrastructure teams that want to improve reliability without hiring a full SRE org. Practical, focused on what will move the needle for a team of 3–20 engineers.
Engagements cover observability stack design, SLO definition and error budget modelling, alert rationalization, runbook automation, incident response process improvement, and change management practices that reduce production risk.
Scope areas
Observability architecture Metrics, logs, and traces — where to collect, how to store, what to visualize. Tool selection and integration (Prometheus/Grafana, Datadog, Elastic, OpenTelemetry, SolarWinds, Wavefront, Netcool, Infovista, ZenOSS). Dashboards that surface the right signals. Avoiding the "observability sprawl" problem where data exists but insight doesn't.
SLO and error budget design Defining SLIs and SLOs that map to user-facing reliability. Error budget policy — when to slow down releases, when to invest in reliability work. Making SLOs useful for on-call teams, not just management reporting.
Alert hygiene Alert rationalization — identify noise, define severity tiers, map alerts to runbooks. Reduce alert fatigue without losing signal. On-call rotation design and escalation policy.
Runbook and automation Convert tribal knowledge into documented runbooks. Identify automation targets — common incidents, pre-change checks, post-deployment validation. Safe automation patterns with human approval gates for high-risk actions.
Incident response Incident severity classification and response playbooks. Communication templates. Blameless post-mortem process. Tracking recurring failure patterns and driving systemic fixes.
Change and release management Change risk scoring. Pre-change checklists. Feature flags and progressive rollout patterns for infrastructure changes. Post-change monitoring windows and rollback criteria.
Delivery Models
Remote Consultation
Advisory sessions for specific challenges — alert overload, SLO design, incident process review. Half-day blocks. Deliverable: written recommendations after each session.
Observability Review (Fixed Scope)
Review of existing monitoring and alerting. Findings report with gap analysis, priority improvements, and tool recommendations. Typically 1–2 weeks.
Remote Support Retainer
Monthly hours for ongoing SRE advisory — runbook reviews, post-mortem facilitation, pre-change design checks, and observability improvements. Best for teams building SRE maturity incrementally.
Engineer Basis (Project)
Full observability and SRE foundation engagement: current state assessment, observability stack design, SLO definition, alert rationalization, runbook templates, and incident playbooks. Typical scope: 4–8 weeks.
Typical Engagement Formats
| Format | Best for | Typical Duration |
|---|---|---|
| Observability Review | Assess gaps in current monitoring and alerting | 1–2 weeks |
| SLO Workshop | Define SLOs and error budget model | 3–5 days |
| Alert Rationalization | Reduce noise and improve on-call quality | 1–2 weeks |
| SRE Foundation | Full observability + process engagement | 4–8 weeks |
| Retainer Advisory | Ongoing SRE support for ops team | Monthly |
Tools and Platforms
Prometheus, Grafana, Alertmanager, Datadog, Elastic (ELK), OpenTelemetry, Jaeger, Tempo, Loki, SolarWinds, Wavefront, IBM Netcool, Infovista, ZenOSS, PagerDuty, OpsGenie, Ansible, Python, Kubernetes, ArgoCD, Terraform.