Observables
Observables are live event taps that can be configured at any Sidecar in the Fabric mesh. By taking metadata from the request and response at each point throughout the mesh, Grey Matter can perform high-level monitoring of user experience, create audit trails for service access, or any other required analysis.
Observable Content
Field
Description
id
A GUID, unique for each event
eventChain
An optional chain of GUIDs
schemaVersion
The version of the Observable schema in use structure
originatorTokens
Identifiers (e.g. USER_DN) for originators of this event
topic
Human readable string to identify/indicate what this event is about. E.g. service-a-prod, dev-west, greymatter-core
timestamp
Unix timestamp of when the observable was produced according to the host system
xForwardedForIp
IP address of the original requester
systemIp
IP address of the system originating the event
action
Action being performed on the service
create, read, update, delete, undelete
payload
Request/Response information (see below)
payload.isSuccessful
true if service responded with a 2xx code
payload.request
Information about the initial request
payload.requestEndpoint
The URI path that was invoked. E.g. /admin, /services/catalog/1.0/, /apps
payload.request.headers
all headers sent along with the request
payload.request.body
(optional) The full body sent with the request
payload.response
Information about the returned response
payload.response.code
returned HTTP code
payload.response.headers
all headers sent back to the user
payload.response.body
(optional) The full body sent back to the user
Example Dashboard
The creation and emission of Observables is core to Grey Matter, but the aggregation and analysis is left to third party tools like Kibana, Splunk, or custom aggregation/analysis tools. An example dashboard showing the geo-location of requests, response bodies, etc is shown below.
Base Payload
Shown below is the base payload that is emitted for every Observable event across the Sidecars. In addition to the metadata below, the request/response bodies can also be emitted for each transaction. However, due to the high data volume this can incur on the supporting infrastructure, this should be turned on only for systems that can support it or for Sidecars/routes in which the data volumes are acceptable.
Example Enhanced Payload
Though the base payload includes only metadata that can be universally gained from all requests flowing throughout the mesh, the aggregation process can add additional information and data transformations as desired. The below payload demonstrates the ability to add geo-location information during this aggregation step.
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