What is Monitoring? - Definition & Meaning
Learn what application monitoring is, how tools like Grafana and Datadog work, and why observability is essential for reliable software.
Definition
Monitoring is the continuous collection, analysis, and visualization of metrics, logs, and traces from applications and infrastructure. The goal is to detect issues early and ensure system reliability.
Technical explanation
Observability rests on three pillars: metrics (numerical values over time, such as CPU usage and response time), logs (structured or unstructured textual events), and traces (the path of a request through distributed services). Prometheus is the standard for metrics collection in cloud-native environments, using a pull-based model and PromQL as the query language. Grafana visualizes data from multiple sources in configurable dashboards. Datadog offers an all-in-one SaaS platform for metrics, logs, and APM (Application Performance Monitoring). SLOs (Service Level Objectives) define desired reliability (e.g., 99.9% availability), while SLAs (Service Level Agreements) are contractual obligations. Error budgets indicate how much downtime remains acceptable. Alerting through tools like PagerDuty or Opsgenie sends notifications when thresholds are exceeded. Distributed tracing with Jaeger or OpenTelemetry enables analyzing slow requests across multiple microservices. Synthetic monitoring simulates user interactions to proactively test availability.
How MG Software applies this
MG Software implements monitoring in every production project. We use Vercel Analytics and Sentry for frontend monitoring, and Grafana dashboards for backend metrics. We configure alerting so our team and clients are immediately informed of performance issues. This enables us to intervene proactively before end users experience disruptions.
Practical examples
- A SaaS platform using Grafana dashboards to monitor real-time API response times, error rates, and active users, with alerts when the 500ms threshold is exceeded.
- A DevOps team integrating Sentry to automatically detect, group, and assign JavaScript errors in production to the responsible developer.
- An e-commerce company using synthetic monitoring to simulate the checkout process every 5 minutes and immediately alert if any step fails.
Related terms
Frequently asked questions
Related articles
Best Monitoring Tools in 2026 - Top 6 Compared
Compare the best monitoring tools of 2026. Discover which observability solution fits your infrastructure and applications best.
Sentry vs Datadog: Complete Comparison Guide
Compare Sentry and Datadog on error tracking, monitoring, observability, and pricing. Discover which platform best fits your monitoring needs.
What is an API? - Definition & Meaning
Learn what an API (Application Programming Interface) is, how it works, and why APIs are essential for modern software development and system integrations.
What is SaaS? - Definition & Meaning
Discover what SaaS (Software as a Service) means, how it works, and why more businesses are choosing cloud-based software solutions for their operations.