Leveraging the edge for observability

Abstract

Most organizations adopt CDNs or HTTP caching proxies to boost the performance and scalability of their web platforms. But there’s another powerful advantage that often goes underused: centralized observability.

This presentation will demonstrate how to go beyond the traditional performance benefits of a caching proxy like Varnish and turn it into a rich observability layer. You’ll learn how to unlock and extend the valuable metrics and logs already flowing through your proxy, and how to integrate them with tools like Prometheus, Loki, and Grafana. We’ll also cover how to bring consistency to your observability stack by standardizing metrics, logs, and traces with OpenTelemetry.

Since caching proxies and CDNs are designed to shield your origin servers from most requests, they become the most complete and reliable source of traffic insights. This session will show you how to take full advantage of that unique position, turning your proxy into both a performance accelerator and an essential source of observability insights.