Resource Telemetry
CPU, memory, IO, network, GC, queues. Traditional monitoring — useful but limited. Low cardinality, low dimensionality, predetermined questions.
Resource telemetry is the weakest runtime sensor. It tells you aggregate system state (“CPU is 82%”) but not which requests or which code paths caused it. Observability events are a strictly richer sensor — they preserve the per-request context that telemetry discards.
Sensor properties
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Oracle strength | Low — aggregate state, not causation |
| Independence | High — production reality |
| Scope | System-level |
| Feedback latency | Seconds |
| Actionability | Exploratory — but low dimensionality limits investigation |
| Type | Retrospective |
What it cannot detect
Resource telemetry cannot tell you why resources are consumed or which requests are responsible. It shows aggregate state, not per-execution reality. This is why observability events are a strictly richer sensor.