How to Keep Observability Alive in Microservice Landscapes through OpenTelemetry
Observability, beyond its traditional scope of logging, monitoring, and tracing, can be intricately defined through the lens of incident response efficiency—specifically by examining the time it takes for teams to grasp the full context and background of a technical incident.
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) industry is experiencing rapid growth and transformation, driven by advancements in connectivity, data analytics, and automation technologies. The number of connected devices and sensors is constantly growing and is expected to be around 18.8 billion by the end of 2024. More and more manufacturers rely on automation every day.
Moreover, according to the Rockwell Automation 9th "Annual State of Smart Manufacturing Report," Covid and post-Covid adversities accelerated digital transformation across the globe, pushing manufacturers to adopt faster such technologies as AI/ML, Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) and Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs), voice recognition and Natural Language Processing (NLP), Collaborative Robots and many more. All this makes digital operations more complex and vulnerable.
Device failures, network issues, cybersecurity threats, and data anomalies are only a few of the risks that can result in serious incidents, causing operation disruptions and financial losses. To reduce these risks and help manufacturers respond to the issues faster, ilert collaborates with various IoT solutions and equips manufacturers with a suite of features for rapid incident response. In this blog post, you will learn about popular industrial IoT solutions that help manufacturers with different aspects of their operations. All of them have a seamless integration with ilert.
Samsara
Samsara is a connected operations platform that offers IoT solutions to help organizations improve their operations' efficiency, safety, and sustainability. It provides a wide array of services, including fleet management, equipment monitoring, workplace safety, and environmental monitoring.
Many transportation and logistics companies, construction firms, government agencies, and manufacturers that rely on fleets, heavy equipment, and complex operations use Samsara products. By 2023, Samsara had over 30,000 customers globally.
ilert has an out-of-the-box integration for Samsara that significantly helps users improve their operations during incidents. Suppose Samsara’s fleet management system detects an issue, such as a vehicle malfunction or a driver safety event. In that case, ilert can trigger immediate alerts to the appropriate team members, ensuring quick action to mitigate risks.
Particle is an IoT platform that provides the hardware, software, and connectivity needed to build and manage IoT devices at scale. The company's mission is to simplify the development and deployment of IoT solutions, enabling businesses to connect their devices to the internet securely and reliably.
Particle’s user base spans a variety of industries, including manufacturing, energy, agriculture, and transportation, where companies leverage its platform to build custom IoT solutions for monitoring, control, and automation.
For Particle users, integrating with ilert provides significant value in terms of incident management and alerting. As Particle-powered IoT devices often gather critical data and perform essential operations, any malfunction or disruption can have major consequences. By integrating ilert into their operations, Particle users can ensure that they are notified immediately when an issue arises, whether it’s a device failure, connectivity problem, or data anomaly.
Ubidots is a data analytics and visualization platform designed specifically for IoT applications. It provides businesses and developers with tools to collect, visualize, and analyze data from IoT devices. With a focus on simplicity, Ubidots allows users to easily build custom dashboards, set up alerts, and integrate devices without needing extensive coding skills. The platform supports various IoT protocols, and its versatile API makes it compatible with a wide range of hardware and communication technologies, allowing users to connect IoT devices and turn raw data into visually appealing and actionable dashboards.
Ubidots is used across many industries, including healthcare, energy, agriculture, logistics, and smart cities. Given that many IoT systems involve sensitive operations—such as monitoring medical equipment, managing power grids, or overseeing logistics—quick responses to device malfunctions or anomalies are crucial. ilert helps Ubidots users by providing a robust alerting system that notifies teams when an issue is detected by their connected IoT devices.
Tulip is a cloud-based platform designed to empower manufacturers and operations teams with no-code tools to build and customize their own industrial applications. It enables frontline workers to digitize and streamline production processes, improve efficiency, and capture data without needing extensive software development experience.
Tulip is used predominantly by manufacturers across various industries, including electronics, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, automotive, and consumer goods. With over 350 global customers and more than 2,500 applications built on the platform, Tulip has been recognized as a leading player in the industrial IoT space. Companies like Johnson & Johnson, Merck, and Flex use Tulip to create real-time visibility into their operations, improve quality assurance, and reduce operational inefficiencies. Tulip has been instrumental in reducing manual data entry, minimizing downtime, and enabling faster decision-making on the factory floor.
With the data and processes managed in Tulip, it's essential to respond quickly to anomalies, machine malfunctions, or production delays that could impact overall efficiency. ilert’s incident management and alerting system can be used to automatically notify the right personnel when an issue is detected, ensuring that production disruptions are addressed swiftly. Check the ilert connector for Tulip here.
IXON is an Industrial Internet of Things platform that provides remote access, monitoring, and data analytics for industrial machines and equipment. Focusing on simplifying connectivity between machine builders and their deployed equipment, IXON enables users to monitor machine performance, troubleshoot issues, and optimize operations from anywhere in the world.
IXON is primarily used by machine builders, OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers), and industrial automation companies in sectors like manufacturing, food and beverage, packaging, and water treatment. IXON has connected tens of thousands of machines worldwide, allowing businesses to gain better control and visibility into their operations, improve uptime, and offer proactive service to their end customers.
Given the critical nature of industrial machines, any downtime or performance issue can lead to major operational inefficiencies and lost revenue. The combination of IXON's remote monitoring capabilities and ilert's incident management system enables machine builders and manufacturers to create a more resilient, efficient, and reliable industrial operation, improving overall machine performance and reducing unplanned downtime.
Kentix AlarmManager is a smart monitoring and alarm system designed to protect critical infrastructure, such as data centers, server rooms, and other sensitive environments. The system monitors a range of environmental factors, including temperature, humidity, power outages, and unauthorized access. It integrates with various sensors and can detect issues like fire hazards, water leaks, or equipment failures. Kentix AlarmManager provides real-time alerts and lets users respond quickly to potential threats before they escalate into major problems.
The solution is widely used by companies that manage data centers, telecommunications facilities, industrial environments, and offices, where downtime or security breaches could have severe consequences. Kentix serves thousands of customers across Europe and globally, providing integrated physical security solutions that monitor environmental factors, access control, fire alarms, and video surveillance.
ilert ensures that when Kentix’s environmental or security sensors detect an issue—whether it’s overheating, unauthorized access, or a power failure—teams are instantly notified via SMS, email, phone calls, or push notifications. It helps on-call teams to take immediate action to mitigate risks.
ilert offers over 100 out-of-the-box integrations commonly used in IT operations. From monitoring and observability platforms to ITSM solutions, chat and collaboration apps, fleet management, and IoT tools—these and many others are used daily by engineers worldwide to achieve operational excellence. However, there are also tools outside the developer's usual scope that can prove helpful during incidents. In partnership with Make, we've created this guide to show how you can connect ilert with other useful tools to enhance incident management in your organization.
Connect ilert and Make
Make is a no-code automation platform that allows users to connect and integrate various apps and services to automate workflows and processes. With Make, users can build complex workflows, called "scenarios," without needing any programming knowledge. It provides a visual interface where users can drag and drop elements, connect them, and define how data flows between different tools, apps, and systems. To start building a new scenario with ilert, choose from the list of apps and pick up the action. The following actions are available for the ilert integration on the Make platform:
ilert app in the Make user interface
Incidents
Watch Connection Incidents
Watch New Incidents
List Incidents
Get an Incident
Create an Incident
Accept an Incident
Resolve an Incident
Assign an Incident
To use the app, you also need to permit it to retrieve data from ilert. Here are simple instructions on how to obtain your API key.
Go to your ilert account and click your avatar.
Find "API keys" in the drop-down menu and click "+ add API key."
Name the key to easily identify it on your list in the future. When ready, copy it and paste it into the Make user interface.
Create an API key in the ilert account
Your account is now connected to Make!
Send automatic incident status updates to Mastodon
Small teams often use social media to keep their users informed during incidents. X and Mastodon are commonly used for this purpose. Both platforms can be integrated with ilert through Make. To set this up,
Choose "Watch incidents" in the ilert app settings in Make.
Choose Mastodon from the list of applications and connect your company account by entering the server name, user name, and password for this social media.
Customize the messaging in the Mastodon app settings. The message can include an introductory text, incident status, and details. It’s also possible to incorporate media from the incident summary to provide more context.
Create a war room in Google Meet
A war room is a real or virtual space where engineers and stakeholders can swiftly collaborate, discuss, and take action to resolve an incident. While ilert offers seamless integrations with collaboration tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams, using Google Meet for video conferencing can also be an effective option for rapid discussions. To set this up, connect ilert to your Google Meet account, naming the meeting based on the incident ID and report time for clarity. Ensure that the meeting is linked to a shared calendar that all responders can access, allowing them to quickly join and collaborate in real-time. This setup helps to streamline communication and coordination, facilitating a faster incident resolution process.
Create an Asana task and Monday.com item from an incident in ilert
Asana enables developers to manage tasks, track progress, and collaborate on projects efficiently. It offers a structured way to assign tasks, set deadlines, and monitor the status of ongoing work, ensuring teams stay organized and on track.
Similarly, Monday.com is a popular project management tool among IT teams. With its customizable boards, IT specialists can manage workflows, prioritize issues, track support tickets, and monitor system updates or network changes with ease.
If your organization uses either of these platforms, you can integrate them with ilert via Make to automatically create and assign tasks in Asana or add items to boards in Monday.com, simplifying task coordination in times of incidents.
Create support tickets from incidents
While ilert offers a variety of ITSM solutions as alert actions, the market is filled with even more ticketing tools. Make already supports integrations with apps like Zoho Desk, Help Scout, and other popular services used by technical support teams. By using Make, you can connect ilert to these tools, ensuring that support teams are promptly notified in the event of an incident. Automating ticket creation not only accelerates the notification process but also reduces the manual communication burden between departments when urgent situations arise.
Postmortem reports are essential in incident management, helping teams learn from past mistakes and prevent future issues. Traditionally, creating these reports was a slow, tedious process, requiring teams to gather data from multiple sources and piece together what happened. But with AI and Large Language Models (LLMs), this process can become faster, smarter, and much less of a headache.
AI-assisted postmortems streamline incident analysis by converting disparate data sources—such as chat logs, alert notifications, and historical incident records—into a cohesive, detailed event narrative. These models analyze massive amounts of data and highlight key moments like decisions made and actions taken, allowing teams to review incidents in detail. By automating what used to be a manual task, AI saves time and provides more accurate insights.
Leveraging LLMs for Efficient Postmortem Reporting
To begin, let's define LLMs. Large Language Models (LLMs) are advanced AI systems trained on extensive text data, enabling them to understand and generate human-like text. They transform complex information—such as chat logs, alerts, and incident reports—into clear, actionable narratives. LLMs work by converting text into numerical representations (embeddings), which help the model grasp relationships and context. This process used to involve hours of manual compilation, but AI now automates it, producing comprehensive reports swiftly.
LLMs analyze the data to highlight key elements like decisions made and actions taken, while also identifying patterns across multiple incidents. This allows for efficient postmortem reporting and provides valuable insights for improving processes, training, and system performance. By leveraging AI, organizations can streamline their incident management and ensure that no critical details are missed.
Postmortem generation with ilert
The Benefits of AI-Assisted Postmortems
ilert AI doesn’t just make the postmortem creation process faster — it adds a lot of value, too:
Consistency: Every report follows the same structure and level of detail, making it easier to compare incidents and spot patterns over time.
Unbiased: Because AI relies on data and facts, it removes personal biases, giving an objective and accurate view of the incident.
BetterInsights: AI can dig through a lot of data to uncover insights that might be missed in a manual review, giving a more complete understanding of the issue.
Practical Recommendations: By looking at past incidents, AI can offer actionable steps to prevent the same thing from happening again.
A sample post mortem report that was generated by ilert AI
ilert's AI-Generated Postmortem Reports
At ilert, we’ve harnessed the power of AI to deliver more efficient postmortem reporting. Our system integrates with your chat tools, like Slack and Microsoft Teams, and scans all incident related information, including alert details and timeline, to automatically generate postmortem documents, summarizing key details and offering actionable insights. Below is a sample postmortem report created by ilert’s AI.
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