Chronosphere’s guide to Monitorama 2023

There’s truly nothing like summer in the Pacific Northwest; and it’s even better when a good tech conference is on the calendar!

Next week, from June 26 to 28, observability and monitoring professionals will spend time in Portland, Oregon, for Monitorama 2023. The event’s goal is to bring together experts in the space to discuss, learn, and network with 600 like-minded individuals in the monitoring space.

Here’s our guide on what to expect at Monitorama 2023 – held at the iconic Gerding Theater @ The Armory — and how to make the most of it. We’ve collected the top talks to attend, outlined how to connect with Chronosphere at the show, and recommended where to eat, drink, and shop in PDX.

This year’s sessions provide attendees a holistic view of latest best practices, technology, production lessons, and team development for observability and monitoring. There’s lots of sessions, lightning talks, and demonstrations to delve into. Your registration gives you access to talks within the following tracks:

Diamond Signals: Golden metrics are so last decade; let’s use something better.

DIY Observability: Stories of bespoke monitoring and observability tooling.

The Math behind Monitoring: Math and statistics you actually need to know.

Under-appreciated Tooling: Amazing tools or techniques we take for granted.

Pager Pain: Production incidents and lessons learned along the way.

Adoptability: How to inspire an observable mindset within your company .

For folks that can’t attend in person, there will be a live stream option. Take a look at the full schedule to plan ahead and get an idea of how to maximize your time between sessions.

Not sure what talks to check out or aren’t sure where to start on the schedule? Here’s what our very own, Senior Developer Advocate Paige Cruz recommends:

Logs Are Good, Actually – Alex Hidalgo, Principal Reliability Advocate at Nobl9

As technology has evolved and the ability to understand distributed systems improves, traces, events, and metrics take up a lot of conversational space in the observability world. I for one have asked “Is the future log-less?” to which Alex has emphatically replied “No, no it isn’t.” I’m keen to hear his take on the role logs play in the systems of today and tomorrow. It’s sure to be full of spicy takes, a can’t-miss for sure.

Alerts Don’t Suck. YOUR Alerts Suck! – Leon Adato, Principal DevRel Advocate at New Relic

Leon! What a title! Candidly, I have had this exact thought many times when joining a new rotation. If you’ve ever onboarded on a team that had a laissez-faire attitude towards alert hygiene this is the talk for you. Alert fatigue is a topic near and dear to my heart and shared my advice earlier this year in Avoiding Alert Bankruptcy and Burnout.

A decade of monitoring. Where we started, how we got here, and where we’re headed – Joseph Ruscio, General Partner at Heavybit Industries

We like to look forward and adopt the next best thing to keep up with the relentless pace of progress. As the saying goes “we’re standing on the shoulders of giants” and it’s valuable to pause and take stock of the innovations and lessons learned from the near past. Ten years in technology terms seems like a literal eon and I’m looking forward to Joseph’s perspective; especially keen to hear when observability crashes the monitoring timeline and how it changed everything.

How to Scale Observability Without Bankrupting the Company – David Gildeh, Observability Leadership at Netflix

In the early days of organizations moving to the cloud, I remember the scramble Big Monitoring had to figure out how to adapt their billing models that assumed infrastructure was long-running VMs to cloud friendly pricing accounting for ephemeral containers. Several years later and sky-high observability bills are the norm. David’s perspective from Netflix, early cloud adopters, and no shortage of scale, should be fascinating and full of takeaways.

Curious about how cloud native observability can help you save costs, improve developer performance, and reduce mean time to remediation? Then come check out Chronosphere throughout Monitorama 2023 at our talks, on the show floor, and at hosted events.

Lightning talk on cardinality and cost management: Join Chronosphere co-founder and CTO Rob Skillington on Monday, June 26 at 11:30 AM, for his presentation “From Cardinal(ity) Sins to Cost Efficient Metrics Aggregation.” He’ll cover how to reduce storage and query times for high-cardinality metrics without the time-consuming task of omitting labels. You’ll learn how the Chronosphere Metrics Usage Analyzer helps identify use of a specific metric/label and how the Control Plane can manage costs.

Visit our booth: We’ll have a table in the venue’s foyer where you can stop by to talk about observability, get a product demo, and get some awesome swag. Grab our Level Up Your O11Y Game Card, collect stamps, and enter a drawing for cool prizes. Be sure to get all of your stamps and turn in your card at the Chronosphere table by Wed, June 28th at 2PM to be eligible to win.

Tight on time and want to ensure you get a quick demo? Book a time with our O11Y experts.

We’ll also be at the Monitorama Conference party on June 26th from 7:00 PM-10:00 PM, in case you didn’t have time to stop by during regular conference hours!

“Cheers to Observability” Whiskey Tasting event: On Tuesday evening, we’ll be hosting a special tasting and Whiskey education event at the Multnomah Whiskey Library! Alex Baptista, our own in-house Bourbon Steward and whiskey distiller, will guide attendees through some personally selected pours and explain how the three pillars of observability are a thing of the past. Space is limited, so be sure to register ahead of time. The first 25 people to register receive a custom whiskey kit.

Chronosphere’s PDX-based crew welcomes you and wants to share a guide of great food, things to do ,and see during your visit.

NW aka The Pearl District

Portland is broadly divided up into quadrants based on what side of the Willamette River they fall on. We scoped suggestions to the Northwest quadrant since the venue for Monitorama is situated right in the Pearl District — which is very walkable!

Exploring the other neighborhoods will require taking a car, but if you’re an experienced biker you can use the city’s bike lanes.

Stuff to eat

• Verde Cocina: fresh, local, good for those with dietary considerations
• Bamboo Sushi: sustainable sushi that’s delicious to boot
• Harlow (NW 23rd): vegan fare with a big juice/smoothie selection
• Los Gorditos: tasty Mexican food close to the venue
• Blue Star Donuts and VooDoo Doughnut: Portland staples for gourmet doughnuts
• Salt & Straw: artisan ice cream with both sweet and savory flavors
• Eb & Bean: vegan friendly ice cream

Stuff to drink

• Sister’s Coffee (Pearl)
  • Really yummy substantial fare and delicious drinks
• Tea Chai Te (NW 23rd)
  • Best cup of tea you can find, wide selection and even has boba on the menu!
• Barista (NW 23rd)
• Multnomah Whiskey Library
• Momo’s
• Cider Bite
• 10 Barrel Brewing
  • Has a rooftop deck; be sure to try one of their sours!

Stuff to do 

• Rose Garden / Hoyt Arboretum / Japanese Tea Garden / Pittock Mansion
  • Leave the urban environment behind and step into nature visiting Washington Park featuring stunning views from Pittock Mansion, smell the roses at the International Test Rose Garden; hug a tree at Hoyt Arboretum; and stop by for tea at the Japanese Tea Garden.
• Pick up a copy of our local alt-weeklies the Portland Mercury or the Willamette Week to see what events are going on.

Stuff to buy

• Powell’s City of Books
  • E-readers have not killed physical bookstores in Portland! Powell’s downtown flagship store has several floors packed to the brim with books of every genre. Plan to grab a coffee from the in-house barista and peruse the stacks.
• Tender Loving Empire
  • A twee shop on NW 23rd that curates a solid selection of independently made goods and music. From art prints, to organic lip balm, and vinyl it is a great place to pick up a gift for yourself or a loved one.
• MadeHere PDX
  • Local, local, local is the focus of this store with every single item made within Portland or the surrounding Pacific Northwest area. The snack and beverage section is a personal fave of Paige’s but you can’t go wrong checking everything else out.

Learn more about Chronosphere’s presence at Monitorama 2023. Hope to see you there!