What is an observability engineer? They build monitoring tools, right? Develop data pipelines? For time series data? Maybe distributed tracing? Ah, got it…an observability engineer is just an extension of an SRE with a wider ‘end-user’s’ perspective? But don’t they also build solutions that move telemetry for security tools? Maybe monitor and review an organization’s overall security posture? So, would that make them more of a security analyst with a particular set of skills?

The answer: YES! Yes to all of the above.

Every organization seems to have a different “title” for this role (think SRE, or Tooling Admin, sometimes Security Analyst…oh and there’s more). It’s really a person with a particular set of skills. As organizations continue to move forward in their digital transformation, this person with this particular set of skills, regardless of title, will be more and more in demand. No matter what it’s been called thus far, it’s time we call it what it really is…an Observability Engineer.

An Observability Engineer moves beyond making the internal state of an organization’s infrastructure and services visible to stakeholders. It’s beyond just developing platforms and tooling to enable threat hunting, troubleshooting, capacity planning, reporting, and performance analysis. It means more than just defining and delivering on a company’s observability roadmap while knowing the latest and greatest of emerging observability trends, tools and methodologies to continuously enhance systems and processes.

(And if you still need convincing…) Observability engineers play a critical role in organizations. It’s one that crosses numerous departments and the tools/technologies in use. And it’s becoming more and more critical every day as data volumes continue to rise and enterprises are forced to deal with a deluge of new observability and security requirements.

It’s time to set a standard. It’s time to validate what it truly means to be an Observability Engineer and define this role and skill set. It’s time to recognize the leaders and the experts as well as shape a path to becoming one.

Introducing the Cribl Certified Observability Engineer (CCOE) Certification Program

It’s the first-of-its-kind observability industry credential that aims to set this standard and validate a learner’s observability lifecycle skills from planning and design to operating and optimizing.

As a technical certification offered by Cribl, the CCOE program is launching with foundational certification tracks, the Cribl Certified Observability Engineer Stream User (CCOE Stream User) and the Cribl Certified Observability Engineer Stream Administrator (CCOE Stream Admin). CCOE Stream User is the first level cert that’s designed to introduce, educate, and validate one’s ability to effectively use Cribl’s Stream solution. The next level CCOE Stream Admin is a much deeper technical dive; while still remaining practically oriented, it builds off what was learned in CCOE Stream User and starts to address how to build a flexible architecture that can reduce, enrich, route, and control telemetry data.

CCOE has been established to not only assist Cribl Stream adopters and users, but more so others in this space that could benefit greatly with a better understanding of key observability tools, and a working knowledge of how to unlock the value of all observability and telemetry data. As Cribl Stream leads the industry in observability pipelines providing the flexibility to architect any multi-vendor solution, by its own nature it provides a unique training perspective meant to prepare a learner with workforce-ready skills to design, implement, maintain, and troubleshoot observability infrastructure within their organization or project.

CCOE builds upon Cribl’s core training philosophy that knowledge of Cribl and our products should be freely accessible and easy to consume. Learners can simply request account access in Cribl University, Cribl’s online education platform, and self-enroll in the CCOE certification curriculums. More importantly, gaining a CCOE certification is free of cost, convenient to access at any time and can be accomplished at a pace desired by the learner. A CCOE credential is a verification of a learner’s abilities to perform observability tasks more effectively and efficiently.

As Cribl continues to solve pressing problems for customers, the goal of our CCOE program is to follow suit and define not only what it means to be certified in the observability space, but establish the standard as “the best of the best”. CCOE is the flag on the moon in observability training. This unique, one-of-a-kind, not business-as-usual certification program will exemplify one’s commitment to mastering the skills and knowledge it takes to be a true observability engineer. CCOE will lead the observability industry in deep technical observability and security data knowledge, and will aid in enterprises gaining strategic control of all data gathered within their environments.

The standard has been set, and the role of the observability engineer is defined.

Ready To Get Started?

Head over to Cribl University to sign up. As part of the launch, we’ve released a new podcast episode with some earlier learners about their experiences. You can listen below or on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Learn More About Cribl’s Summer 2022 Releases

• What’s new in Cribl Stream 3.5?
• What’s new in Cribl Edge 3.5?
• What’s new in Cribl.Cloud?