From the Observability TAG: Designing a Common Query... lolita Sharma, Pereira Braga & Chris Larsen
lolita Sharma, Pereira Braga, Chris Larsen
KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2025 · Session
The KubeCon EU talk "From the Observability TAG: Designing a Common Query..." addresses a critical challenge in modern cloud-native environments: the overwhelming complexity arising from the proliferation of **Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs)** for querying observability data. As systems become more distributed and the volume and variety of telemetry (metrics, logs, traces, profiles, wide events) explode, practitioners are forced to learn and manage numerous distinct query languages, leading to significant inefficiencies and increased operational burden. This session, presented by leaders from Apple, Google, and Netflix, representing the CNCF Observability TAG, proposes a radical yet pragmatic solution: standardizing on an extended version of **SQL** as a universal query language for all observability data.
AI review
This talk from the CNCF Observability TAG, backed by heavyweights from Apple, Google, and Netflix, tackles the very real and very painful problem of query language fragmentation in observability. While the problem isn't new, the proposed solution — standardizing on an extended SQL with a clever 'pipe syntax' — is pragmatic, well-researched, and has massive practical implications. It's a solid, well-argued case for an industry-wide shift that could drastically improve engineering efficiency and finally make 'AI-powered observability' more than just marketing fluff.