Video: Fender’s Journey to Modern Observability
Synonymous with all things rock n’ roll, Fender is the world’s leading guitar manufacturer. To enhance the customer experience, Fender launched their digital apps in 2016 (Fender Tune and Fender Tone) and 2017 (Fender Play) to empower customers in starting and advancing their guitar playing skills.
When Fender initially ventured into digital app development, they implemented centralized log monitoring to assist the engineering team in identifying and addressing issues. However, the team encountered challenges with their tool, finding it slow and complex to navigate. The query syntax was cumbersome, and the user interface lacked user-friendliness. As a result, searching for specific errors or root causes became a laborious task, often leading to frustration. At times, team members resorted to accessing logs directly from machines to streamline the process, bypassing the tool altogether for quicker troubleshooting.
Michael Garski, Director of Platform Engineering at Fender, highlights the impact on engineering: “Our investigation workflow was challenging, often requiring the team to spend considerable time—typically half an hour—sifting through broad log queries to find specific entries of interest. We needed the ability to zero in on relevant information more efficiently.”