The Lightstep Observability platform combines metric and tracing data to gain full observability into your system in one tool. Your dashboards and alerts now not only show you when there’s a problem, they become actionable tools that find the source of that problem for you. Changes in system behavior are mapped automatically to changes across service boundaries. You don’t need to know the dependencies in your system, Lightstep understands them and can find the issues deep in your stack.
To get started with Lightstep Observability, sign up for a free account, import your system’s infrastructure, application, and cloud metrics, then use our Quick Starts to install OpenTelemetry. Once data is flowing into Lightstep, you can use notebooks, unified dashboards with both metric and span data, and RCA tools to obtain full observability.
Sign up for a free account
Lightstep offers a free Community Tier account. If you don’t already have an account, you can sign up here.
If you company already has an account, click Join an existing team.
Send metric data to Lightstep Observability
Lightstep Observability supports metric data from many different sources. Read our integration guides to get started on a platform then search for specific metric integrations for detailed instructions, examples, and more.
Instrument your services
Lightstep Observability supports OpenTelemetry to get telemetry data (traces, logs, and metrics) from your app as requests travel through its many services and other infrastructure.
If you’ve never instrumented for observability, read Understand Distributed Tracing for some background knowledge.
Use our Quick Starts to install OpenTelemetry and capture telemetry from popular libraries and frameworks.
Understand Microsatellites
Lightstep uses Microsatellites to collect 100% of the performance data that your tracing instrumentation generates. Microsatellites collect telemetry data generated by instrumented clients and servers, and then send that data to the Lightstep Observability platform. The SaaS platform records aggregate information about the spans, directs the trace assembly process, and then stores traces durably, all for display in Lightstep Observability.
Learn more about Microsatellites.
Microsatellites communicate with the instrumentation using an access token. Access tokens are project specific.
Understand changes using Lightstep Observability
Once you have metric and span data reporting to Lightstep, you can build unified dashboards with both metric and span charts to monitor it, and you can build corresponding alerts to be notified when meaningful deviations occur. 
When you spot a deviation or other issue and want to start an investigation, you can use notebooks to run ad hoc queries and share findings with your team. 
But more than telling you whether any given part of your system is unhealthy, you can use your metrics, traces, and Lightstep’s Change Intelligence to understand “what caused that change?” 
Learn about all of Lightstep’s monitoring and investigation tools.