The Question Your Observability Vendor Won't Answer

The creator of Vector has published a provocative analysis addressing a critical gap in observability vendor transparency. The piece confronts an uncomfortable truth that many organizations face when selecting observability platforms.

At its core, the article challenges the industry to answer a fundamental question that most vendors strategically avoid discussing with potential customers.

What happens to your data when you leave?

This question carries particular weight coming from someone who has built observability infrastructure from the ground up and witnessed firsthand how data portability impacts long-term organizational flexibility.

The author's perspective stems from direct experience creating Vector, an open-source tool that has gained adoption across diverse technical environments. This background provides unique insight into the observability ecosystem from both builder and user viewpoints.

Vector's journey through the Y Combinator program demonstrates the tool's technical credibility and market validation. The author's involvement with organizations like NATO further establishes the practical, real-world implications of observability decisions at scale.

Key aspects of this experience include:

• Deep understanding of data pipeline architecture
• Direct exposure to enterprise observability challenges
• Insight into vendor-customer dynamics
• Knowledge of open-source versus proprietary tradeoffs

This technical foundation allows the analysis to move beyond surface-level observations into substantive questions about long-term data strategy.

Observability vendors excel at demonstrating their platforms' capabilities during the sales process, yet often remain conspicuously silent on exit strategies. This selective disclosure creates a problematic asymmetry in vendor-customer relationships.

The article suggests that organizations frequently discover data portability limitations only after committing significant resources to a platform. By then, switching costs have escalated dramatically, effectively locking customers into their initial choice regardless of future service quality or pricing changes.

Consider the implications:

• Historical data becomes inaccessible when contracts end
• Proprietary formats prevent migration to alternative solutions
• API limitations restrict data extraction capabilities
• Cost structures change unfavorably after initial adoption

The author argues that vendor lock-in represents a deliberate strategy rather than an accidental byproduct of complex technology stacks.

Organizations invest heavily in observability infrastructure, often building years of institutional knowledge within their chosen platform. When vendors cannot provide clear answers about data ownership and portability, they expose customers to significant long-term risk.

The financial implications extend beyond subscription costs. Engineering teams build workflows, create custom dashboards, and develop operational procedures around specific platforms. Migrating this institutional investment becomes prohibitively expensive when data cannot move freely.

Strategic considerations include:

• Business continuity depends on data accessibility
• Compliance requirements may necessitate data relocation
• Acquisition scenarios require platform flexibility
• Cost optimization demands competitive alternatives

The observability market continues to consolidate, making platform choice increasingly critical for long-term operational resilience.

The article serves as a call for greater transparency across the observability ecosystem. Organizations should demand clear answers about data portability before committing to any platform, regardless of its current capabilities or market position.

Practical steps for evaluating vendors include requesting detailed documentation on export mechanisms, understanding API rate limits for data extraction, and verifying whether historical data remains accessible after contract termination. These questions should be addressed during the sales process, not discovered during a crisis.

The observability landscape will continue evolving, but fundamental questions about data sovereignty remain constant. Organizations that prioritize vendor transparency today position themselves for greater operational flexibility tomorrow.

As the industry matures, the vendors who embrace openness about their limitations and exit procedures will ultimately earn the deepest customer trust and longest-lasting relationships.