Incident I’ve Resolved (STAR) Situation: Live sports stream; spikes cause regional rebuffering.
Task: Restore QoE < 5 min; protect ad revenue.
Action: Prometheus/Grafana showed p95 first-segment latency ↑ and edge 5xx in two ASNs; ELK CMCD mtp low vs selected bitrate ⇒ aggressive ladder. Sensu synthetic checks flagged ADS timeouts at the same POP. Rolled Quortex Play ladder down one step regionally; shifted traffic via dynamic CDN switch; throttled ADS timeout from 2 s→1.2 s.
Result:  Rebuffer p95 fell from 3.2%→0.9% in 6 min; ad-render recovered to 97%; CloudHealth showed egress stayed within event budget. 

Runbooks (incident handling)

  1. Detect: Anomaly on edge 5xx or spike in VST proxy; Synthetics in {asn:X, region:Y} fail.
  2. Triangulate: APM shows ads_decision_latency ↑; logs show VAST timeouts; CNM (if enabled) shows path degradation.
  3. Act: Reroute POP/ASN; drop top ladder bitrate regionally; tighten ADS timeout; re-test via Private Location.
  4. Verify: VST proxy p95 and ad render back in bounds; create post-mortem from linked dashboard.

Playbook (use Datadog during an incident)

  1. Watchdog ping on 5xx anomaly from Akamai POPs → Synthetics confirm master manifest failure in one ISP. 
  2. APM trace shows ad-decision latency spike; logs show VAST timeouts.
  3. CNM map highlights degraded path for {asn:XYZ}; Fastly/Akamai logs confirm POP congestion. 
  4. Action: Fail traffic to healthier POPs; lower top ladder bitrates regionally; tighten ADS timeout.
  5. Result: VST proxy recovers; ad render back > 97%; post-mortem auto-generated from dashboard links.

I centralize OTT observability in Datadog without replacing what works. OpenMetrics gives me SLOs (first-segment p95, DRM RTT, SSAI render). APM ties ad decision, manifest build, and license issuance. Private-Location Synthetics catch ISP/POP issues early. RUM (or custom TV events) adds device context. Observability Pipelines keep costs sane by enriching CMCD/ASN and routing only what matters. Edge logs from Akamai/Fastly/CloudFront explain why a spike happened—by ASN, device, and app version. Result: higher QoE, protected ad revenue, and lower MTTR.

Cost controls

  • Pipelines before indexing (filter error/slow to Datadog; archive all to S3).
  • Indexes: 1 hot index for incidents; cold index for analytics; configured retention per stream.
  • Metrics hygiene: prefer counters/gauges; collapse high-cardinality labels; use distributions for latency p95/p99.
  • Usage attribution dashboards: $/k viewer-minutes by {channel, region, cdn} with budgets/alerts.

SLOs & KPIs  

Availability: Packager/Origin p99 uptime ≥ 99.95%; Manifest generation errors < 0.1%. Delivery: Edge 5xx < 0.5%; p95 TTFB steady per ASN; Cache hit ratio > 90% for segments. Experience proxies (infra-side): p95 manifest→first-segment ≤ 2.5 s (LiVE), 3.5 s (VOD). SSAI (Iris path): AD-render success ≥ 95%; VAST timeouts < 5%; AD decision p95 latency< 250 ms. Security/Piracy: Watermark inject success 100% on protected events; Mean time to trace leak < 10 min (automation).   COST: $/K-viewer-minutes trend flat or ↓ across events (CloudHealth), CDN egress per minute aligned to measured concurrency (Quortex cost knobs). 

Built observability that improves viewer QoE and reduces cost. 

Used Prometheus + Grafana for real-time service SLOs, 

ELK for request/ad/piracy logs and root cause, 

Sensu for active health/synthetic checks on streams and AD paths, and 

CloudHealth to keep egress/compute spend aligned to audience spikes. 

Apply this across packaging/origin, ABR ladders, SSAI, and multi-CDN—the same domains Synamedia serves with Go/Quortex Play, Iris, ContentArmor, and Video Network.”

What each tool owns (how it maps to Synamedia)

Prometheus – scrape metrics from packager/origin/edge agents (NGINX/Envoy/Varnish exporters), DRM/license, ad-stitch microservices, and manifest workers from Go/Quortex Play or Video Network/Virtual DCM. Track VOD/Live request rates, segment fetch errors, latency, encoder health, and SSAI render success. Tie alerts to hard SLOs. 

Grafana – single panel for real-time OTT SLOs: startup time proxy (manifest→first-segment), rebuffer proxies, 4xx/5xx by ladder, DRM/ADS latency, CDN offload%, and regional heatmaps. Link panels to ELK deep dives. (Synamedia’s stack spans streaming/ads/anti-piracy—give each a folder.) 

ELK(Elasticsearch / Logstash / Kibana) – normalize HLS/DASH access logs, DRM/ADS logs, and 

Iris campaign/decision logs; enrich with CMCD and device/ASN. Use for RCA (e.g., ad-break failures, origin 5xx bursts, long tail events in Quortex Play). Store ContentArmor events for piracy investigations. 

Sensu (Go) – health and synthetic checks: pull master manifests, validate variant continuity, fetch segments, parse SCTE-35, hit ADS endpoints, and verify DRM license issuance. Run per region/ISP to catch app-store or TV-firmware regressions early.

CloudHealth – cost guardrails: tag hygiene for per-channel costs, egress per hour vs. concurrency dashboards, rightsizing encoders/packagers, and “spike budgets” for live events on Quortex Play. Feed alerts back to Slack/Teams when spend trends outpace viewer minutes. 

Grafana panel tips: multi-stat for SLOs, state timeline for ladder continuity, geomap by ASN, and node-graph for upstream/downstream dependencies (DRM↔player, ADS↔packager).

ELK pipeline patterns you can name

Logstash:

  • Ingest CDN/origin logs → grok HLS/DASH fields (uri, variant, seq), map status, ttfb, bytes, referrer.
  • Enrich: CMCD keys (br, bs, mtp, rtp) when present; geo-IP; ASN; device class.
  • Pipelines:
    • manifest_anomalies (Mismatched target duration, discontinuities)
    • ad_failures (ADS 4xx/5xx, timeout, empty VAST) linked to Iris campaign IDs
    • piracy_watch (ContentArmor leak events → case IDs)

Sensu checks you can describe in detail

check-drm – License server round-trip < 200 ms; non-200s alert.

check-manifest – GET master manifest, verify all variants return 200, target duration stable.

check-sequence – Pull last N segments of each ladder; assert increasing sequence and size variance bounds.

check-scte35 – Parse cues in linear streams; ensure presence within expected windows.

check-ads – Call ADS; validate non-empty VAST, p95 latency < 250 ms; spot-check beacons.

Datadog: What it owns in this stack

  • Metrics (infra & services). Use the Datadog Agent with OpenMetrics/Prometheus checks to scrape encoders, packager/origin (NGINX/Envoy/Varnish exporters), DRM/license, SSAI microservices; avoid the legacy Prometheus check when possible. 
  • APM/Traces. Instrument ad-decision/packager services with APM or OpenTelemetry to correlate ad timeouts, DRM license RTT, and manifest build latency across services. 
  • Synthetic Monitoring. HTTP/API tests for master manifests, renditions, DRM/ADS; run from Private Locations you host in target ISPs/regions (Docker/Helm worker; RBAC + health metrics). 
  • RUM (Smart TV). For tvOS apps, enable iOS/tvOS RUM SDK (errors, resources, views; link traces↔RUM); for other TV platforms, emit custom events. 
  • CDN telemetry.
    • Akamai: DataStream 2 → Datadog (native destination over HTTPS). 
    • Fastly: Real-Time Log Streaming → Datadog + Fastly metrics integration. 
    • CloudFront: S3 access logs via Datadog Forwarder (Lambda); keep distributions’ logs in one bucket. 
  • Pipelines & cost control for logs. Observability Pipelines (Vector-based) to filter/enrich CMCD, redact PII, and route subsets to S3/ELK/Datadog to manage cost. 
  • Anomaly & problem detection. Auto-baselining via Watchdog and Anomaly Monitors for traffic spikes, 5xx bursts, or ad-latency drift. 
  • Network/DB visibility (optional). Cloud Network Monitoring for ASN/region path issues; DB Monitoring for origin/packager metadata stores. 
  • Security & privacy
  • Drop PII at source; tokenize session identifiers.
  • Restrict API keys; use org-level RBAC; separate prod vs stg org scopes if needed.
  • Encrypt Vector → Datadog transport; rotate keys automatically.

Implementation-level Datadog playbook

High-Level Architecture (what flow into Datadog)

  • Metrics/APM: Datadog Agent (OpenMetrics + APM/OTel) on encoders, packagers/origins, SSAI, DRM, watermark injectors.
  • Logs: CDN edges (Akamai/Fastly/CloudFront), origin/packager access logs, SSAI & DRM logs, watermark events.
  • Synthetics: HTTP/API tests from Private Locations you host in target ISPs/regions.
  • RUM: tvOS SDK; custom events for Tizen/webOS/Roku/AndroidTV.
  • Pipelines: Observability Pipelines (Vector) to parse CMCD, enrich ASN/geo, filter/route before indexing.

Global tag policy (attach everywhere)
env, service, component, channel, region, asn, device, version.

Agent + OpenMetrics (Prometheus) scrapes

conf.d/openmetrics.d/conf.yaml

init_config:
instances:
  - openmetrics_endpoint: http://packager:9100/metrics
    namespace: ott
    metrics:
      - hls_segment_requests_total
      - hls_segment_errors_total
      - manifest_build_latency_seconds: histogram
      - drm_license_rtt_ms
      - ads_decision_latency_seconds: histogram
      - origin_ttfb_ms: histogram
    tags:
      - service:packager
      - component:quortex
      - env:prod

Kubernetes/Helm (high level)

datadog:
  site: datadoghq.com
  apiKeyExistingSecret: dd-api-key
  apm:
    enabled: true
  logs:
    enabled: true
    containerCollectAll: true
  processAgent:
    enabled: true
  otlp:
    receiver:
      protocols:
        grpc:
          endpoint: 0.0.0.0:4317
        http:
          endpoint: 0.0.0.0:4318

CDN log ingestion (edge traffic)

  • Akamai DataStream 2 → Datadog HTTPS (include POP, ASN, cache status).
  • Fastly Real-Time Log Streaming → Datadog HTTPS + Fastly metrics integration.
  • CloudFront → S3 + Datadog Forwarder (Lambda).

Normalize CMCD keys in logs
@cmcd.br (kbps), @cmcd.mtp (measured throughput), @cmcd.bs (buffer starved), @cmcd.rt (request type), @cmcd.su (startup).

Observability Pipelines (Vector) to control cost

vector.toml (parse CMCD, enrich ASN/geo, sample errors to DD, archive all to S3)

[sources.edge]
  type = "http_server"

[transforms.parse]
  type = "remap"
  inputs = ["edge"]
  source = '''
  .http = parse_json!(.message)
  .cmcd = parse_query!(.http.query).cmcd
  .cdn = {"pop": .headers.pop, "asn": to_int!(.headers.asn)}
  .geo = {"country": .headers.country, "city": .headers.city}
  '''

[transforms.keep_hot]
  type = "filter"
  inputs = ["parse"]
  condition = '.http.status >= 400 || (.cmcd.bs == "true") || (.http.latency_ms > 800)'

[sinks.datadog_hot]
  type = "datadog_logs"
  inputs = ["keep_hot"]
  default_api_key = "${DD_API_KEY}"

[sinks.s3_archive]
  type = "aws_s3"
  inputs = ["parse"]
  bucket = "edge-logs-archive"
  key_prefix = "raw/year=%Y/month=%m/day=%d/"

Security & privacy

  • Drop PII at source; tokenize session identifiers.
  • Restrict API keys; use org-level RBAC; separate prod vs stg org scopes if needed.
  • Encrypt Vector → Datadog transport; rotate keys automatically.

Dashboards

A) Executive OTT Overview (Datadog or Grafana)

  • VST proxy p95 (manifest→first-segment), rebuffer proxy, edge 4xx/5xx by POP/ASN, cache hit %, ad render success, DRM RTT, watermark events.
  • Template variables: channel, region, device, asn, version.

B) SSAI/Iris Health

  • p50/p95 ad decision latency; render success; VAST timeouts; beacon errors; top offenders (ad partner/creative).

C) ABR/Manifest Integrity

  • Target duration drift; discontinuities; rendition gap timeline; first-segment availability; segment size variance.

Monitors queries

Edge 5xx anomaly by ASN (metric)

avg(last_10m):anomalies(sum:cdn.5xx.rate{env:prod} by {asn}, 'basic', 2, direction='above', seasonality='weekly') > 0

Manifest→first-segment p95 (Live) regression

histogram_quantile(0.95, sum:ott.first_segment_latency_seconds.bucket{env:prod} by {le,region})
> 2.5

SSAI render success < 95% (metric)

100 * (sum:ssai.ad_render_success{env:prod} by {region,channel}
      / sum:ssai.ad_requests{env:prod} by {region,channel}) < 95

DRM license RTT p95 > 250 ms (metric)

p95:drm.license_rtt_ms{env:prod} by {region,device} > 250

VAST timeouts spike (logs)

logs("service:ssai @error.type:vast_timeout env:prod")
 .rollup("count").last("5m") > 50

POP-scoped edge failure (logs)

logs("cdn:akamai status:[500 TO 599] env:prod @cdn.pop:*")
 .rollup("count").by("@cdn.pop").last("5m") > 100

Composite (protect revenue)

  • Alert when (ad fill < 95%) AND (ADS p95 > 250 ms) for 10 minutes, scoped by {region,channel}.

Synthetics

  • Failure rate > 2% in any Private Location over 5 minutes.

SLOs (APM or metrics)

API payload skeleton

curl -X POST "https://api.datadoghq.com/api/v1/slo" \
 -H "DD-API-KEY: $DD_API_KEY" -H "DD-APPLICATION-KEY: $DD_APP_KEY" \
 -H "content-type: application/json" -d '{
  "type":"metric",
  "name":"Ad render success ≥ 95% (prod)",
  "thresholds":[{"target":95,"timeframe":"7d"}],
  "query":{"numerator":"sum:ssai.ad_render_success{env:prod}",
           "denominator":"sum:ssai.ad_requests{env:prod}"},
  "tags":["env:prod","service:ssai"]
}'

CloudHealth governance

  • Tagging policy: {service: go|quortex|iris, channel: <id>, env: prod|stg, region: <aws/azure region>}; 100% enforcement.
  • Event budgets: LiVE “tent-pole” caps with proactive alarms (compute + egress).
  • Rightsizing & autoscale: scale encoders/packagers by concurrency forecast; consolidate low-traffic channels on just-in-time processing (Quortex Play).