It's a mix of both, but culture plays a big role. As Dan Power puts it, 'culture eats strategy for breakfast.' Even the best observability tools won't succeed without enterprise-wide data literacy and buy-in. That’s why training, user-friendly platforms, and fostering collaboration are just as important as the technology stack you choose.

Great question! MCP allows large language models to access structured external context like pipeline metadata, logs, and diagnostics tools. At Sifflet, we use MCP to enhance data observability by enabling intelligent agents to monitor, diagnose, and act on issues across complex data pipelines in real time.

The MCP (Model Context Protocol) Server is a new interface that lets you interact with Sifflet directly from your development environment. It's designed to make data observability more seamless by allowing you to query assets, review incidents, and trace data lineage without leaving your IDE or notebook. This helps streamline your workflow and gives you real-time visibility into pipeline health and data quality.

By including Fivetran connectors and source assets in the lineage graph, Sifflet gives you full visibility into where data issues originate. This makes it much easier to perform root cause analysis and resolve incidents faster, improving overall data reliability.

Absolutely! Sifflet’s data lineage tracking gives you a clear view of how data flows and transforms across your systems. This level of transparency is crucial for root cause analysis and ensuring data governance standards are met.

ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) transforms data before storing it, while ELT (Extract, Load, Transform) loads raw data first, then transforms it. With modern cloud storage, ELT is often preferred for its flexibility and scalability. Whichever method you choose, pairing it with strong data pipeline monitoring ensures smooth operations.

Yes, many open-source ETL tools like Airbyte or Talend can be extended to support observability features. By integrating them with a cloud data observability platform like Sifflet, you can add layers of telemetry instrumentation, anomaly detection, and alerting. This ensures your open-source stack remains robust, reliable, and ready for scale.

When selecting a data observability tool, consider your data stack, team size, and specific needs like anomaly detection, metrics collection, or schema registry integration. Whether you're looking for open source observability options or a full-featured commercial platform, make sure it supports your ecosystem and scales with your data operations.