Observability Readiness Checklist

Checklist discipline. Every item is meant to be answered yes / no with evidence. Items marked critical are non-negotiable; items marked warn are judgement calls; items marked info are baseline expectations.

Items

• Interface metrics exported (severity: info)
• BGP session state and prefix count exported (severity: info)
• OSPF neighbour state exported (severity: info)
• VRRP state exported (severity: info)
• System metrics exported (severity: info)
• Firewall log forwarded to central log (severity: info)
• Routing daemon logs forwarded (severity: info)
• VPN logs forwarded (severity: info)
• Time sync validated (severity: critical)
• Alerting rules in place for BGP down, OSPF down, CPU high (severity: info)

Severity legend

• info: baseline expectation
• warn: judgement call; production-grade depends on context
• critical: non-negotiable; a missed critical item is a release blocker

Evidence retention

The completed checklist is evidence for the change ticket, the audit, and the post-incident review. Store it where it can be recovered if the router is lost.