Observability-as-a-Service: Architecting and Evaluating Scalable Monitoring Platforms for Cloud-Native Enterprises

The complexity of cloud-native systems has transformed monitoring from a reactive afterthought into a foundational discipline that determines enterprise reliability and resilience. While individual tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, and Datadog have enabled distributed monitoring, enterprises still face challenges around scalability, compliance, and cost-effectiveness. This article proposes the concept of Observability-as-a-Service (OaaS) a platform-oriented approach to delivering monitoring and observability capabilities as a service, decoupled from individual system silos. We introduce a layered reference architecture for OaaS, demonstrate its applicability through a case study in a large-scale hybrid cloud enterprise, and benchmark its performance against traditional observability stacks. Results highlight measurable improvements in throughput, latency, and governance coverage, making OaaS a viable path forward for enterprises struggling with telemetry sprawl.