Many successful paradigms in engineering and computer science are the result of two distinct approaches colliding with each other, leading to broader and more powerful applications. In this talk, we’ll look at the parallel backgrounds of two established paradigms: SQL and Observability. We’ll be tracing back the history of both paradigms. How they managed to avoid each other despite SQL being the lingua franca of data manipulation, and how the industry standardization, fueled by open-source innovation, has now propelled SQL back into the game as an observability language. We’ll also highlight case studies and benchmark results to provide the necessary elements for the attendee to answer a simple question “Is SQL-based observability applicable to my use case?”, highlighting the current limitations of this approach, and leaving the conclusions for the attendees to draw.