Op-Ed: Wisdom behind the buzzword — what is observability?

Over the past few years, observability has emerged as a way to prevent such issues and provide seamless customer experiences.

A recent study conducted by ManageEngine showed more than 51 per cent of large enterprises plan on implementing observability this year to streamline their customer experience. But despite the growing interest, 57 per cent of organisations are still unfamiliar with its concept and fall short in their implementation.

Before a business can leverage observability to achieve its goals, it is essential to first understand what observability is and why it’s vital for IT operations.

What is observability?

Observability is the extent a system or environment can be analysed through metrics, logs, and sources. It provides real-time visibility into the behaviour and performance of complex systems, allowing organisations to detect and diagnose issues before they affect operations.

The types of data used in observability are split into three categories, commonly known as its three pillars:

Metrics: This is the quantitative or numeric values representing the performance and behaviour of a system. This data can provide insights into the overall health and performance of a system and help identify trends and anomalies.

Logs: Observability through logs involves the collection and analysis of log data generated by applications, systems, and infrastructure. This data can provide insights into how a system is functioning.

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Traces: Traces refer to the transaction-level data that tracks the flow of requests and responses through a distributed system. This data can help identify bottlenecks and performance issues and provide insights into how different parts of a system interact.

Essential for customer experiences

In 2023, organisations looking to provide flawless customer experiences must simply practise observability.

It enables them to monitor their systems and detect issues proactively while collecting real-time data on the performance of their systems, applications, and infrastructure. This data can be used to identify potential bottlenecks, pinpoint the root cause of issues and address them before they affect the customer experience.

If we look at a high-profile example, Netflix uses observability tools and infrastructure to analyse and improve its customer experience by deriving insights from its data and quickly troubleshooting any issues that arise.

For any online streaming platform, even a single incident that causes downtime can lead to lost revenue and decreased customer satisfaction. By leveraging observability, Netflix aims to proactively detect and resolve issues before they affect users, leading to better overall performance and customer retention.

Observability also allows organisations to adapt to changing business requirements by providing real-time visibility into system behaviour. This allows them to make informed decisions and quickly respond to changes, as well as facilitate better cross-team collaboration within the organisation and help usher out siloed management methods.

Observability roadblocks

Despite its many benefits, organisations face challenges with the implementation of observability. The most common is a lack of understanding or unfamiliarity with the concept, which, particularly in the context of stretched IT resources, leads them to abandon the idea altogether.

Some of the other challenges organisations commonly face include:

Data processing: Observability generates vast amounts of data from multiple sources, including logs, traces, and metrics. Managing and normalising this data to obtain usable insights can be challenging.

Tool fragmentation: Many organisations use multiple tools to monitor different aspects of their infrastructure, leading to tool fragmentation and complexity. This can also lead to data silos, which further highlights the need for a unified solution.

ROI and business impact: While most IT executives know the value of modern observability tools and practices, it’s not always easy to make the business case for its implementation. The costs of these tools and the expenses involved in implementing observability can be significant.

How to implement observability

To overcome the roadblocks to utilising observability, organisations can follow several best practices for seamless implementation.

Start small: Begin by identifying where observability fits into your organisation and the specific business goals you hope to achieve. You can also start by observing specific systems or applications and gradually expand to the rest of your infrastructure as you gain more experience and expertise.

Choose the right tool: Generally, a unified observability tool can be beneficial for most organisations. It provides a consolidated view of system performance and availability, improves collaboration, and is more cost-efficient than individualised tools. In the case of using multiple tools, it is important to choose tools specific to your business requirements and needs.

Encourage cross-team collaboration: Collaboration between IT operations, development, and business teams ensures observability efforts are aligned with business needs. This also breaks down data silos and provides greater visibility across the organisation.

As Australia navigates turbulent economic times, getting the customer experience right has never been more important, not only to keep your business’s lights on but also to sow the seeds for the future. Observability is an essential part of achieving visibility and bettering the customer experience, and by remaining aware of its principles, best practices and potential roadblocks, organisations can start down the path of observability and ultimately remain competitive.

Bharani Kumar Kulasekaran is a product manager at ManageEngine.

David Hollingworth

David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.