Making IT observability work for digital infrastructure

By Abhijit Banerjee

Today’s uncertain economic climate may compel organisations to look for cost-cutting measures. When done strategically, and not just to slash budgets for the short term, eliminating inefficiencies and optimising processes can strengthen the business. Due to the unpredictable nature of the evolving IT environment, comprehensive observability—a vital IT function that enhances efficiencies—can be challenging.

IT infrastructure modernisation is the top investment priority for Indian enterprises to support Generative AI (GenAI) at scale. Over 71% believe investments in cybersecurity are crucial for GenAI success, while 61% see IT infrastructure modernisation as an urgent need. With the right approach, tools, and perspective, IT leaders can achieve resilience in their IT environments and prepare for today’s unpredictability.

Managing Complexity in Hybrid IT Environments

By definition, a proper observability framework enables an organisation to maintain continuous monitoring of its entire IT infrastructure. Understanding the various relationships in that infrastructure determines if it is operating correctly. Unfortunately, multiple factors contribute to the unpredictability in today’s IT landscape, making observability much more difficult.

The scale and nature of IT environments have undergone drastic changes in the last few years. IT environments are set to reach unprecedented sizes by the end of the decade. Despite this larger investment in cloud resources, today’s companies are not leaning solely on the cloud. Many enterprises are seeking to strike a balance between cloud and on-premises solutions. As a result, IT leaders are responsible for managing complex, hybrid IT environments.

According to data from a recent industry report, three-quarters of respondents indicated that hybrid environments were complex to manage, with data protection and data privacy being the top concerns. IT managers said their issues with complexity spring from the need to both secure and integrate multiple infrastructures.

Several cybersecurity factors also contribute to unpredictability. More than half of respondents (58%) said cybersecurity mistakes from untrained insiders, or people authorised to be in their networks, were contributing to the most significant security threats. Simultaneously, 59% said the “general hacking communities” also contributed. It is important to note that hacking has become significantly more sophisticated in recent years. The best way to handle unforeseen circumstances is for our internal observability functions to operate like the human brain.

Building Intelligence into Observability Systems

If we consider it, the human brain is the most powerful observatory system. It can analyse and assess constant noise in and around the body. It can also subconsciously suppress activity that does not require immediate attention, while allowing us to consciously trigger a response to issues that do require immediate attention. What IT leaders need is an observability function that operates similarly. However, the usual architecture of most observability frameworks makes this “human brain” approach difficult.

Many enterprises have hybrid IT architectures that leverage different observability tools for their on-premises and cloud environments. Further, detection (the subconscious recognition of activity) and remediation (the conscious triggering of a fix) are often two separate solutions in the environment. This creates gaps between when a problem begins and when it can be solved.

The problem for IT leaders is that, in many cases, it does not matter how many separate solutions there are—they are often responsible for both detection and remediation in all of them. In a world of IT unpredictability, there is little time for gaps in how quickly the systems can identify issues and then address them. Any delay in remediation will only increase the time and difficulty to fix the problem.

Comprehensive observability solutions limit this mean time to remediate (MTTR). They are integrated into both on-premises data centres and cloud solutions, as well as the remediation services necessary to resolve IT issues. This removes silos and enables precision in incident detection. This solution also knows the severity of any unusual activity. For today’s IT leaders, resilience in a world of unpredictability is measured by the team’s ability to recognise something one saw coming, figure out why it is happening, and address it quickly. The right observability solution is the backbone of this resilience.

As AI automates more systems, enterprises will continue to find the right balance between cloud and on-premises solutions, with increasing unpredictability. Hackers and foreign threats will continue to threaten your IT environment even as you figure out how to optimise your IT assets. This is why, even during a push to maximise resources, observability and resilience are so important. It is not just about protecting what businesses already have. The right observability tools and best practices will enable them to defend their current environment while working to improve their business for the future.

The author is the Managing Director – India and SAARC of SolarWinds.