Splunk Inc., in
collaboration with the Enterprise Strategy Group, released the
State of Observability 2022,
an annual global research report that examines how observability is
shaping the future of cutting-edge organizations. The report surveyed
1,250 observability practitioners, managers and experts worldwide,
revealing that observability is already powering digital transformation,
while highlighting its potential to create significant savings and
attract the best talent to help power businesses to new heights.
The report reveals that the most sophisticated observability practitioners (leaders*) are able to cut downtime costs by 90%, from
an estimated $23.8 million annually to just $2.5 million, compared to
observability beginners. What's more, leaders in observability are more
innovative and more successful at achieving digital transformation
outcomes and other initiatives:
- Observability leaders have launched 60% more products or revenue streams from AppDev teams in the last year compared to beginners.
- Observability leaders report a 69% better mean time to resolution for unplanned downtime or performance degradation thanks to investment in observability.
- 66% of
leaders report that their visibility into application performance is
excellent (compared to just 44% of beginners). Similarly, 64% of leaders report that visibility into their security posture is excellent (versus 42% of beginners).
- Twice as many leaders
can detect problems associated with internally developed applications
within minutes, resulting in an estimated 37% better MTTD.
"Our
research confirms just how vital observability is for every business,"
said Spiros Xanthos, SVP and General Manager, Observability, Splunk.
"The most sophisticated observability practitioners have given
themselves an edge in digital transformation while massively cutting
costs associated with downtime and boosting their ability to
out-innovate the competition. These observability leaders are more
competitive, more resilient and more efficient as a result."
Increased
cloud complexity also highlights how imperative becoming an
observability leader is for all enterprises. Organizations have been
moving to the cloud for more than a decade and in more recent years,
hybrid architectures and multicloud operations have complicated many
organizations' cloud ecosystems. Seventy percent of respondents are using multiple cloud services, and the shift to multicloud has increased complexity:
- 75% of
respondents have many cloud-native applications that run in multiple
environments, either multiple public clouds or a combination of
on-premises and public clouds.
- Leaders are even more likely to report commonly running cloud-native applications (92% versus 68% of beginners),
- 36% of organizations (and 47% of
leaders) that use the public cloud to run internally developed
applications use three or more different public clouds today, and 67% expect to do so within 24 months.
While the challenges of observability are global, the report reveals that there are significant variations across countries:
- Canadian organizations trail in their observability journey: 79% are beginners (versus 58% averaged across other countries) and just 2% are leaders (versus 10% in the rest of the world).
- French
organizations more often report that their investments in AIOps
technologies have helped them achieve lower mean time to resolution
(MTTR) (58% versus 43% averaged across other countries).
- Japanese organizations have had noteworthy success using AIOps technologies to help solve recurring issues in their environment: 74% report that this has been a benefit of AIOps, versus a 55% average across other countries.
- Indian organizations are further along in the observability journey: Only 29% are rated as beginners, versus 62% on average across other countries.
For
organizations across the globe looking to invest in observability, a
lack of staff is one of the biggest hindrances in improving
observability. Among respondents, 95% reported challenges in finding staff to monitor and manage infrastructure and application availability, while 81% of enterprises said a lack of staff had led to projects and initiatives failing.
"Organizations
that use the right observability tools and practices and build to
attract talent stand the best chance of becoming leaders in
observability," said Xanthos. "By tackling data volume and variety with
AI, organizations can alleviate staffing concerns, while at the same
time investing in skills training to draw in the very best talent
available. Consolidating vendors and rationalizing tools will also allow
companies to curate the vendor and tool set that gives them the most
visibility with the least drag, lessening the potential for staff
burnout in the process."