Introduction
The Futurum Group is excited to announce our latest research in our Futurum Intelligence Platform focused on observability. The purpose of our survey is to explore the nuances of application development, deployment practices, and the pivotal roles of observability and artificial intelligence for IT operations (AIOps) focused on Day 2 operations. With a comprehensive breakdown into four distinct sections, our survey highlights a thorough understanding of organizational methodologies and hurdles encountered during the crucial phase of transitioning applications from development to deployment.
To gauge the influence across organizations, The Futurum Group conducted a global survey encompassing insights from over 800 professionals in the IT, application development, and DevOps/platform engineering domains. The survey specifically targeted individuals involved in the landscape of application environments across various deployment models, including software as a service (SaaS), public cloud infrastructure services (IaaS and PaaS), colocation facilities, data centers, and edge locations. These respondents were responsible for evaluating, purchasing, managing, and building application infrastructure, as well as influencing decisions within their enterprises or providing consulting and integration services related to application development environments and monitoring practices.
Purpose of This Observability Survey
As mentioned earlier, the primary objective of this study is to gather comprehensive insights into how organizations navigate the intricate landscape of application development and deployment, with a particular focus on the integration of observability and AIOps. By delving into organizations’ monitoring and observability strategies, we aim to uncover the diverse array of tools and methodologies employed across various deployment environments. Furthermore, this research seeks to investigate the strategies utilized by teams to tackle complex issues at different layers of the application stack, shedding light on the approaches adopted to ensure optimal performance and reliability. Additionally, we aim to identify organizations’ foremost priorities concerning IT monitoring and observability strategies, providing valuable insights into the key areas of focus for enhancing operational efficiency and performance. Finally, this study endeavors to unveil the monitoring or observability tools employed in production application environments to gain an understanding of the technological landscape and industry trends in this domain.
Preliminary Results
The survey revealed that a significant portion of respondents, 55% of them, deem the increased adoption and prioritization of IT automation or AIOps as crucial for meeting organizational requirements in accelerating operations. Furthermore, insights into revenue tie-ups with internally developed or custom applications indicate that 40% of organizations associate 26% to 50% of their revenue with such applications. In terms of observability tools, a majority of respondents, at 52%, utilize between 6 to 10 tools on average to gather data from their application environments.
Strategically, the majority of respondents, totaling 54%, opt for a focused approach, seeking to provide the best insights for a set of high-value applications while exerting best efforts on the remaining applications and infrastructure. Moreover, a significant 60% prioritize providing real-time insights into application and infrastructure environments to ensure compliance with service level agreements (SLAs) and performance commitments. The inclusion of internally developed employee experience apps in IT monitoring and observability practices is prevalent among 62% of respondents.
Regarding deployment, 70% of respondents utilize IT monitoring and observability in public cloud infrastructure services, indicating a significant reliance on cloud-based solutions. Additionally, 17% of respondents monitor 21% to 40% of their production applications running on containers or serverless environments. Native on-premises infrastructure tools and application capabilities are still prevalent among 61% of respondents, although third-party tools are favored for cloud and log monitoring by 67% of users.
Furthermore, a majority, constituting 81%, highlight the role of IT operations teams in leveraging observability tools, while 63% emphasize the essential role of IT monitoring and observability aligned with DevOps principles and practices. Accelerated time-to-problem detection is deemed highly impactful by 34% of respondents, indicating a focus on enhancing operational efficiency. Looking ahead, 39% of respondents plan to expand their monitoring and observability practices within the next 6 months, with a key decision criterion being the ability to optimize application performance. Additionally, internal processes and efficiency improvement are cited as significant factors influencing the decision to purchase additional observability tools in the next 12 months, demonstrating a holistic approach to enhancing organizational capabilities.
The Futurum Group, based on extensive research findings, recommends strategic initiatives to effectively utilize observability and enhance operational excellence in contemporary digital infrastructures. First, organizations are urged to align monitoring and observability strategies with DevOps principles. This alignment fosters collaboration, automation, and continuous feedback loops among development, operations, and quality assurance teams, facilitating faster delivery of high-quality software and services while minimizing risks and disruptions. Embracing DevOps principles ensures observability becomes integral to the software development lifecycle, empowering teams to proactively identify, address, and prevent issues before they affect end users.
To maintain a competitive edge, organizations should prioritize the acceleration of problem detection by investing in advanced monitoring tools within the next 6 to 12 months. By deploying cutting-edge observability solutions equipped with real-time monitoring, anomaly detection, and predictive analytics capabilities, organizations can swiftly identify and mitigate performance bottlenecks, security threats, and service disruptions. Such investments enhance incident response capabilities, reduce downtime, and uphold high levels of service availability and reliability.
Another critical aspect of effective observability utilization involves improving internal processes and including IT operations teams in the selection and implementation of monitoring tools. Collaboration between IT operations, development, and business stakeholders ensures observability initiatives align closely with organizational goals, priorities, and requirements. Involving IT operations teams in decision-making empowers them to select observability solutions that address their specific needs and operational challenges, maximizing the value and effectiveness of monitoring investments. Additionally, leveraging real-time insights and adopting hybrid monitoring approaches enable organizations to meet SLAs and optimize application performance in dynamic digital environments, ensuring consistent service delivery and enhancing customer satisfaction.
Next Steps — Let’s Discuss
Observability practices in many organizations is in its infancy. The data we found in this survey provides insights into how organizations are leveraging monitoring, alerting, logging, tracing, and taking action to resolve any issues with AI and other tool sets. If this is interesting to you, let’s set up some time and I can share my key findings from our survey and discuss how this data might impact your organization’s views on the observability market.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
Other Insights from The Futurum Group:
Chronosphere Partners with CrowdStrike and Acquires Calyptia
LogicMonitor: Advancing Observability in the Evolving Digital Landscape
Empowering Digital Business with New Relic’s Pathpoint Observability
Author Information
With over 25 years of experience, Paul has a proven track record in implementing effective go-to-market strategies, including the identification of new market channels, the growth and cultivation of partner ecosystems, and the successful execution of strategic plans resulting in positive business outcomes for his clients.
