Four ways SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability can help governments run better
By SolarWinds
Sascha Giese, Head Geek at US software supplier SolarWinds, explains how observability can alleviate the workloads of IT professionals and drive efficiency.
The lives of IT professionals are reminiscent of this Sisyphean life, as they play a daily game of triage in which they try to catch up with a growing workload and an ever-expanding number of disparate tools to master but never quite get there. Yet despite these hurdles, IT professionals are at the front line of protecting companies’ systems against malicious actors. Their work is even more crucial at government agencies, where a cyberattack can mean the shutdown of a hospital or electrical supply, with potentially devastating consequences.
SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability may provide a solution to this never-ending grind. Simply put, Hybrid Cloud Observability gives organisations a complete overview of all their IT operations, including but not limited to their networks, systems and applications. Sascha Giese, Head Geek at software company SolarWinds, says this can help governments run better.
Understanding the bigger picture
In the past, IT teams used monitoring tools to understand what was happening in their networks or web applications. This method captures and processes volumes of data across an organisation.
Monitoring has its uses – it can display information such as which networks are up, which are down, and which ones have changed. However, one tool focuses only on a specific network, cloud or piece of infrastructure at a time, meaning that it lacks true oversight across the dozens – if not hundreds – of systems and networks modern-day companies utilise. Giese says: “Monitoring tools look for a single strand, not the whole cloth. Consequently, it watches the trees but misses the forest.”
But today’s IT systems are becoming increasingly integrated and more complex; modern IT systems comprise numerous multi-cloud or hybrid environments – both on the cloud and on-premises – interconnected across computing, applications and databases, Giese says. Similarly, as governments push ahead with their digital transformations, with the end goal of creating smart cities, there’s a gigantic amount of data across different systems and services. IT teams must not only monitor that data, but also analyse and act upon it.
Single pane of glass view of entire IT Systems
Giese says monitoring alone can no longer support IT departments in their quest to oversee and analyse the large volumes of data created every second. “Monitoring tools effectively only offer companies and departments a small piece of their overall IT structure,” he says. “Without an overall picture of activity, companies are unable to take action on the latest insight, which can reduce their competitiveness in the market.”
SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability is a natural step up from monitoring, offering companies and governments a single-pane-of-glass view of the performance of their IT systems, areas requiring immediate attention, and actionable insights for their business strategy and customer experience.
“Observability surpasses traditional monitoring by reducing the unnecessary noise capable of bogging down IT teams,” Giese says, adding that this can help alleviate the workload for government organisations, allowing them to focus on citizen engagement and delivering better citizen services.
Reduce downtime and accurately diagnose problems faster
SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability can also help organisations reduce their server downtime. By deploying innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability technology monitors how well IT systems are performing and can swiftly identify any anomalies within the system.
A good example would be a server slowing down and falling below the speed at which it typically operates. AI can identify the program and automatically restart the server in a first attempt to solve the problem. If this fails, Hybrid Cloud Observability would then alert the IT team to take a closer look at the problem.
Another way SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability helps IT professionals is by removing the guesswork from diagnostics and offering problem-solving next steps.
With monitoring, organisations can see only a specific portion of their network. For example, should a healthcare provider experience server issues, its IT department must individually look at each server’s monitoring tool to determine which server might be impacted. And even then, given the complex, interconnected digital world healthcare that providers operate in, it would be unclear whether the server was the root of the problem or a symptom of another issue. Consequently, IT teams spend precious time identifying the actual causes of issues. In certain industries, this can have disastrous consequences.
However, SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability offers enterprises and governments an end-to-end view across networks, applications, servers and more. Through this overarching view, IT departments can swiftly zero in on the causes of problems, saving valuable time not only in identifying the issue but also working more quickly on a remedy.
Automatic routine processes to reduce workforce constraints
Overall, observability helps teams to be more proactive in detecting issues or anomalies, enabling them to rectify problems more quickly and freeing up IT department time from time-consuming troubleshooting, Giese says.
SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability offers full-stack visibility across the entire digital infrastructure. It’s a simple, powerful, secure solution that provides IT teams with valuable, actionable insights. Coupled with AI and machine learning, IT teams in companies and governments can easily configure and set up automated processes to run routine checks and alerts, prepare analytics and reporting, open incident tickets, and ultimately help resolve issues faster. In today’s world of time-pressured IT workforces, this will help free up human resources and accelerates the progress of digital transformation for organisations and governments alike.