*By Alex Camargo
Adopting the approach can be strategic for companies in synergy with the security layer
Organizations that have observability to monitor environments and understand the performance of systems and applications can ensure reliability and efficiency to generate valuable business insights and offer innovative services. In addition to providing visibility into the behavior of applications, it is a process that contributes to decision making based on the transactions that are taking place in operational environments.
Sectors such as finance and retailers were the first to adopt observability solutions and reached maturity, especially in the context of the pandemic, causing an acceleration of digital transformation. Those who did not pay attention to this topic in the past are now looking at it as something strategic, investing intelligently in tools, processes and training. There are companies from all segments, from industry, services, healthcare, insurance, that need it to be competitive in the market. Investment in observability is more than a cost: it is a resource to shield the brand, sell more, have reliability, expand the market share and retain customers.
According to Splunk's annual observability study, which evaluated investment and deployment of observability products, as well as commitment to observability projects in its IT environments, published in the report State of Observability 2023, shows that 87% of respondents now employ experts who work exclusively on observability projects. Overall, observability plans are part of a larger effort among many IT leaders who are working to create more secure networks that can quickly recover from incidents and remediate security threats more quickly.
There are a number of factors that impact whether organizations do not adopt the observability approach. In the new economy, companies make hundreds of changes to their software every minute and this is common. We sleep and wake up with a new version of WhatsApp and this is constant and dynamic.
Today, we use smartphones to, for example, check our bank balance, make a Pix or make an e-commerce purchase. The observability layer monitors these transactions and performance, accompanying the user on this digital journey. And through the insights it provides, we know what revenue is generated at that moment, who is accessing it, which products or services generate the most access in real time.
Observability can also reinforce competitiveness in other areas of the business. An example is a payment method company, in which observability was extended to marketing. If the user tried to make a payment and was unable to do so for some reason, a person from the marketing team would receive that communication and contact them to finalize the purchase, either via WhatsApp or telephone. This company retained the customer in real time and didn't let it go to the competition, thanks to this proactiveness that the solution brings.
The practice not only strengthens the business environment, but also applies to performance in the infrastructure environment, so that applications are more performant and reliable for the speed of user access. A B2B company, which carries out this monitoring work for other companies, in addition to strategically improving the decision-making process in technological operations, impacts the other end of the business model: the end consumer. It’s about following our client’s customer.
One of the main pharmacy chains in Brazil had problems at the POS (point of sale) with the cash system being unavailable, generating queues for payment. Through observability, it was possible to resolve these problems quickly, with operational agility and ensuring good performance, which translates into customer satisfaction. The resource also optimizes people's lives and brings general benefits to the population.
In addition to performance, observability ended up gaining a new pillar: security. In cloud environments, for example, it is necessary to have security parameters within the context of observability, as the cloud brings a series of vulnerabilities: lines of code, exposed credentials and even an open port within a server can represent threats. In this way, the synergy of security with observability provides 360º context: monitoring and visibility, from the beginning to the end of a transaction.
In addition to providing more robustness to technological operations, observability is a fundamental item for innovating and prospering in the future and for the growth and success of businesses, accelerating the digital transformation of companies and providing reliability to the service or product they offer to the end consumer.
* Alex Camargo is CTO at Delfia.
Notice: The opinion presented in this article is the responsibility of its author and not of ABES - Brazilian Association of Software Companies
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