How Full-Stack Observability Can Improve Your Digital Business Performance
Category:
Insights
Date:
August 6, 2021
If you know the business landscape today, chances are you probably won't know it tomorrow. Technology is advancing at such a rapid rate that the way we do business changes every day.
IT engineers and software developers are constantly working at a frantic pace to keep up with the way technology is changing. How we handle the ever-changing business landscape is a question that's on millions of companies' minds.
One way businesses are adapting their IT infrastructure is through full-stack observability (FSO). Having the ability to see things from this perspective really helps teams to improve digital business performance.
But, what is full-stack observability? How do we put it to work for our teams in our everyday businesses? Well, today we're going to go over exactly that.
We'll cover exactly what full-stack observability is, how it can help you, and some tips for implementing it with your IT team.
Full-stack observability is the ability to monitor processes across a full technology stack. This means everything from apps, software-defined computing, storage, networking, and other services, bringing together the digital technologies of your business.
The advantage of being able to view technology across a full-stack is the in-depth insights it can provide you and your team. Viewing your team's technology in this way enables you to keep an eye on your system's health, behaviour, and performance.
Companies can use high-quality telemetry to view a large amount of data across platforms. They can easily synthesise metrics, events, and logs to help their business perform at its best. IT teams can even monitor the performance of certain applications and adapt them to desired business goals and outcomes.
So, we know what full-stack observability is, but how can it help you in your everyday operations?
There are several benefits you get from being able to view your digital presence across your entire IT estate. Let's dive into some below.
In many businesses, delivering what's needed requires several teams working together. Each leg of your delivery chain can wind up being its own organism. Different teams need different tools and they all access different parts of the cloud in varying ways.
The individual needs of each team may not translate from one team to another. This causes each of your teams to work "in a silo". Teams working with their heads down in this way can be very productive but it's easy for them to lose sight of the bigger picture.
Full-stack observability can change all that. By having your entire IT infrastructure visible to your teams, you can create a framework that unifies your team. Everyone will be able to view and work on a common "picture" of your app deliverables. Now your teams can work together toward one common goal.
Improving collaboration and streamlining processes allows teams to ‘see the finish line’, making it much easier for employees to help their co-workers get the job done.
Once you and your team are staring at the broader picture that full-stack observability can provide, blind spots will disappear. All of your application's important logs and metrics can be distilled down into one, singular digital presence.
Your IT team will have a better understanding of your connectivity, app's performance, health, and dependencies. Even the dependencies that are outside your team's control.
It's easy for things to fall through the cracks when you have to monitor several digital platforms to synthesise information about app performance. Now, all of that can be monitored in one place; a unified platform. This allows for quick, intelligent decisions that help you and your team keep pace with the modern business world.
When you're dealing with a large and complex IT infrastructure, there are going to be bugs. It's inevitable. The key is identifying which bugs take top priority and which ones can be worked out at a later date without harming the business.
When your IT team is working as a bunch of smaller, disconnected teams, it becomes difficult to spot which issues are big and which are small. If all of your teams are operating separately, it becomes difficult to identify which issues are affecting specific metrics.
A full-stack observability framework allows you and your team to view app, network and infrastructure performance as it relates to business goals. Doing so allows your team to quickly identify what to fix first and what can wait.
Thanks to the insights gained from full-stack observability, your team can focus on keeping customer loyalty and company revenue at their highest.
The traditional way of monitoring digital presence causes teams to treat problems reactively. This can be costly when it comes to your IT and data systems. You and your team need to focus on proactive management of your IT issues.
Managing reactively can cause "organised chaos" within your team. They will constantly be scrambling to identify and fix problems before they end up affecting your end-users. And this is definitely something you want to avoid. Delivering poor user experiences can damage brand loyalty and ultimately impact business outcomes.
When using a full-stack observability framework, teams can leverage AI and machine-learning to take a more proactive approach to problems before they arise. Problems can be tracked, diagnosed and fixed on the front end.
The result? Your IT issues are resolved quickly and quietly. And your employees and customers are both none the wiser.
Storage, network, and data needs are some of the biggest expenses your IT department will incur. Being able to minimise those costs is the "holy grail" of digital presence management.
But, how do you do it? Well, your full-stack observability framework will get you as close to a crystal ball as possible.
Using full-stack observability solutions, you can begin to accurately predict the needs of your app ecosystem. You and your team can determine how much storage, data, and computing resources your app needs and when.
These FSO tools are even up to the task if your business has seasonal changes in demand. They do this by allowing you and your team to model potential scenarios in your business.
The tools full-stack observability provides allow you to analyse these "what-if" scenarios and decide on how to allocate resources. The real power is that all of this forecasting can happen in real-time.
Being able to plan for any eventuality using the full-stack observability tools helps to prepare your team for whatever's next. They can plan to minimise infrastructure costs and maximise your profitability.
As time goes on, your team will grow. As your team grows, so will your technology stack. The challenge of having a bigger stack is that the growth comes with increased vulnerabilities to your system.
The goal of your team should be to identify and limit vulnerabilities before they become too big to control. Big systems leave areas open to hackers. And when your system is big, a data breach can become monumental.
Using a full-stack observability solution allows you to bring your app operations and security operations teams together on one platform. Having your teams working together within the same framework allows security issues to be addressed almost instantly.
Think about the safety you can offer your end-users when issues are resolved in seconds instead of weeks.
For many teams, applications are their business. However, business teams and app teams tend to work separately under the traditional framework. The result is that important decisions tend to be made without input from other teams within the company.
This can cause a lot of redundancy, unnecessary purchases, and wasted resources. With full-stack observability, IT and business teams can avoid this problem.
When you can link app performance to specific business goals and outcomes, it brings everybody together "under the same roof". Now, all of the stakeholders and team members from a variety of departments can work together on the big picture.
Seeing your business through the eyes of a full-stack observability solution allows you and your team to reach new heights. From security to cost optimisation to profitability, managing your entire digital presence will only improve your business.
If you have any more questions about full-stack observability or other IT solutions for your business, contact us today. We’d love to help and are excited to talk with you about a business solution that's perfect for you.
