How to optimise your observability for ITOps with synthetic monitoring
What is Observability?
Let's take a moment to think about the average company's data infrastructure. There are age-old legacy systems, modernised cloud platforms, loads of Kubernetes containers, and a variety of microservices and interconnected open-source components. In other words, things are really, really complicated. Now, let's add a dash of pressure to the pot. Since 2020, over 80 percent of customer interactions have become digitised. And virtually every business is pursuing more intense digital transformation initiatives. The complexity is spiraling.
This brings up a question. How do you monitor your architecture across all of these systems? Better yet, how do you bridge all of these divergent pieces of digital real estate together to create one holistic window into your IT operations? Observability refers to your IT team's ability to "observe" and monitor interactions across all of these different systems and cloud environments. Typically, this is done through one (or all) of the five core pillars of observability:
- Monitoring
- Logging
- Tracing
- Analytics
- Alerting
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Your IT team is the glue that holds your digital enterprise together. Every new piece of technology you throw in the seemingly never-ending pit of digital transformation is diligently and swiftly maintained and monitored by your IT department. But what happens when the pit starts to fill up?
Unfortunately, most IT teams are sandwiched between the ever-enticing call of "complete digital transformation" and the very real technical and strategic issues that pop up in fast-paced digital ecosystems. Crippling complexity, overwhelming data streams, and confusing data architectures surround every attempt to modernize. And something as simple as observability can feel almost impossible in today's sprawling tech architecture.
Luckily, there's a way out. ITOps can help your company regain control and visibility over your gargantuan tech stack. And it's easier to implement than you probably think.
What is ITOps?
ITOps is how your IT team monitors and maintains IT architecture. So, in short: ITOps is observability meets maintenance. Typically, this is done through daily routines, established workflows, and standardised processes. Easy enough, right? Well... yes. But it gets a little complicated. IT is in a tough spot. According to McKinsey's recent IT survey, very few business leaders believe that IT makes "meaningful contributions in areas that promote strong business performance."
It makes sense. Trying to monitor and maintain IT architecture isn't easy when that architecture is massive, bulky, and sprawling out across all these disparate systems. Luckily, ITOps is less about its definition and more about how that definition is executed in practice.
Let's be honest: navigating the alphabet soup of tech acronyms can feel a little... daunting. Somewhere between DevOps, SCRUM, DevSecOps, and agile, you may have gotten a little confused, a little lost, and a little exhausted of the term "ops." But ITOps isn't a trendy new buzzword. It's actually been around for, well... five(ish) decades. It's just gone through a few changes.
Wait... What Was ITOps?
Let's step into the time machine. Back in the 1980s, The British Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) developed the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), which was essentially a handbook of best practices for IT. In a later edition of ITIL, we find the firm mention of ITOps. But, the ITOps of the past isn't really relevant anymore.
Yes. The definition is the same. ITOps seeks to monitor and maintain IT architecture. But you can't do that using the rigid, inflexible, and archaic methodologies of the past. Does it really make sense to provision a monitoring solution for every piece of new tech you implement? Can you really afford to spend hours on repetitive simple monitoring tasks? And do you have the resources and staff to put hyper-specialised individuals into every corner of your IT department?
Probably not. But that's ok.
Where Are We Today?
Today, ITOps is less about "tickets" and more about agility. You need best-in-class technology that enables your IT teams to modernise. This means automation, hybrid tools, and more holistic employee-technology relationships. The goal of ITOps is to create better experiences for users, customers, employees, and the IT staff themselves. And this is something we can help with.
The Link Between Monitoring, Observability, and ITOps
ITOps is intrinsically connected to observability. For IT teams to maintain their sprawling data ecosystem, they need to be able to account for it at scale. And to account for that architecture at scale, you need a way to monitor your apps and solutions. So, we arrive at the crux of the issue. Most IT teams fail to monitor apps effectively — because they simply don't have the tools to monitor across all of these various environments at once in an easy and effective manner.
In fact, 74 percent of IT leaders believe that "gaining observability" into their data architecture is their single biggest challenge this year. It's not easy.
That's why we built 2 Steps.
Not only is 2 Steps capable of automating monitoring through intelligent, no-code scripts, but our solution was custom-built to handle any (yes, any) environment. Need to monitor a bunch of hybrid apps, cloud apps, mobile apps, virtual apps, and web apps? Sure thing! Your IT team can use 2 Steps to connect to apps across all of these incredible environments in seconds.
To help expedite IT workflows, we also integrated our product directly with Splunk. Your team can simply use the Splunk dashboard to initiate 2 Steps monitoring, view results, watch replay videos, and create actionable changes.
Don't let your IT department lag behind your derv and ops teams. You can't build truly groundbreaking technologies without the ability to maintain and monitor them at scale. 2 Steps enables ITOps, DevOps, and DevSecOps.
Are You Ready to Embrace The Future of Ops?
Transforming your IT team into an agile force capable of monitoring solutions across ecosystems isn't just important for your technology; it's crucial for your business. Luckily, transforming IT doesn't always require a five-year, mid-horizon strategy. According to McKinsey, agile IT approaches can boost productivity by 30 percent within six months.
At 2 Steps, we're bridging gaps between IT, agile workflows, and digital transformation. To learn how 2 Steps can help you embrace ITOps, contact us today at sales@2steps.io or book a meeting. Let's rethink monitoring in the hyper-digital age: together.
