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10 Key Takeaways from the 2022 Observability Forecast

Ishan Mukherjee
New Relic

Earlier this year, New Relic conducted an extensive survey of IT practitioners and decision-makers to understand the current state of observability: the ability to measure how a system is performing and identify issues and errors based on its external outputs. The company surveyed 1,614 IT professionals across 14 countries in North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region. The findings of the 2022 Observability Forecast offer a detailed view of how this practice is shaping engineering and the technologies of the future.


Here are 10 key takeaways from the forecast:

1. Observability improves service-level metrics. Organizations see its value and plan to invest more

Respondents to the New Relic survey plan aggressive observability deployments, with 72% planning to maintain or increase their observability budgets over the next year. More than half expected their budgets to increase, while 20% expect to maintain current spending levels.

2. Most organizations will have robust observability practices in place by 2025

The 2022 Observability Forecast identified 17 observability capabilities that comprise a mature practice. Nearly all respondents expected to deploy key capabilities like network monitoring, security monitoring and log management by 2025. The majority expected to have 88–97% of the 17 capabilities deployed, but just 3% of respondents already maintain all 17 capabilities today.

3. Observability is now a board-level imperative

Tech executives have recognized the value and importance of observability: 73% of respondents reported that their C-suite executives are supporters of observability, and 78% saw observability as a key enabler for achieving core business goals. Furthermore, of those who had mature observability practices by the report's definition, 100% indicated that observability improves revenue retention by deepening their understanding of customer behaviors.

4. For many organizations, large sections of tech stacks are still not being fully observed or monitored

Despite the overall enthusiasm for observability and the fact that most organizations are practicing some form of observability, only 27% of respondents' organizations have achieved full-stack observability as defined in the report. The overall lack of adoption of full-stack observability signals that many organizations have an opportunity to make rapid improvements to their observability practices over the next year.

5. Organizations must tackle fragmentation of data, tools and teams

Many organizations use a patchwork of tools to monitor their technology stacks, requiring extensive manual effort only to gain a fragmented view of IT systems. More than 80% of respondents used four or more observability tools, and a third of respondents had to detect outages manually or from complaints. Just 7% of respondents said their telemetry data is unified in one place, and only 5% had a mature observability practice. Recognizing the challenges of fragmentation, respondents reported the need for simplicity, integration, seamlessness, and more efficient ways to complete high-value projects.

6. Telemetry data is often siloed

Siloed and fragmented data lead to a painful user experience, but slightly more than half (51%) of respondents still have siloed data in their tech stacks. Of those who have entirely siloed data, 77% stated they would prefer a single, consolidated platform. Those who struggle the most to juggle data across different silos long for more simplicity in their observability solutions.

7. There is a strong correlation between full-stack observability and faster mean time to detection (MTTD)

Respondents from organizations that have achieved full-stack observability, as well as those who have already prioritized full-stack observability, were more likely than others to experience the fastest mean time to detect an outage — less than five minutes. The data supports a strong correlation between achieving or prioritizing full-stack observability and a range of performance benefits, including fewer outages, improved outage detection rates, and improved resolution.

8. One of the biggest roadblocks to achieving observability is a failure to understand the benefits

The 2022 Observability Forecast asked respondents to name the biggest challenges preventing full-stack observability. The top responses were a lack of understanding of the benefits of observability and the belief that current IT performance is adequate (28% for each). Other leading roadblocks were a lack of budget (27%) and too many monitoring tools (25%).

9. Despite that, IT professionals recognize the bottom-line benefits of observability

Survey respondents named a wide range of observability benefits. These include improved uptime and reliability (cited by 36% of respondents), increased operational efficiency (35%), proactive detection of issues (33%) and an improved customer experience (33%). Respondents also said that observability improves the lives of engineers and developers, with 34% saying it helped to increase productivity and 32% crediting observability for supporting cross-team collaboration.

10. Organizations expect to need observability for AI, IoT and key business applications

C-suite executives see observability playing a major role in the development of new technologies. More than half of respondents said they would need observability most for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, while 48% mentioned the Internet of Things, 38% cited edge computing, and 36% highlighted blockchain applications. Observability in AI was mentioned across industries, with a majority of respondents in services/consulting (62%), energy/utilities (60%), government (58%) and IT/telco (51%) mentioning the need for observability in their AI projects.

Ishan Mukherjee is SVP of Growth at New Relic

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10 Key Takeaways from the 2022 Observability Forecast

Ishan Mukherjee
New Relic

Earlier this year, New Relic conducted an extensive survey of IT practitioners and decision-makers to understand the current state of observability: the ability to measure how a system is performing and identify issues and errors based on its external outputs. The company surveyed 1,614 IT professionals across 14 countries in North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region. The findings of the 2022 Observability Forecast offer a detailed view of how this practice is shaping engineering and the technologies of the future.


Here are 10 key takeaways from the forecast:

1. Observability improves service-level metrics. Organizations see its value and plan to invest more

Respondents to the New Relic survey plan aggressive observability deployments, with 72% planning to maintain or increase their observability budgets over the next year. More than half expected their budgets to increase, while 20% expect to maintain current spending levels.

2. Most organizations will have robust observability practices in place by 2025

The 2022 Observability Forecast identified 17 observability capabilities that comprise a mature practice. Nearly all respondents expected to deploy key capabilities like network monitoring, security monitoring and log management by 2025. The majority expected to have 88–97% of the 17 capabilities deployed, but just 3% of respondents already maintain all 17 capabilities today.

3. Observability is now a board-level imperative

Tech executives have recognized the value and importance of observability: 73% of respondents reported that their C-suite executives are supporters of observability, and 78% saw observability as a key enabler for achieving core business goals. Furthermore, of those who had mature observability practices by the report's definition, 100% indicated that observability improves revenue retention by deepening their understanding of customer behaviors.

4. For many organizations, large sections of tech stacks are still not being fully observed or monitored

Despite the overall enthusiasm for observability and the fact that most organizations are practicing some form of observability, only 27% of respondents' organizations have achieved full-stack observability as defined in the report. The overall lack of adoption of full-stack observability signals that many organizations have an opportunity to make rapid improvements to their observability practices over the next year.

5. Organizations must tackle fragmentation of data, tools and teams

Many organizations use a patchwork of tools to monitor their technology stacks, requiring extensive manual effort only to gain a fragmented view of IT systems. More than 80% of respondents used four or more observability tools, and a third of respondents had to detect outages manually or from complaints. Just 7% of respondents said their telemetry data is unified in one place, and only 5% had a mature observability practice. Recognizing the challenges of fragmentation, respondents reported the need for simplicity, integration, seamlessness, and more efficient ways to complete high-value projects.

6. Telemetry data is often siloed

Siloed and fragmented data lead to a painful user experience, but slightly more than half (51%) of respondents still have siloed data in their tech stacks. Of those who have entirely siloed data, 77% stated they would prefer a single, consolidated platform. Those who struggle the most to juggle data across different silos long for more simplicity in their observability solutions.

7. There is a strong correlation between full-stack observability and faster mean time to detection (MTTD)

Respondents from organizations that have achieved full-stack observability, as well as those who have already prioritized full-stack observability, were more likely than others to experience the fastest mean time to detect an outage — less than five minutes. The data supports a strong correlation between achieving or prioritizing full-stack observability and a range of performance benefits, including fewer outages, improved outage detection rates, and improved resolution.

8. One of the biggest roadblocks to achieving observability is a failure to understand the benefits

The 2022 Observability Forecast asked respondents to name the biggest challenges preventing full-stack observability. The top responses were a lack of understanding of the benefits of observability and the belief that current IT performance is adequate (28% for each). Other leading roadblocks were a lack of budget (27%) and too many monitoring tools (25%).

9. Despite that, IT professionals recognize the bottom-line benefits of observability

Survey respondents named a wide range of observability benefits. These include improved uptime and reliability (cited by 36% of respondents), increased operational efficiency (35%), proactive detection of issues (33%) and an improved customer experience (33%). Respondents also said that observability improves the lives of engineers and developers, with 34% saying it helped to increase productivity and 32% crediting observability for supporting cross-team collaboration.

10. Organizations expect to need observability for AI, IoT and key business applications

C-suite executives see observability playing a major role in the development of new technologies. More than half of respondents said they would need observability most for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, while 48% mentioned the Internet of Things, 38% cited edge computing, and 36% highlighted blockchain applications. Observability in AI was mentioned across industries, with a majority of respondents in services/consulting (62%), energy/utilities (60%), government (58%) and IT/telco (51%) mentioning the need for observability in their AI projects.

Ishan Mukherjee is SVP of Growth at New Relic

Hot Topics

The Latest

Artificial intelligence (AI) is core to observability practices, with some 41% of respondents reporting AI adoption as a core driver of observability, according to the State of Observability for Financial Services and Insurance report from New Relic ...

Application performance monitoring (APM) is a game of catching up — building dashboards, setting thresholds, tuning alerts, and manually correlating metrics to root causes. In the early days, this straightforward model worked as applications were simpler, stacks more predictable, and telemetry was manageable. Today, the landscape has shifted, and more assertive tools are needed ...

Cloud adoption has accelerated, but backup strategies haven't always kept pace. Many organizations continue to rely on backup strategies that were either lifted directly from on-prem environments or use cloud-native tools in limited, DR-focused ways ... Eon uncovered a handful of critical gaps regarding how organizations approach cloud backup. To capture these prevailing winds, we gathered insights from 150+ IT and cloud leaders at the recent Google Cloud Next conference, which we've compiled into the 2025 State of Cloud Data Backup ...

Private clouds are no longer playing catch-up, and public clouds are no longer the default as organizations recalibrate their cloud strategies, according to the Private Cloud Outlook 2025 report from Broadcom. More than half (53%) of survey respondents say private cloud is their top priority for deploying new workloads over the next three years, while 69% are considering workload repatriation from public to private cloud, with one-third having already done so ...

As organizations chase productivity gains from generative AI, teams are overwhelmingly focused on improving delivery speed (45%) over enhancing software quality (13%), according to the Quality Transformation Report from Tricentis ...

Back in March of this year ... MongoDB's stock price took a serious tumble ... In my opinion, it reflects a deeper structural issue in enterprise software economics altogether — vendor lock-in ...

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 15, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses Do-It-Yourself Network Automation ... 

Zero-day vulnerabilities — security flaws that are exploited before developers even know they exist — pose one of the greatest risks to modern organizations. Recently, such vulnerabilities have been discovered in well-known VPN systems like Ivanti and Fortinet, highlighting just how outdated these legacy technologies have become in defending against fast-evolving cyber threats ... To protect digital assets and remote workers in today's environment, companies need more than patchwork solutions. They need architecture that is secure by design ...

Traditional observability requires users to leap across different platforms or tools for metrics, logs, or traces and related issues manually, which is very time-consuming, so as to reasonably ascertain the root cause. Observability 2.0 fixes this by unifying all telemetry data, logs, metrics, and traces into a single, context-rich pipeline that flows into one smart platform. But this is far from just having a bunch of additional data; this data is actionable, predictive, and tied to revenue realization ...

64% of enterprise networking teams use internally developed software or scripts for network automation, but 61% of those teams spend six or more hours per week debugging and maintaining them, according to From Scripts to Platforms: Why Homegrown Tools Dominate Network Automation and How Vendors Can Help, my latest EMA report ...