Skip to main content

The Necessary Shift from Monitoring to True Network Clarity: How Does Observability Help?

Sandhya Saravanan
ManageEngine

Ever struggled to pinpoint the root cause of a network slowdown? Frustrated by alerts that only notify you when something is broken, without explaining why? You're not alone. Traditional network monitoring, while valuable, often falls short in providing the context needed to truly understand network behavior. This is where observability shines. In this blog, we'll compare and contrast traditional network monitoring and observability — highlighting the benefits of this evolving approach.

Traditional monitoring

Imagine your network is a busy highway: For monitoring, it has a few security check points and traffic cameras. This arrangement will tell you how many vehicles are on the road, and if there's any pileup on the highway or if any major network traffic congestion is noticed, an alarm goes off highlighting the issue. From this alarm, you know that something's wrong on the highway, but you have no way of knowing what it is. It could be anything from a simple traffic jam to a major accident. Figuring out the exact cause of the alarm and the resulting traffic slowdown with the help of cameras can be time-consuming.

Traditional network monitoring will tell you what's happening and nothing more.

Observability

Now, imagine instead of just a few traffic cameras, you have a comprehensive system monitoring the entire city. This system doesn't just count cars at intersections; it tracks individual vehicles, their routes, and even the weather conditions. This system is also aware of the road closures, construction, and events happening throughout the city. This is observability. It utilizes data to comprehend the reasons behind traffic patterns. In the event of congestion, the system can swiftly identify the root cause, such as a stalled vehicle on the side of a road before the congestion escalates. Observability can anticipate potential issues by detecting unusual trends, like a sudden surge in traffic in a specific location. Therefore, instead of simply reacting to a traffic jam, you can proactively tackle the underlying issues and ensure a smooth traffic flow.

Observability gives you the full picture and helps you understand why things are happening, not just what is happening.

Similarity between monitoring and observability

The only similarity between traditional monitoring and observability remains a shared goal: to gain insights into the health, performance, and behavior of a system. Both approaches are fundamentally data-driven, relying on the collection and analysis of stats like metrics, logs, and traces to understand what's happening within the system. Ultimately, the insights gained from both methods help with proactive issue detection, troubleshooting, resource allocation decisions, and more, even though the methods of investigation differ.

The bottom line is traditional monitoring focuses only on specific areas while observability involves a more comprehensive approach.

This table can best explain the difference between traditional monitoring and observability and where the former falls short:

Image
ManageEngine

 

The crucial role of observability in IT infrastructure

The evolution in IT management and observability is a response to the increasing complexity of modern networks, where traditional tools often don't have what it takes. Embracing observability gives IT admins a more comprehensive understanding of their network, leading to improved performance, faster troubleshooting, and a better user experience.

Here are some of the perks that comes with incorporating observability to improve business operations:

  • Proactive issue detection and improved user experience
  • Dynamic adaptation in cloud-native environments
  • Adopting modern application architectures
  • Log-based threat detection

Proactive issue detection and improved user experience

  • With observability, you can identify issues in real-time and quicken issue remediation.
  • A fully observable network is crucial for ensuring services operate as expected and maintaining critical SLAs.
  • Develop and implement comprehensive observability strategies for highly resilient applications, incorporating end-user application performance monitoring with the appropriate tools to guarantee customer satisfaction.

Dynamic adaptation in cloud-native environments

  • Due to the dynamic and distributed nature of cloud-native microservice environments, observability is the only way to achieve comprehensive visibility, enabling analysis of how, when, and where problems occur.
  • Observability facilitates resource mapping within IT architectures, enabling interconnected functionality and streamlining automated application deployments.
  • Use root cause analysis to pinpoint the location and cause of failures in a distributed application and implement the necessary fixes.

Adopting modern application architectures

  • Observability helps simplify application quality control during modernization and legacy transformation.
  • Benchmark performance, analyze behavior, and manage application-level configurations.
  • Achieve comprehensive visibility into application performance and availability, enabling efficient detection, troubleshooting, and root cause analysis of application issues.

Log-based threat detection:

  • Utilize threat detection techniques to anticipate and address potential application performance interruptions, including pinpointing the root cause of errors.
  • Use observability for continuous feedback via logs and reports, and leverage ML to predict potential issues.

Observability's true power lies in its ability to predict issues, understand the impact of changes, and provide solutions.

ManageEngine OpManager Plus comes with a pragmatic approach to observability, utilizing the power of AI and ML. By utilizing the data acquired from different network management tools, OpManager Plus offers a comprehensive observability solution. OpManager Plus delivers a comprehensive platform for system and application observability with built-in capabilities for network monitoring, bandwidth and configuration management, firewall analysis, and application performance tracking. Do you want to know how well this observability solution can work for you? Try OpManager Plus today! Leverage our 30-day free trial or book a personalized demo with our product experts to experience the power of OpManager Plus firsthand.

Sandhya Saravanan is a Product Marketer at ManageEngine

The Latest

From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...

Today, organizations are generating and processing more data than ever before. From training AI models to running complex analytics, massive datasets have become the backbone of innovation. However, as businesses embrace the cloud for its scalability and flexibility, a new challenge arises: managing the soaring costs of storing and processing this data ...

Despite the frustrations, every engineer we spoke with ultimately affirmed the value and power of OpenTelemetry. The "sucks" moments are often the flip side of its greatest strengths ... Part 2 of this blog covers the powerful advantages and breakthroughs — the "OTel Rocks" moments ...

OpenTelemetry (OTel) arrived with a grand promise: a unified, vendor-neutral standard for observability data (traces, metrics, logs) that would free engineers from vendor lock-in and provide deeper insights into complex systems ... No powerful technology comes without its challenges, and OpenTelemetry is no exception. The engineers we spoke with were frank about the friction points they've encountered ...

Enterprises are turning to AI-powered software platforms to make IT management more intelligent and ensure their systems and technology meet business needs for efficiency, lowers costs and innovation, according to new research from Information Services Group ...

The power of Kubernetes lies in its ability to orchestrate containerized applications with unparalleled efficiency. Yet, this power comes at a cost: the dynamic, distributed, and ephemeral nature of its architecture creates a monitoring challenge akin to tracking a constantly shifting, interconnected network of fleeting entities ... Due to the dynamic and complex nature of Kubernetes, monitoring poses a substantial challenge for DevOps and platform engineers. Here are the primary obstacles ...

The perception of IT has undergone a remarkable transformation in recent years. What was once viewed primarily as a cost center has transformed into a pivotal force driving business innovation and market leadership ... As someone who has witnessed and helped drive this evolution, it's become clear to me that the most successful organizations share a common thread: they've mastered the art of leveraging IT advancements to achieve measurable business outcomes ...

More than half (51%) of companies are already leveraging AI agents, according to the PagerDuty Agentic AI Survey. Agentic AI adoption is poised to accelerate faster than generative AI (GenAI) while reshaping automation and decision-making across industries ...

Image
Pagerduty

 

Real privacy protection thanks to technology and processes is often portrayed as too hard and too costly to implement. So the most common strategy is to do as little as possible just to conform to formal requirements of current and incoming regulations. This is a missed opportunity ...

The expanding use of AI is driving enterprise interest in data operations (DataOps) to orchestrate data integration and processing and improve data quality and validity, according to a new report from Information Services Group (ISG) ...

The Necessary Shift from Monitoring to True Network Clarity: How Does Observability Help?

Sandhya Saravanan
ManageEngine

Ever struggled to pinpoint the root cause of a network slowdown? Frustrated by alerts that only notify you when something is broken, without explaining why? You're not alone. Traditional network monitoring, while valuable, often falls short in providing the context needed to truly understand network behavior. This is where observability shines. In this blog, we'll compare and contrast traditional network monitoring and observability — highlighting the benefits of this evolving approach.

Traditional monitoring

Imagine your network is a busy highway: For monitoring, it has a few security check points and traffic cameras. This arrangement will tell you how many vehicles are on the road, and if there's any pileup on the highway or if any major network traffic congestion is noticed, an alarm goes off highlighting the issue. From this alarm, you know that something's wrong on the highway, but you have no way of knowing what it is. It could be anything from a simple traffic jam to a major accident. Figuring out the exact cause of the alarm and the resulting traffic slowdown with the help of cameras can be time-consuming.

Traditional network monitoring will tell you what's happening and nothing more.

Observability

Now, imagine instead of just a few traffic cameras, you have a comprehensive system monitoring the entire city. This system doesn't just count cars at intersections; it tracks individual vehicles, their routes, and even the weather conditions. This system is also aware of the road closures, construction, and events happening throughout the city. This is observability. It utilizes data to comprehend the reasons behind traffic patterns. In the event of congestion, the system can swiftly identify the root cause, such as a stalled vehicle on the side of a road before the congestion escalates. Observability can anticipate potential issues by detecting unusual trends, like a sudden surge in traffic in a specific location. Therefore, instead of simply reacting to a traffic jam, you can proactively tackle the underlying issues and ensure a smooth traffic flow.

Observability gives you the full picture and helps you understand why things are happening, not just what is happening.

Similarity between monitoring and observability

The only similarity between traditional monitoring and observability remains a shared goal: to gain insights into the health, performance, and behavior of a system. Both approaches are fundamentally data-driven, relying on the collection and analysis of stats like metrics, logs, and traces to understand what's happening within the system. Ultimately, the insights gained from both methods help with proactive issue detection, troubleshooting, resource allocation decisions, and more, even though the methods of investigation differ.

The bottom line is traditional monitoring focuses only on specific areas while observability involves a more comprehensive approach.

This table can best explain the difference between traditional monitoring and observability and where the former falls short:

Image
ManageEngine

 

The crucial role of observability in IT infrastructure

The evolution in IT management and observability is a response to the increasing complexity of modern networks, where traditional tools often don't have what it takes. Embracing observability gives IT admins a more comprehensive understanding of their network, leading to improved performance, faster troubleshooting, and a better user experience.

Here are some of the perks that comes with incorporating observability to improve business operations:

  • Proactive issue detection and improved user experience
  • Dynamic adaptation in cloud-native environments
  • Adopting modern application architectures
  • Log-based threat detection

Proactive issue detection and improved user experience

  • With observability, you can identify issues in real-time and quicken issue remediation.
  • A fully observable network is crucial for ensuring services operate as expected and maintaining critical SLAs.
  • Develop and implement comprehensive observability strategies for highly resilient applications, incorporating end-user application performance monitoring with the appropriate tools to guarantee customer satisfaction.

Dynamic adaptation in cloud-native environments

  • Due to the dynamic and distributed nature of cloud-native microservice environments, observability is the only way to achieve comprehensive visibility, enabling analysis of how, when, and where problems occur.
  • Observability facilitates resource mapping within IT architectures, enabling interconnected functionality and streamlining automated application deployments.
  • Use root cause analysis to pinpoint the location and cause of failures in a distributed application and implement the necessary fixes.

Adopting modern application architectures

  • Observability helps simplify application quality control during modernization and legacy transformation.
  • Benchmark performance, analyze behavior, and manage application-level configurations.
  • Achieve comprehensive visibility into application performance and availability, enabling efficient detection, troubleshooting, and root cause analysis of application issues.

Log-based threat detection:

  • Utilize threat detection techniques to anticipate and address potential application performance interruptions, including pinpointing the root cause of errors.
  • Use observability for continuous feedback via logs and reports, and leverage ML to predict potential issues.

Observability's true power lies in its ability to predict issues, understand the impact of changes, and provide solutions.

ManageEngine OpManager Plus comes with a pragmatic approach to observability, utilizing the power of AI and ML. By utilizing the data acquired from different network management tools, OpManager Plus offers a comprehensive observability solution. OpManager Plus delivers a comprehensive platform for system and application observability with built-in capabilities for network monitoring, bandwidth and configuration management, firewall analysis, and application performance tracking. Do you want to know how well this observability solution can work for you? Try OpManager Plus today! Leverage our 30-day free trial or book a personalized demo with our product experts to experience the power of OpManager Plus firsthand.

Sandhya Saravanan is a Product Marketer at ManageEngine

The Latest

From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...

Today, organizations are generating and processing more data than ever before. From training AI models to running complex analytics, massive datasets have become the backbone of innovation. However, as businesses embrace the cloud for its scalability and flexibility, a new challenge arises: managing the soaring costs of storing and processing this data ...

Despite the frustrations, every engineer we spoke with ultimately affirmed the value and power of OpenTelemetry. The "sucks" moments are often the flip side of its greatest strengths ... Part 2 of this blog covers the powerful advantages and breakthroughs — the "OTel Rocks" moments ...

OpenTelemetry (OTel) arrived with a grand promise: a unified, vendor-neutral standard for observability data (traces, metrics, logs) that would free engineers from vendor lock-in and provide deeper insights into complex systems ... No powerful technology comes without its challenges, and OpenTelemetry is no exception. The engineers we spoke with were frank about the friction points they've encountered ...

Enterprises are turning to AI-powered software platforms to make IT management more intelligent and ensure their systems and technology meet business needs for efficiency, lowers costs and innovation, according to new research from Information Services Group ...

The power of Kubernetes lies in its ability to orchestrate containerized applications with unparalleled efficiency. Yet, this power comes at a cost: the dynamic, distributed, and ephemeral nature of its architecture creates a monitoring challenge akin to tracking a constantly shifting, interconnected network of fleeting entities ... Due to the dynamic and complex nature of Kubernetes, monitoring poses a substantial challenge for DevOps and platform engineers. Here are the primary obstacles ...

The perception of IT has undergone a remarkable transformation in recent years. What was once viewed primarily as a cost center has transformed into a pivotal force driving business innovation and market leadership ... As someone who has witnessed and helped drive this evolution, it's become clear to me that the most successful organizations share a common thread: they've mastered the art of leveraging IT advancements to achieve measurable business outcomes ...

More than half (51%) of companies are already leveraging AI agents, according to the PagerDuty Agentic AI Survey. Agentic AI adoption is poised to accelerate faster than generative AI (GenAI) while reshaping automation and decision-making across industries ...

Image
Pagerduty

 

Real privacy protection thanks to technology and processes is often portrayed as too hard and too costly to implement. So the most common strategy is to do as little as possible just to conform to formal requirements of current and incoming regulations. This is a missed opportunity ...

The expanding use of AI is driving enterprise interest in data operations (DataOps) to orchestrate data integration and processing and improve data quality and validity, according to a new report from Information Services Group (ISG) ...