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Network Observability vs. DevOps Observability

Shamus McGillicuddy

If you work in an IT organization, you've likely heard the term "observability" lately. If you're a DevOps pro, you probably know exactly what vendors are talking about when they use the term. If you're a NetOps pro, you might be scratching your head.

DevOps Knows Observability

The DevOps community is very familiar with the observability concept. It refers to the ability to understand the internal state of a system by measuring its external outputs. In DevOps, the system is the application, and the outputs are metrics, logs, and traces. DevOps pros know how to navigate messaging from application performance management and cloud monitoring vendors to find solutions that can deliver the observability they need.

More recently, network monitoring vendors have started talking about network observability. Here is where things get fuzzy. In my opinion, DevOps observability and network observability are not interchangeable. Why would they be?

DevOps teams want to understand the state of applications and the infrastructure on which they reside. NetOps teams need to understand a much larger universe of networks, from the cloud to the user edge.

Both DevOps observability and network observability refer to the need to understand the internal state of a system, but that need to understand is only a problem statement. The solution to that problem is where the differences occur.

Does Anyone Have Network Observability?

First, most NetOps teams care about application performance. They want to collect data from the application environment if they can, such as hypervisors and containers. But they don't stop there. They need to monitor data center networks, wide-area networks (WANs), and campus and branch networks. More recently, they've had to worry about home office networks.

Each network they monitor has become more complex. The data center network has been virtualized and partially extended into the public cloud. The WAN has hybridized, with a mix of managed WAN connectivity, public internet, and 4G/5G. Office networks are a mix of ethernet and Wi-Fi, connected via home internet.

A network observability system must monitor and analyze an extremely diverse and ever-growing data set to understand end-to-end network state. A NetOps team might use five, ten, or even fifty tools to monitor a network by collecting packets, flows, device logs, device metrics, test data, DNS logs, routing table changes, configuration changes, synthetic traffic, and more.

It's a lot to keep track of, and it's hard to find a single tool that can handle it all. In fact, my new research on the concept of network observability found that 83% of IT organizations are interested in streaming data from their network observability tool(s) to a central data lake. Why? Nearly half of them believe a data lake will help them correlate network data across their tools.

Earlier, I wrote that network observability is a bit "fuzzy." I'd argue that it's fuzzy because the problem of network observability is much bigger and more complex than DevOps observability. It may prove impossible for any single tool to solve this problem. That's perfectly okay. But IT organizations must keep this in mind and take a comprehensive approach to network operations tools as they steer toward the promise of network observability.

To learn more about network observability, check out EMA's November 9 webinar, which will highlight market research findings on the topic.

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Network Observability vs. DevOps Observability

Shamus McGillicuddy

If you work in an IT organization, you've likely heard the term "observability" lately. If you're a DevOps pro, you probably know exactly what vendors are talking about when they use the term. If you're a NetOps pro, you might be scratching your head.

DevOps Knows Observability

The DevOps community is very familiar with the observability concept. It refers to the ability to understand the internal state of a system by measuring its external outputs. In DevOps, the system is the application, and the outputs are metrics, logs, and traces. DevOps pros know how to navigate messaging from application performance management and cloud monitoring vendors to find solutions that can deliver the observability they need.

More recently, network monitoring vendors have started talking about network observability. Here is where things get fuzzy. In my opinion, DevOps observability and network observability are not interchangeable. Why would they be?

DevOps teams want to understand the state of applications and the infrastructure on which they reside. NetOps teams need to understand a much larger universe of networks, from the cloud to the user edge.

Both DevOps observability and network observability refer to the need to understand the internal state of a system, but that need to understand is only a problem statement. The solution to that problem is where the differences occur.

Does Anyone Have Network Observability?

First, most NetOps teams care about application performance. They want to collect data from the application environment if they can, such as hypervisors and containers. But they don't stop there. They need to monitor data center networks, wide-area networks (WANs), and campus and branch networks. More recently, they've had to worry about home office networks.

Each network they monitor has become more complex. The data center network has been virtualized and partially extended into the public cloud. The WAN has hybridized, with a mix of managed WAN connectivity, public internet, and 4G/5G. Office networks are a mix of ethernet and Wi-Fi, connected via home internet.

A network observability system must monitor and analyze an extremely diverse and ever-growing data set to understand end-to-end network state. A NetOps team might use five, ten, or even fifty tools to monitor a network by collecting packets, flows, device logs, device metrics, test data, DNS logs, routing table changes, configuration changes, synthetic traffic, and more.

It's a lot to keep track of, and it's hard to find a single tool that can handle it all. In fact, my new research on the concept of network observability found that 83% of IT organizations are interested in streaming data from their network observability tool(s) to a central data lake. Why? Nearly half of them believe a data lake will help them correlate network data across their tools.

Earlier, I wrote that network observability is a bit "fuzzy." I'd argue that it's fuzzy because the problem of network observability is much bigger and more complex than DevOps observability. It may prove impossible for any single tool to solve this problem. That's perfectly okay. But IT organizations must keep this in mind and take a comprehensive approach to network operations tools as they steer toward the promise of network observability.

To learn more about network observability, check out EMA's November 9 webinar, which will highlight market research findings on the topic.

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Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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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 ...