Unified Data Sources Deliver Faster MTTD and Shorter MTTR

Learn more about Viavi

Reliance on packet capture to improve mean times to detection (MTTD) and resolution (MTTR) is likely to increase in 79% of enterprise organizations this year, according to the 2025/2026 State of the Network study by VIAVI Solutions, in partnership with Enterprise Strategy Group, now part of Omdia.

The study reveals how IT network and security teams are evolving to meet the demands of hybrid infrastructure, rising cloud complexity, and increasing pressure to detect and resolve issues faster. Based on insights from 750 global professionals, it highlights a clear shift toward deeper network observability, renewed reliance on packet capture, growing cross-functional collaboration in cloud monitoring, and the accelerating convergence of network operations (NetOps) and security operations (SecOps).

The study shows that organizations with strong packet capture experienced notable improvements to MTTD, with double the number of respondents reporting a significantly shorter MTTD rate over the past year compared to those lacking strong packet capture capability.

In addition, respondents with good packet capture abilities were four times more likely to resolve issues in under an hour, and almost 35% more likely to resolve them in under three hours.

"As environments grow more distributed and threats become more dynamic, the path forward is clear. Unified visibility, smarter tooling, and operational alignment are no longer optional — they're essential," said Chris Labac, VP and GM, Network Performance and Threat Solutions, VIAVI. "Packet-level visibility has been proven to accelerate the detection, response, and resolution of network issues. Our report demonstrates that organizations not only understand the need for full fidelity forensics, multi-cloud visibility and NetSecOps alignment, but are actively putting steps in place to improve overall network observability."

Key findings include:

  • 79% of organizations report growing reliance on packet data, with measurable improvements in MTTD, MTTR, and alert accuracy.
  • Organizations with robust packet visibility are four times more likely to achieve MTTR under an hour compared to those without.
  • The shift toward multi-cloud environments is driving a 125% increase in collaborative monitoring models.
  • 42% of organizations that implemented NetSecOps models reported enhanced security benefits.
  • While 92% of organizations reported that they had sufficient budget to meet their needs, 78% believed there was a need for more support to prepare for rising network security threats.

"Networks are under constant threat and permanently stretched, yet what is clear from VIAVI and ESG's research is that most companies are taking steps to continually improve their uptime. Indeed, despite hard times, investment is set to increase in the overwhelming majority of companies for every single one of the 11 IT solutions we examined," said Jim Frey, Principal Analyst, Networking, Enterprise Strategy Group from Informa Tech Target. "This means there's a lot to be positive about, and this research demonstrates exactly where organizations are getting the greatest returns on investment to enable the best practices to be used across the industry."

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Unified Data Sources Deliver Faster MTTD and Shorter MTTR

Learn more about Viavi

Reliance on packet capture to improve mean times to detection (MTTD) and resolution (MTTR) is likely to increase in 79% of enterprise organizations this year, according to the 2025/2026 State of the Network study by VIAVI Solutions, in partnership with Enterprise Strategy Group, now part of Omdia.

The study reveals how IT network and security teams are evolving to meet the demands of hybrid infrastructure, rising cloud complexity, and increasing pressure to detect and resolve issues faster. Based on insights from 750 global professionals, it highlights a clear shift toward deeper network observability, renewed reliance on packet capture, growing cross-functional collaboration in cloud monitoring, and the accelerating convergence of network operations (NetOps) and security operations (SecOps).

The study shows that organizations with strong packet capture experienced notable improvements to MTTD, with double the number of respondents reporting a significantly shorter MTTD rate over the past year compared to those lacking strong packet capture capability.

In addition, respondents with good packet capture abilities were four times more likely to resolve issues in under an hour, and almost 35% more likely to resolve them in under three hours.

"As environments grow more distributed and threats become more dynamic, the path forward is clear. Unified visibility, smarter tooling, and operational alignment are no longer optional — they're essential," said Chris Labac, VP and GM, Network Performance and Threat Solutions, VIAVI. "Packet-level visibility has been proven to accelerate the detection, response, and resolution of network issues. Our report demonstrates that organizations not only understand the need for full fidelity forensics, multi-cloud visibility and NetSecOps alignment, but are actively putting steps in place to improve overall network observability."

Key findings include:

  • 79% of organizations report growing reliance on packet data, with measurable improvements in MTTD, MTTR, and alert accuracy.
  • Organizations with robust packet visibility are four times more likely to achieve MTTR under an hour compared to those without.
  • The shift toward multi-cloud environments is driving a 125% increase in collaborative monitoring models.
  • 42% of organizations that implemented NetSecOps models reported enhanced security benefits.
  • While 92% of organizations reported that they had sufficient budget to meet their needs, 78% believed there was a need for more support to prepare for rising network security threats.

"Networks are under constant threat and permanently stretched, yet what is clear from VIAVI and ESG's research is that most companies are taking steps to continually improve their uptime. Indeed, despite hard times, investment is set to increase in the overwhelming majority of companies for every single one of the 11 IT solutions we examined," said Jim Frey, Principal Analyst, Networking, Enterprise Strategy Group from Informa Tech Target. "This means there's a lot to be positive about, and this research demonstrates exactly where organizations are getting the greatest returns on investment to enable the best practices to be used across the industry."

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Enterprises today operate in a real-time environment where uninterrupted access to trusted data has become a baseline expectation for users, applications and automated systems. Traditional DataOps models, built on manual effort and human triage, cannot keep pace with this always active demand. AI agents are emerging as the operational backbone, ensuring consistent data availability, reinforcing trustworthiness and enabling a level of scale that manual processes cannot achieve ...

AI Deepfakes: Rethinking Trust in the Workplace

For decades, trust in the digital workplace rested on familiar signals. We trusted faces on video calls, voices on the phone, and emails that appeared to come from people we knew. These cues felt human and intuitive. They anchored how decisions were made, approvals were granted, and access was authorized. AI-powered deepfakes have quietly broken that model ...

Nine in Ten Enterprises Plan Cloud Data Repatriation amid Rising Cloud Costs and Data Sovereignty Mandates

Cloud migration was supposed to be a one-way door. For most enterprises, it turns out it isn't. Cloud data repatriation is a real and growing trend. A new survey ... finds that 89% of organizations plan to expand their on-premises infrastructure footprint over the next two years — and 75% have already moved at least some workloads back from public cloud in the past 24 months. The findings point to a broad rethinking of where data belongs ...

Why ITOps Need Right-Sized AI, Not Bigger Models

Over the past few years, large language models (LLMs) have revolutionized the software industry. Given their ability to excel at multi-step reasoning, LLMs have helped enterprises streamline workflows and adapt to the unknown. However, employing such models comes with sky-high costs, latency issues, and limited flexibility. In the realm of IT operations, it is generally wiser to employ smaller, domain-specific models instead ...

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For years, DevOps teams operated under a simple assumption: collect enough telemetry, and you can find and fix any problem. That assumption is breaking down. Modern enterprises now operate across microservices, hybrid cloud environments, APIs, Kubernetes, and highly automated delivery pipelines. Releases happen continuously, dependencies shift constantly, and failures spread faster than teams can diagnose them ...

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Let me start with something I've seen play out more times than I can count. A team hits a wall with the cloud. Costs creep up, then spike. Performance starts to feel inconsistent. Someone in finance asks a simple question like "why did this double?" and nobody has a clean answer ... Maybe this isn't the right place for everything. That realization feels like a breakthrough, like you've identified the problem. In reality, you've just identified the starting line ...

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