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VIAVI Releases Observer 18

Viavi Solutions announced the availability of Observer 18, delivering end-user experience scoring, streamlined workflows and high-fidelity forensics, powered by a fast stream-to-disk platform.

This release of Observer combines streamlined workflows and ease of use with technical efficiencies and cost savings, for faster resolution of issues across teams - wherever they virtually are across cities or countries.

Observer 18 includes a range of features to support performance and security use cases, such as identifying users by name, determining where they connect, or automatically identifying when a host or service is communicating abnormally.

Key updates to the Observer Platform include:

- Custom-designed GigaStor Generation 4 hardware platform with up to 60 Gbps capture rate and accelerated analytics, providing fast access to stored packet data and analysis.

- Unique End-User Experience scoring, with automated domain isolation capabilities, turning mountains of raw data into clear, concise answers and next steps.

- Seamless unification of flow and packet data, enabling users to efficiently move from holistic site, application, or threat views to in-depth forensic analysis.

- Improvements in hardware design driving operational efficiency, from easier installation due to size reduction of 67 percent compared to the previous generation, to lower power consumption thereby reducing energy costs.

“As enterprise workforces and users become more distributed, and rely on applications located in multiple clouds, the resulting any-to-any networking model is susceptible to performance and security challenges,” said Charles Thompson, Senior Director, Enterprise and Cloud, VIAVI. “Observer 18 empowers stakeholders from business leaders to level 3 support with customizable, streamlined workflows and intuitive visualizations, based on the most complete data set available. When they take control, they can guarantee that both work and learning can happen, wherever it needs to happen.”

“Whether ensuring optimal end user experience or addressing security threats, maintaining IT service health begins with complete visibility into network traffic,” said Kevin Tolly, Founder of The Tolly Group. “The Tolly Group completed testing of the Observer GigaStor Gen4 product family. Models tested were rated at 20, 40, and 60 Gbps. Results met or exceeded the performance claims of VIAVI, including their fastest model which showed sustained packet capture of 60.5 Gbps with real-world enterprise packet size of approximately 400 bytes.”

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VIAVI Releases Observer 18

Viavi Solutions announced the availability of Observer 18, delivering end-user experience scoring, streamlined workflows and high-fidelity forensics, powered by a fast stream-to-disk platform.

This release of Observer combines streamlined workflows and ease of use with technical efficiencies and cost savings, for faster resolution of issues across teams - wherever they virtually are across cities or countries.

Observer 18 includes a range of features to support performance and security use cases, such as identifying users by name, determining where they connect, or automatically identifying when a host or service is communicating abnormally.

Key updates to the Observer Platform include:

- Custom-designed GigaStor Generation 4 hardware platform with up to 60 Gbps capture rate and accelerated analytics, providing fast access to stored packet data and analysis.

- Unique End-User Experience scoring, with automated domain isolation capabilities, turning mountains of raw data into clear, concise answers and next steps.

- Seamless unification of flow and packet data, enabling users to efficiently move from holistic site, application, or threat views to in-depth forensic analysis.

- Improvements in hardware design driving operational efficiency, from easier installation due to size reduction of 67 percent compared to the previous generation, to lower power consumption thereby reducing energy costs.

“As enterprise workforces and users become more distributed, and rely on applications located in multiple clouds, the resulting any-to-any networking model is susceptible to performance and security challenges,” said Charles Thompson, Senior Director, Enterprise and Cloud, VIAVI. “Observer 18 empowers stakeholders from business leaders to level 3 support with customizable, streamlined workflows and intuitive visualizations, based on the most complete data set available. When they take control, they can guarantee that both work and learning can happen, wherever it needs to happen.”

“Whether ensuring optimal end user experience or addressing security threats, maintaining IT service health begins with complete visibility into network traffic,” said Kevin Tolly, Founder of The Tolly Group. “The Tolly Group completed testing of the Observer GigaStor Gen4 product family. Models tested were rated at 20, 40, and 60 Gbps. Results met or exceeded the performance claims of VIAVI, including their fastest model which showed sustained packet capture of 60.5 Gbps with real-world enterprise packet size of approximately 400 bytes.”

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In the world of digital-first business, there is no tolerance for service outages. Businesses know that outages are the quickest way to lose money and customers. For smaller organizations, unplanned downtime could even force the business to close ... A new study from PagerDuty, The State of AI-First Operations, reveals that companies actively incorporating AI into operations now view operational resilience as a growth driver rather than a cost center. But how are they achieving it? ...

In live financial environments, capital markets software cannot pause for rebuilds. New capabilities are introduced as stacked technology layers to meet evolving demands while systems remain active, data keeps moving, and controls stay intact. AI is no exception, and its opportunities are significant: accelerated decision cycles, compressed manual workflows, and more effective operations across complex environments. The constraint isn't the models themselves, but the architectural environments they enter ...

Like most digital transformation shifts, organizations often prioritize productivity and leave security and observability to keep pace. This usually translates to both the mass implementation of new technology and fragmented monitoring and observability (M&O) tooling. In the era of AI and varied cloud architecture, a disparate observability function can be dangerous. IT teams will lack a complete picture of their IT environment, making it harder to diagnose issues while slowing down mean time to resolve (MTTR). In fact, according to recent data from the SolarWinds State of Monitoring & Observability Report, 77% of IT personnel said the lack of visibility across their on-prem and cloud architecture was an issue ...

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 23, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses the NetOps labor shortage ... 

Technology management is evolving, and in turn, so is the scope of FinOps. The FinOps Foundation recently updated their mission statement from "advancing the people who manage the value of cloud" to "advancing the people who manage the value of technology." This seemingly small change solidifies a larger evolution: FinOps practitioners have organically expanded to be focused on more than just cloud cost optimization. Today, FinOps teams are largely — and quickly — expanding their job descriptions, evolving into a critical function for managing the full value of technology ...

Enterprises are under pressure to scale AI quickly. Yet despite considerable investment, adoption continues to stall. One of the most overlooked reasons is vendor sprawl ... In reality, no organization deliberately sets out to create sprawling vendor ecosystems. More often, complexity accumulates over time through well-intentioned initiatives, such as enterprise-wide digital transformation efforts, point solutions, or decentralized sourcing strategies ...

Nearly every conversation about AI eventually circles back to compute. GPUs dominate the headlines while cloud platforms compete for workloads and model benchmarks drive investment decisions. But underneath that noise, a quieter infrastructure challenge is taking shape. The real bottleneck in enterprise AI is not processing power, it is the ability to store, manage and retrieve the relentless volumes of data that AI systems generate, consume and multiply ...

The 2026 Observability Survey from Grafana Labs paints a vivid picture of an industry maturing fast, where AI is welcomed with careful conditions, SaaS economics are reshaping spending decisions, complexity remains a defining challenge, and open standards continue to underpin it all ...

The observability industry has an evolving relationship with AI. We're not skeptics, but it's clear that trust in AI must be earned ... In Grafana Labs' annual Observability Survey, 92% said they see real value in AI surfacing anomalies before they cause downtime. Another 91% endorsed AI for forecasting and root cause analysis. So while the demand is there, customers need it to be trustworthy, as the survey also found that the practitioners most enthusiastic about AI are also the most insistent on explainability ...

In the modern enterprise, the conversation around AI has moved past skepticism toward a stage of active adoption. According to our 2026 State of IT Trends Report: The Human Side of Autonomous AI, nearly 90% of IT professionals view AI as a net positive, and this optimism is well-founded. We are seeing agentic AI move beyond simple automation to actively streamlining complex data insights and eliminating the manual toil that has long hindered innovation. However, as we integrate these autonomous agents into our ecosystems, the fundamental DNA of the IT role is evolving ...