Introduction
In today’s data-driven world, observability is paramount for businesses to gain valuable insights into their operations and make informed decisions. However, the rising cost of storing and managing observability data has created a dilemma for IT managers: how to achieve sustainable observability without compromising effectiveness.
According to recent industry reports, observability continues to be a top priority for a significant percentage of organizations. In fact, 63% of companies consider observability as a high priority despite challenging macroeconomic conditions. However, these organizations face challenges in achieving full observability. Only 11% believe their entire environment is currently observable, while 51% feel that less than three-quarters of their infrastructure is observable.
The importance of observability is widely recognized by IT leaders, with 85% considering it a strategic priority, according to the Cisco AppDynamics report titled “The Age of Application Observability.” This demonstrates the growing understanding of the value observability brings to businesses.
However, achieving full-stack observability remains a challenge for many organizations. The 2022 Observability Forecast reveals that only 27% of respondents have achieved this level of observability. Furthermore, a mere 3% stated that their organizations have successfully prioritized and achieved full-stack observability.
These findings highlight the ongoing importance of observability as a strategic focus for organizations. Despite the challenges in achieving complete observability, businesses are increasingly recognizing its value in gaining actionable insights and optimizing operations across their infrastructure.
Fortunately, there is a game-changing solution: data tiering. By implementing this multi-vendor approach to data storage, businesses can strike a balance between maintaining valuable observability data and reducing excessive storage costs.
Understanding Data Tiering
Data tiering revolutionizes data storage by enabling businesses to store their data across multiple tiers, each with different storage costs and performance levels. This innovative approach allows companies to allocate their most critical observability data to high-performance storage tiers, while less critical data can be stored on lower-cost storage tiers.
The Cost of Downtime: A Driving Force for Observability Investment
The average cost of downtime is staggering, with businesses realizing the importance of investing in observability practices. According to pingdom.com, downtime can cost organizations approximately $5,600 per minute, making it a significant financial burden. This high cost has motivated companies to prioritize observability, as it enables them to quickly identify and resolve issues that can lead to downtime, minimizing potential losses and ensuring uninterrupted service.
Figure 1: Types of Observability (Source: https://www.acceldata.io/blog/data-observability-guide)
Advanced Observability: Swift Resolution for Service Issues
Recent research by Splunk.com highlights the substantial impact of advanced observability practices. Organizations that have embraced advanced observability are four times more likely to resolve instances of unplanned downtime or serious service issues within minutes, as opposed to hours or days. This is a testament to the power of observability in swiftly detecting and addressing problems that can disrupt operations and harm customer experience.
The Strategic Imperative of Observability
IT professionals recognize the strategic importance of observability in every stage of the software lifecycle. According to newrelic.com , a staggering 90% of IT professionals consider observability as a crucial and strategic component of their business. From development to deployment and maintenance, observability provides valuable insights, enabling teams to optimize performance, enhance customer satisfaction, and drive revenue growth.
Figure 2: Data Observability Framework (Image Source – https://databand.ai/data-observability/)
Achieving Sustainable Observability
With data tiering, businesses can achieve sustainable observability without sacrificing effectiveness. By strategically storing their most critical observability data on high-performance storage tiers, companies can ensure real-time insights into their operations. Simultaneously, less critical data can be securely stored on lower-cost tiers, optimizing storage expenses without compromising the ability to access valuable information.
Figure 3: Deciphering Observability (Source: https://octo.vmware.com/cloud-observability-framework/)
The Benefits of Data Tiering
Implementing data tiering offers a multitude of advantages for businesses in the FinTech industry:
- Reduced Storage Costs: Storing less critical data on lower-cost storage tiers enables businesses to significantly decrease their storage expenses, making observability more sustainable.
- Improved Observability: By storing critical observability data on high-performance storage tiers, businesses gain enhanced visibility and gain valuable insights into the health and performance of their operations.
- Scalability: Data tiering allows businesses to seamlessly scale their data storage as their needs grow, ensuring flexibility for future growth.
- Flexibility: Data tiering empowers businesses to leverage multiple vendors for data storage, providing the freedom to choose the most suitable options and reducing vendor lock-in risk.
The Challenges of Uncontrolled Observability Data
Despite the benefits of observability, uncontrolled growth in observability data poses significant challenges. The exponential increase in data volumes from microservices and digital-first customer experiences often leads to overwhelmed DevOps and site reliability engineering (SRE) professionals. The avalanche of data creates chaos instead of providing valuable insights and can strain budgets due to excessive storage costs.
Addressing the Challenge with Data Tiering
Data tiering is the solution to managing uncontrolled observability data. It allows businesses to categorize and allocate data based on its importance and value, streamlining storage and reducing storage costs. Rather than storing all data in expensive premium storage tiers, businesses can intelligently store less critical data on lower-cost tiers while retaining access to valuable observability data. This approach eliminates the need to store unnecessary.
The Solution: Data Tiering
To address the challenge of uncontrolled observability data and the need for sustainable observability, data tiering steps in as a game-changing solution. Rather than storing all data in an expensive premium storage tier, businesses can intelligently allocate data based on its importance and value.
Data tiering brings the concept of “right-sizing” to the world of data storage. By categorizing data and assigning it to the most appropriate storage tier, companies can optimize their storage costs while still retaining access to valuable observability data. This approach eliminates the need to store vast amounts of less critical data on expensive storage tiers, freeing up resources for more critical data and reducing overall storage costs.
One of the key advantages of data tiering is its scalability. As businesses grow and generate more data, the flexibility of data tiering allows for seamless expansion. Companies can easily add more storage tiers or adjust the allocation of data based on changing needs, ensuring that observability remains sustainable as the business evolves.
Moreover, data tiering provides businesses with the freedom to choose multiple vendors for their data storage. This flexibility reduces the risk of vendor lock-in and allows organizations to leverage the strengths and cost-effectiveness of different storage providers based on their specific requirements. With the ability to leverage a diverse array of storage options, businesses can optimize costs and avoid dependence on a single vendor.
Conclusion
Data tiering offers a revolutionary approach to achieving sustainable observability without compromising effectiveness. By implementing this multi-vendor data storage strategy, businesses can intelligently allocate their observability data across different storage tiers, reducing storage costs while retaining valuable insights into their operations. With the benefits of scalability and flexibility, data tiering empowers businesses in the FinTech industry to optimize their observability data storage and navigate the challenges posed by the exponential growth of data. By embracing data tiering, businesses can unlock the full potential of their observability data, enabling informed decision-making, enhanced operational efficiency, and sustainable growth in the dynamic world of Data Center Technology.
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