More than two-thirds of organizations that have established strong IT observability are seeing a big drop in application downtime compared to those still figuring it out. A poll by the Enterprise Strategy Group surveyed 1,850 IT operations staff and found that those who lead in observability fix IT issues 2.8 times faster than their less experienced peers.
This survey, which Splunk commissioned for its State of Observability report, revealed that nearly half of the respondents have been using observability tools for over two years—an increase from 36% last year. This speed gives top organizations a notable advantage in developing software. About 76% of IT staff in leading organizations deploy most of their application code on demand, compared to only 30% of those just starting out.
Patrick Lin, senior vice-president and general manager of observability at Splunk, emphasized that a strong observability practice focuses on creating excellent digital experiences for customers, weaving that commitment into every decision. The report indicates that this focus leads to reduced downtime and boosts innovation and speed among developers.
For instance, engineering teams in leading organizations enjoy a 22% higher success rate for changes to production code. Most leaders claim their changes are successful 90% of the time or more, allowing developers to spend 38% more time on innovative projects rather than routine maintenance and alert handling.
The survey also found that 57% of IT operations staff can identify the root cause of issues much faster than last year. Leading organizations believe that more than 80% of their alerts are valid, while more than half of alerts in organizations that are just starting with observability are tied to real problems. This discrepancy means some engineers might eventually overlook alerts altogether.
Leaders are 2.3 times more likely to measure their mean time to resolve (MTTR) issues in minutes or a few hours, while beginners are 2.4 times more likely to measure it in days or even weeks. Splunk highlighted that each hour of downtime can cost organizations around $540,000.
Nearly all survey participants (97%) now use AI or machine learning to boost their observability efforts, a jump from just 66% last year. IT teams can leverage these technologies to sift through large data sets, spot anomalies, determine root causes, suggest solutions, and automate tasks.