One of the ironies of the Internet is that greater simplicity for end users usually translates into greater complexities for service providers. As sites and services extend their reach and incorporate third party services - from SaaS providers to content delivery networks and payment services - observability and understanding performance becomes increasingly difficult.
Today, it isn’t unusual for a transaction to require a couple of dozen service providers connected through microservices and APIs. If one piece of this complex puzzle falters or fails, the entire stack can collapse. Suddenly, it’s difficult or even impossible to view content or complete a transaction. This greatly increases the likelihood that the customer will venture elsewhere.
Make no mistake, the ability to pinpoint problems across an entire ecosystem of hardware and software is mission critical. What makes the task so difficult for service providers is the sheer number of factors that can degrade performance - or even prevent an operation from taking place. Backbone providers, ISPs, cloud services and numerous others factor into this equation. Pinpointing an issue can be extraordinarily difficult.
Deep visibility is critical
As the Fourth Industrial Revolution unfolds and more advanced digital frameworks take shape, technology is increasingly a competitive differentiator. Business success depends on fast, flawless automation and smooth interactions. State-of-the-art systems and the most innovative concepts do no good if IT systems can’t deliver an outstanding experience every second of every day.
It’s easy to overlook the complexity of today’s business frameworks. Some websites require upwards of 1,000 calls to perform a function. At the same time, packets bounce across companies and countries for a transaction that must take place within milliseconds. If only one thing goes wrong, everything can go astray. It may be impossible to scroll, a coupon code might not work correctly, or a payment might fail to go through.
Making matters worse, service level agreements (SLAs) aren’t necessarily what they appear to be. A 99.99% availability guarantee actually drops as additional service providers enter the picture. For example, with five providers - each with a 99.99% guarantee - true availability drops to about 99.96%. This may not seem significant at first glance, but the reality is that as hundreds of millions, even billions of transactions accumulate - errors, slowdowns and glitches pile up, and customers, business partners and employees become frustrated.
Not surprisingly, as organizations seek to reduce risk, they often expand their group of service providers. This “don’t put all the eggs in one basket” approach has various advantages and disadvantages. Yet, running infrastructure on multiple platforms such as AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure increases complexity - and increases the probability of additional performance problems and failures. Suddenly, it becomes more difficult to pinpoint the root of a problem and correct it promptly.
Active observability changes everything
Learning about a performance problem through Twitter or Down Detector isn’t a good way to run a business. By that time, 500 or even 1,000 or more failed transactions may have piled up - and the wreckage is guaranteed to be even worse during the holidays or an event like the Super Bowl. At the least, a business must deal with disappointed customers. At the worst, a company finds that it’s staring down the barrel of lost sales, a tarnished reputation and even ex-customers.
To be sure, in today’s business environment every second counts, and every transaction matters. As a result, it’s crucial to detect and identify problems as quickly as they pop up - even when they occur sporadically and erratically - and take immediate steps to fix them. This capability is possible through synthetic agents (bots) - think of them as mystery shoppers - that are scattered on thousands of servers located across the Internet and the world.
AI-based synthetic agents constantly ping sites and services to see what is taking place. Just as a human mystery shopper can determine whether a coffee house is open, whether the coffee is served promptly and whether it meets taste and temperature standards, these bots can understand web and app performance beyond basic availability and drill down into milliseconds. In many instances, they can spot a latency problem, configuration issue or bad code only a few seconds after it appears and begins to drag down performance.
The benefits of a proactive observability framework stretch beyond customers. It also pays dividends as organizations look to forge strong and better ties with service providers. With comprehensive observability in place, it’s possible to establish better service level agreements and enforce them in a way that wasn’t possible in the past. This level of accuracy and accountability builds stronger relationships while identifying providers that aren’t living up to their promises.
Finger-pointing becomes a problem of the past. A business can establish realistic and measurable metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs), and identify gaps, problem points and other issues that can be addressed. Serving as an independent arbiter, an active observability framework can also help an organization avoid multimillion-dollar payouts and other penalties - including regulatory fines - that can result from a clear SLA breach. It might also contribute to lower SLA and cybersecurity insurance premiums.
Finally, as businesses strive for greater insight into the impact of various third-party components - from A/B testing tools and shared content on social media to chatbots and user journey analysis frameworks - there’s deep visibility into how various solutions perform in the real-world, and what ultimately works best in a given situation or environment. This can aid DevOps teams, web designers and numerous other groups that build out sites, products and various services.
To be sure, delivering an outstanding digital experience is a complex and challenging task. Failures are inevitable. With thousands and sometimes millions of components buried in any given transaction and a myriad of connection points, there are an enormous number of things that can go wrong. Spotting issues immediately and fixing them promptly is now at the foundation of digital business. Addressing weaknesses and building a better IT framework, with strong SLAs is crucial.
A great user experience isn’t just a nice idea, it’s now the baseline for business success.
