The appeal of hybrid cloud deployments is undeniable. They offer the agility and scalability of the public cloud plus the control and security of on-premises infrastructure for any systems or data needing more protection. However, using a hybrid model introduces additional challenges for IT teams. Visibility limitations often plague hybrid deployments. This means IT teams need extra help to identify security threats, deliver robust operations and maintain optimal performance levels.
Network observability is a game-changer for modern hybrid cloud deployments. It empowers you to effectively manage, secure and optimize your hybrid cloud infrastructure by delivering detailed insights into your network, including cloud and on-premises components. In this article, we will explore how achieving network observability can enhance your organization’s network performance, streamline troubleshooting and maintain more seamless operations for your hybrid cloud deployments.
Hybrid cloud challenges
Hybrid-cloud environments are popular for their flexibility and efficiency. However, they also present significant challenges, and many organizations struggle to maintain a view of what is happening across their on-premises and cloud environments, leading to performance monitoring, security and operational management issues. Some of the most common observability challenges in hybrid cloud deployments are:
Many monitoring tools fail to provide a complete view across their hybrid infrastructure, creating blind spots that hinder threat detection and troubleshooting efforts.
- Security gaps - The hybrid cloud and modern SaaS app deployment models have an increased attack surface. Greater visibility across the whole estate is essential to help identify security threats and vulnerabilities.
- Performance troubleshooting - Identifying performance issues can be challenging, with limited visibility into application behavior and network flows across hybrid cloud environments.
- Compliance complexity - Maintaining compliance with regulations when deployments use cloud and on-premises infrastructures is a headache without unified network observability to present you with an overall picture.
Network observability illuminates hybrid cloud deployments
Network observability provides improved visibility into nearly every aspect of the network by illuminating complexities and enabling proactive management and informed decision-making across all parts of the network infrastructure.
By using network observability, you can have current knowledge about your entire network. Having this more detailed picture allows you to proactively identify and address issues before they escalate and impact operations and productivity. Here’s how implementing network observability can help improve your network management and security:
- Gain a centralized view across the whole network infrastructure - Get a more complete view of your network infrastructure, including cloud instances, virtual machines, containers and physical hardware. This unified perspective optimizes management, streamlines workflows and enhances operational efficiency.
- Get real-time insights - Receive and take advantage of real-time visibility into network performance metrics, application health and security posture. This enables proactive issue identification and resolution, minimizing downtime and optimizing the end-user experience and productivity.
- Enhance your cybersecurity posture - Monitoring via real-time network observability helps detect security threats across your hybrid cloud. Having a centralized view of vulnerabilities and suspicious activities facilitates faster mitigation of issues to boost security and reduce risk.
- Help deliver on compliance requirements - Network observability platforms provide detailed audit trails, helping support compliance with government regulations and industry standards.
The benefits of real-time insights from network observability
Imagine the benefits of pinpointing the source of a network performance bottleneck within minutes rather than hours or being able to detect a cyberattack in its initial stages, preventing extensive damage from a ransomware attack or a data breach. Real-time insights unlocked by network observability make these scenarios a reality, not just wish list items.
With real-time monitoring of network latency, traffic flows, packet information and application response times, you can proactively identify and resolve issues before they affect users or business operations. Benefits include:
- Reduced downtime - Downtime can have severe consequences for any business, including financial losses and damage to reputation. Network observability can help organizations minimize downtime by quickly identifying the root cause of issues so IT team can address them.
- Improved user experience - Organizations want to deliver a smooth and seamless customer experience. By knowing how their hybrid cloud network is performing, businesses can provide more reliable and efficient services to their customers, resulting in increased satisfaction and a better user experience.
- Boosted cybersecurity - Cyberthreats continue to be significant and security has become a prime concern when using hybrid-cloud environments. Network observability offers an enhanced view of the overall network security status. This helps with the early detection of anomalies and potential threats, leading to a more robust security posture.
- Better compliance and risk management - Having detailed insight into network operations through observability enhances security and aids in compliance and risk management. By using network observability to help comply with industry standards and regulations, organizations can streamline this core aspect of modern business operations.
- A culture of enhanced security and operations - Network observability helps foster an organizational culture focused on security and optimized user experience. Businesses can encourage a proactive and vigilant approach to network management by prioritizing network visibility and cybersecurity among their teams using the available real-time hybrid cloud network information.
Final thoughts
Network observability is an essential part of managing and securing hybrid cloud environments. It plays a vital role in delivering a more secure and reliable network infrastructure. Organizations can use network observability to mitigate the complexities of hybrid-cloud setups and better maintain operational excellence and cybersecurity.
To summarize, network observability is not just a technical tool—it is a strategic asset in today’s evolving digital landscape. It allows organizations to proactively (not reactively) manage their networks, optimize user experiences and strengthen their cybersecurity posture, helping pave the way to a more secure and efficient digital future.
