Observability is key to successful digital transformation, say government IT professionals

When it comes to digital transformation, large projects grab the headlines. The recently announced Digital Connectivity Blueprint in Singapore, for example, acknowledges the integral role of digital technologies in today’s economy and society, laying out plans to expand digital connectivity to drive continued digital transformation in the island state.

Gabriyel Wong, Director (Moments of Life), from the Government Technology Agency (GovTech) of Singapore spoke about this at a panel titled “Government superapps; potentials and pathways”, Wong highlighted how citizens’ expectations today are influenced by their day-to-day interactions with big tech platforms, such as social media platforms like Facebook or superapps like Southeast Asia’s Grab. This was one reason why Singapore first built its government superapp, LifeSG, to meet citizens’ needs and expectations.

You can’t fault the ambition or aspiration behind huge digital transformation plans. But the practicalities behind these ambitious plans are of increasing concern to thousands of public sector IT professionals.

For instance, one recurring issue all public sector projects face is the mind-boggling complexity of the legacy systems accrued over decades of government investment. At the heart of the issue, many public sector systems are built on connected cloud architectures spanning public, private, on-premises, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments.

Ask anyone who works in these areas and the answer is the same: it adds a layer of complexity becoming increasingly difficult to manage. In fact, things are becoming so difficult, IT professionals at the sharp end of government digital transformation projects are calling for better tools to help them manage these increasingly complex systems.

This is just one of the findings from the SolarWinds® IT Trends Report 2022—Getting IT Right: Managing Hybrid IT Complexity. The ninth annual Report surveyed 1,138 IT professionals across the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Middle East, and Asia Pacific. It examined, among other things, the acceleration of digital transformation efforts and its impact on public sector IT departments.

Lack of visibility hinders IT management

Public sector tech professionals expressed that a lack of visibility across their IT estate meant they were less confident in their organisations’ ability to manage IT.

Though nearly half (45 per cent) of public sector tech professionals said adopting monitoring and management tools would help them overcome this complexity, two-thirds (67 per cent) said they lacked the necessary visibility into the majority of their organisations’ apps and infrastructure.

The lack of visibility impacts their ability to conduct tasks such as anomaly detection, easy root cause analysis, and other critical processes to ensure the availability, performance, and security of business-critical applications.

Project delays prove detrimental to ROI

Beyond hindering IT professionals’ work, the report also finds a lack of insight could impact return on investment (ROI) by delaying the completion of projects.

In fact, 88 per cent of respondents said they agreed ROI was impacted during an IT project they oversaw in the past 12 to 18 months due to increased hybrid IT complexity.

This all points to one thing: the publication of ambitious digital transformation projects must go hand in hand w

ith an understanding those charged with carrying out these programmes need the tools to get the job done.

Observability solutions can help in these situations, as the comprehensive framework provides the type of visibility needed for organisations on a path for transformation.

The Public Land Management Agency in the United States, for instance, benefitted from observability solutions that provided them with a “single pane of glass view”.

The Agency’s small team of just eight staff had previously struggled to manage the connectivity and delivery of application services across six regional offices and several smaller field offices spread across 250,000 square miles.

Without observability tools across their entire IT environment, troubleshooting potential problems was time consuming and required manually reviewing logs from disparate tools.

After adopting SolarWinds solutions for infrastructure management and monitoring, the team could easily pull data from across their environment. Consequently, this allowed them to save both time and money when it comes to troubleshooting and performing routine maintenance.

Indeed, as the complexity of hybrid IT environments evolves, so too must the tools to do the job.

Sascha Giese holds various technical certifications, including being a Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA), Cisco Certified Design Associate (CCDA), Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA), VMware Technical Sales Professional (VTSP), AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, and Network Performance Monitor and Server & Application Monitor SolarWinds Certified Professional® (SCP). As a senior pre-sales engineer, Sascha was responsible for product training SolarWinds channel partners and customers and contributed in the company’s professional certification program, SolarWinds Certified Professional.