The unknown unknown

The Observability Concept

In contrast to the already established monitoring, here not only data is checked for known errors. The approach aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the entire tech stack. More importantly, it automatically puts the data from individual tools and services into context. On the one hand, this helps IT teams, of course. But business stakeholders don't miss out either. The results that Observability delivers enable decisions to be made based on data. Data that does not have to be painstakingly collected and analyzed, but whose relationship to each other is immediately apparent. 

For SAP in particular, this overview brings many benefits for business stakeholders. The software collection is often used in critical business areas. Whether Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or Supply Chain Management (SCM): The data that emerges in each package and the way it affects each other and other parts of the tech stack greatly impacts the decisions of finance, IT, procurement, sales or production decision makers. Automated contextualization not only gives them a more pleasant workday. Decisions can also be made faster and, most importantly, based on data, which facilitates promising decisions, enables longer-term planning, and generally makes the business plan more secure and increases business value.

Complex - but clear

Complex systems require more comprehensive monitoring. Data from various sources must be collected, stored and analyzed. This is the only way to get a complete picture of the system. Observability is becoming increasingly important, especially in complex systems, because they have a large number of moving parts and interdependencies between components. In such systems, it is more difficult to keep track and understand what exactly is happening and why.

For complex systems, it is therefore important to focus not only on monitoring, but also on observability. Observability extends the monitoring concept by analyzing and contextualizing data from the entire tech stack. It makes the "unknown
unknowns" and shows how which problems come about - without them already being known and having to be defined beforehand. If necessary, it also already suggests solutions or solves the problem AI-driven and all by itself. Through this comprehensive analysis of the data, correlations between different components can be identified and output live on dashboards. Decisions can be made better when all the data required is available at a glance. Overall, this increases the reliability, availability and scalability of the tech stack and the tasks it handles. Nothing stands in the way of smooth operations. 

Look into the future

Observability thus gives more control over complex systems and helps identify and fix problems faster. Decision makers can proactively address challenges and prevent them from becoming problems. Observability is designed to deal with the unpredictability of complex systems and not only increases system availability and performance, but also makes them easier to manage. New technologies such as "Everything as Code" (cf. April issue E-3) now simplify the implementation of the Observability platform itself, as well as the integration of new services and legacy software. Thanks to Observability, companies and decision-makers can react quickly to problems that arise and prevent minor errors from escalating into serious problems.