GigaOm Radar for Network Observabilityv1.0

Table of Contents

  1. Summary
  2. Market Categories and Deployment Types
  3. Key Criteria Comparison
  4. GigaOm Radar
  5. Vendor Insights
  6. Analyst’s Take

1. Summary

Network observability is a category of platforms and tools that go beyond device-centric network monitoring to provide truly relevant, end-to-end visibility and intelligence for all the traffic in your network, no matter whether on-premises, in the cloud, or anywhere else. A step beyond network performance monitoring, network observability guarantees visibility and distinguishes itself with actionable insights. These insights shift many low-level decision-making activities—such as troubleshooting or capacity planning—from engineers to the network observability tool.

Observability tools are less about specialization and more about consolidating a comprehensive experience in a single tool. This brings numerous advantages, including a better user experience, lower costs than those faced when deploying multiple tools, adaptability for complex IT environments, future-proofing, and cohesiveness across IT departments. Network observability is perhaps the only way to ensure that modern critical infrastructure achieves the required uptime and availability.

While businesses of all sizes can benefit from the end-to-end visibility offered by network observability tools, the ones likely to see the most improvement are those with large, complex networks. These can be either companies with proprietary networks, where IT plays a supporting role-—such as retail or manufacturing—or businesses that sell network services, such as communication service providers. We explore these categories in more depth in the following section.

This report looks at key vendors in the emerging network observability space and aims to equip IT decision-makers with the required information to select suitable providers according to their specific needs. We analyze the vendors on a set of key criteria and evaluation metrics, which are described in depth in the Key Criteria Report for Network Observability.

How to Read this Report

This GigaOm report is one of a series of documents that helps IT organizations assess competing solutions in the context of well-defined features and criteria. For a fuller understanding consider reviewing the following reports:

Key Criteria report: A detailed market sector analysis that assesses the impact that key product features and criteria have on top-line solution characteristics—such as scalability, performance, and TCO—that drive purchase decisions.

GigaOm Radar report: A forward-looking analysis that plots the relative value and progression of vendor solutions along multiple axes based on strategy and execution. The Radar report includes a breakdown of each vendor’s offering in the sector.

Vendor Profile: An in-depth vendor analysis that builds on the framework developed in the Key Criteria and Radar reports to assess a company’s engagement within a technology sector. This analysis includes forward-looking guidance around both strategy and product.