There is a dramatic increase in IT complexity caused by the need for urgent innovation, and the resulting technology sprawl, revealed the latest edition of the global research study by AppDynamics. A part of Cisco, AppDynamics’ Agents of Transformation 2021: The Rise of Full-Stack Observability study explores the impact of the rapid acceleration of digital transformation created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the repercussions for global technologies.

The research also validates a pressing need for full-stack observability with added business context to help technologists manage the IT estate, cut through the data noise and observe what matters most of their business.

The pandemic has forced businesses to have digital-first business models to weather the storm and minimize the commercial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has placed technologists at the forefront of their organizations’ response, and has forced a three-fold acceleration of digital transformation projects. But this put the technologists under considerable strain, with 89 percent reportedly feeling under immense pressure at work and 84 percent admitting to having difficulty switching off.

But surprisingly, 81 percent of technologists expressed frustration about work and 63 percent experienced increased levels of conflict with colleagues.

Despite all the benefits that digital transformation brought in, it also added staggering complexity throughout IT departments, with technologists feeling the key contributors to be a new set of priorities and challenges (80 percent), technology sprawl and a patchwork of legacy and cloud technologies (78 percent), acceleration to cloud computing (77 percent) and multiple, disconnected monitoring solutions (74 percent).

The rise in IT complexity has drastically increased the amount of data created across the technology stack, from the application, through the infrastructure to the network and security. Indeed this added technological complexity has induced 85 percent of technologist to quickly cut through the noise caused by the ever-increasing volumes of data to identify root causes of performance issues. This will represent a significant challenge in the year ahead. Nearly 75 percent respondents stated they are struggling to manage overwhelming data noise, technologists are desperate for a unified solution to enable real-time visibility across the entire IT estate.

95 percent of technologists say having visibility across the whole IT estate is important, and 96 percent pointed to negative consequences of not having visibility and insights across the whole tech stack.

What is also important is to have the ability to link technology performance to business outcomes such as customer experience, sales transactions and revenue. 92 percent technologists feel these will be really important to delivering innovation goals over the next year. Additionally almost three quarters (73 percent) fear that the inability to link IT performance with business performance will be detrimental to their business in 2021. 96 percent acknowledged that the ability to connect full-stack observability with real-time business outcomes will be essential to delivering first-class digital experiences and accelerating digital transformation.

The report also highlights that while technologists are acutely aware that they need to contextualize IT performance with real-time business data, more than half (66 percent) do not have the resources and support they need, and 96 percent point to at least one barrier their organization must navigate in order to adopt this new approach. Also 75 percent of technologists said their organization needs to connect full-stack observability to business outcomes within 12 months in order to remain competitive.

“Full-stack observability is the only way technologists can deal with the sprawling IT estate and increased complexity created by such rapid rates of innovation. But on its own, it’s just not enough, said Linda Tong, vice president and general manager, Cisco AppDynamics. “Technologists have recognized that without business context, they will quickly find themselves drowning in complexity and data noise. As a part of Cisco, AppDynamics is uniquely positioned to leverage the breadth of Cisco’s domain expertise in network, application, infrastructure and security - while also providing the business context they are known for. The AppDynamics Business Observability platform will enable technologists to better prioritize and deliver the biggest impact for their business.”