While modern applications let companies keep pace with changing customer and staff expectations, Brown notes that they come with a cost: “Instead of a single thing you deploy, you have multiple services to consider along with dependencies across these services.”
If businesses can’t fully track and manage these dependencies, they will struggle to pinpoint application problems. This can cause downstream issues. For example, if staffers can’t get apps to work as intended, they’ll often take the easiest route to resolution: downloading a new app to bridge the gap. This leads to the problem mentioned above: too many apps and not enough time.
Customers, meanwhile, may simply take their business elsewhere. As Brown points out, problems with business apps aren’t always within the control of the business; they could be a result of network providers changing code or security issues with specific services. From the customer's perspective, however, it doesn’t matter who’s at fault.
“Observability makes it possible to reroute apps as necessary until things are fixed,” Brown says.
EXPLORE: How SSE solutions can help companies improve visibility and streamline security.
Mapping the Stack with Cisco
For Brown, the move to microservices represents a significant shift.
“Previously, things were very structured and controlled,” he says. “Application architectures were very predictable. Now, we’ve evolved from a vertical to a horizontal approach to deployment. We’ve broken it down into smaller components, but each of these components is emitting pieces of telemetry data — a lot of telemetry data.”
To effectively manage modern apps, businesses need to fully map microservices architecture and understand the dependencies that these applications and services have. Cisco Full-Stack Observability can help companies cut through the noise and get to the things that matter.
“We work closely with our partners, such as CDW, to create a fully tailored experience for customers,” Brown says. “Cisco Full-Stack Observability lets companies understand the performance of a user’s experience with an application.”
This makes it possible for businesses to understand what applications are doing and why they’re doing it, in turn helping to pinpoint areas for improvement.
Microservices make it possible to build powerful, flexible applications that help drive business success. Effectively managing these modern apps, however, requires complete visibility up and down the stack.
“Being armed with the right data at the right time is absolute gold,” Brown says. “It keeps applications running, keeps customers happy and keeps the company reputation moving in the right direction.”
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