NetOps teams ready to dump incumbent monitoring tools

Many network observability vendors have begun offering AI capabilities in their tools, but not all of them. Also, many of the vendors that do offer AI features are still catching, with AI features that are still maturing. Regardless, AI is impacting tool turnover. For example, interest in AI-driven public cloud and WAN overlay domain expertise correlated with a desire to replace incumbent tools.

Shifting from infrastructure performance to network experience

Another factor driving tool replacement is a shift in mindset from managing network performance to managing network experience. Nearly 60% of research participants told EMA that it is very important for their tools to support monitoring and troubleshooting of the network experience of individual users.

Given the hybrid nature of today’s networks, it’s difficult to deliver network performance end to end. Cloud environments are dynamic, and internet connectivity is volatile. On top of that, many workers connect to corporate networks remotely from home or on the road. This complexity means that managing end-to-end network performance won’t guarantee that every user is having a good experience. Network operations teams need tools that provide visibility into individual user experiences.

The data bears this out. Strong interest in tools that can reveal the network experience of individual users correlated with a higher likelihood of replacing incumbent tools. Interest in tool replacement was especially high if their current toolset was ineffective at delivering this experience visibility.

EMA perspective

There are many other factors that drive network observability turnover. For example, many IT organizations are motivated by generic issues like cost and data retention challenges. But it’s hard to ignore what EMA sees in its research data. Networks are changing, and those changes are driving a need for new tools.

This change will be difficult to navigate. IT leaders must find the right tools to acquire. Then they must execute the changeover. Third, they need to evangelize the new tools. Otherwise, network teams will resist adoption and hold on to legacy tools and processes. EMA’s ongoing research practice has studied these issues for decades, and we are here to help.