Will AIOps help you solve problems faster?

Every company needs to solve IT problems fast

Since the dawn of time, IT organizations have been striving to solve problems as fast as they possibly can. Throughout this crusade, they’ve accumulated dozens of different monitoring tools and spent untold sums of time & money along the way. Despite these efforts and investments, most IT leaders would admit they are not solving problems fast enough and their need for speed is exponentially magnified in the digital world we live in of today. Is AIOps the answer?

Why AIOps?

AIOps is an emerging technology practice that many organizations have started exploring. I have talked to several companies who have begun this journey and I’ve asked them why. Why did they they decide to invest in an AIOps solution? Their answers all swirl around the need to manage alert storms, reduce alert noise, and correlate events. However, when I continue questioning why these things are important, it boils down to the need to solve problems faster.

In other words, they are investing in AIOps to address their alert noise problems even though that’s not the the ultimate goal. The real objective is to identify and fix problems faster.

Alert noise is not the main reason we are slow at solving IT problems

Obviously, reducing alert noise is helpful, but I don’t think anyone believes that this is the primary bottleneck in the troubleshooting process. Most people would say that finding the root cause is the main challenge.

You: Thanks Captain Obvious!     Me: You’re welcome!

Faster root cause analysis is the key

If we can agree that faster root cause analysis is the key to achieving the goal, then what is the best approach for moving forward?

• Should you invest in an AIOps solution?
• Should you implement a more robust, full-stack monitoring solution?

The answer is both.

Let’s use an analogy… improving human reaction time. Having an enhanced sensory nervous system (i.e. better touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing) has a big impact on reaction time. You can think of each sense (touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing) representing the various technologies in your IT enterprise stack which need monitoring  (i.e. end users, applications, transactions, infrastructure, synthetics and logs).  On top of that you have AIOps acting as the super-smart brain capable of processing these signals instantly and accurately.

One without the other does not meet the goal.

• By itself, AIOps is not going to improve your monitoring visibility and thus will not help you find root cause faster.
• Likewise, having robust, full-stack monitoring without AIOps relies too heavily on people to interpret the data. This is too slow.

Therefore, to be successful, you need full stack monitoring coupled with AIOps.

Dynatrace solves problems faster right out of the box

Dynatrace is an all-in-one software intelligence platform that will have you solving problems faster, immediately. This is because Dynatrace has highly automated, full-stack monitoring plus AIOps built into a single solution that deploys in minutes via a single agent.

Most monitoring tools require a ton of training, configuration and effort to implement – not Dynatrace. You just install the OneAgent and Dynatrace does the rest for you.

Most AIOps tools require data science skills and complex configurations – not Dynatrace. You get the power of AIOps immediately, right out of the box.

1. Detect problems automatically
2. Pinpoint the root cause automatically
3. Determine the business impact of the problem automatically
4. Eliminate alert storms automatically

Skeptical? That’s okay. Every customer of Dynatrace begins their journey thinking, “This sounds too good to be true.” Once you try it, seeing is believing and you will know why our customers have these success stories.

Before choosing an AIOps solution, ask yourself why?

In summary, my advice is to ask yourself about the real reason you are considering implementing AIOps. What is the ultimate goal?

• Is your goal to just cut down on the alert noise?
• Is your primary objective to identify and resolve problems faster?

If your goal is to reduce alert noise, you could simplify and put a stop to all that noisy monitoring as explained here.

Additionally, I would also encourage you to read our eBook: AIOps Done Right – Automating the Next Generation of Enterprise Software.

Assuming it’s the latter, you should give Dynatrace a try. You’ll be up and running in 5 minutes or less with our free trial.