Cisco, a pioneer in full-stack observability, announced on November 28 at AWS re:Invent the release of business metrics for Cisco Cloud Observability. Let’s delve into the revolutionary landscape that this innovation is carving for both business owners and technical users.
Bridging the gap: The unveiling of business metrics
As Ronak Desai, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cisco AppDynamics and Full-Stack Observability, highlighted in his recent blog, business metrics for Cisco Cloud Observability bridges the gap between business and technical data. They empower teams with the visibility and insights they need to connect their users’ digital experience to business outcomes. Monitoring business transactions has been foundational in overcoming the challenges associated with understanding the end-to-end flows of business-critical applications through increasingly complex and distributed environments.
Figure 1 shows business metrics in the context of application performance data
Why business metrics?
Here’s a question you might be pondering: why can’t custom metrics or span metrics do the job? Well, in the intricate tapestry of contemporary cloud architectures, applications have transcended monolithic structures and evolved into ecosystems of microservices. In traditional monitoring approaches, custom or span metrics are effective when metrics and dimensions are confined to a single span. However, the complexities of modern cloud architectures, characterized by numerous microservices in a single application transaction, make it challenging to correlate dimensions across spans.
Cisco Cloud Observability’s business metrics address this issue by navigating transaction spans and consolidating metrics and dimensions into a unified measurement. This capability empowers users to analyze metric data comprehensively, enabling a nuanced understanding of business performance in intricate, distributed environments.
Configuring business metrics: A seamless journey
Configuration hurdles are a common stumbling block in many monitoring solutions. Cisco Cloud Observability effortlessly eliminates this challenge with an intuitive configuration experience. Prescriptive templates, such as “Sum” for total revenue or total products sold, act as guiding lights. The configuration interface provides a visual data preview, ensuring users can select attributes and dimensions with utmost ease.
Figure 2 shows configurable business metrics available at launch
Real-world exploration: A use case unveiled
To better understand business metrics, let’s embark on a real-world use case: Tracking Total Revenue for an E-commerce Application.
Instrumentation: Collaborate with developers to instrument checkout and shipping services, enriching OpenTelemetry span data with attributes like app.order.amount and app.shipping.zip_code.
Configuration: Utilize the user-friendly interface to configure metrics for the business transaction. Select a template like “Sum operation,” choose the metric attribute, and define segmentation attributes.
Analysis: Examine configured metrics on the business transaction page, analyze data on a timeline, and use options like “Show Segments” to delve into revenue based on zip codes.
Health rule setup: Optionally set up health rules to ensure metrics are within the expected range, following the same process as other business transaction metrics.
Analysis of health alerts: Receive notifications of health rule violations and investigate the cause by correlating business metrics with performance data on a single, cohesive interface.
Elevating Observability: Advanced Features
Delving into the advanced features that set Cisco Cloud Observability’s business metrics apart, this capability goes beyond the ordinary, supporting multiple metrics and enabling the configuration of up to 10 attributes per metric. This level of flexibility enables users to navigate the complexities of observing cloud native applications with ease. Business metrics seamlessly complement our business transactions, offering end-to-end visibility. Configuring and visualizing metrics is a breeze, thanks to its user-friendly interface, advanced visualization capabilities and the ability to set up alerts for mission-critical metrics. With features like KPI visualization, trend analysis and segmentation options, Cisco is redefining how businesses gain insights into their digital landscapes.
Empowering Digital Triumph
In summary, the introduction of business metrics delivers enhanced digital experience monitoring capabilities to Cisco Cloud Observability. From essential best practices to advanced features that provide unmatched flexibility, this blog has demonstrated the practical benefits of comprehensive observability. As you continue your exploration, we encourage you to dive into the details of Cisco Cloud Observability. Learn how business metrics can redefine your approach to application performance, empower your teams, and enhance your business outcomes.
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