Broadcom’s Vision for Network Observability

Network observability

The performance monitoring industry has been using the word “observability” to a lot of different ends lately. While the trend towards more visibility into services is a good one, it’s also based on a need we see from customers on a day-to-day basis. The need to take back control of network visibility is strong in the face of complexity that has been rapidly increasing for years. Looking back at how far we’ve come from the traditional world of network performance monitoring to today seems like a slow evolution, but as our Senior Director for Network Observability, Mike Melillo put it in our recent Network Observability Virtual Summit, “Network Observability is not just an industry buzzword, but a concept that pushes us to think differently about how we design, operate, and manage networks and connected user experiences.”

When it comes to observability, the core themes we look at within Broadcom are inspired by the value we want to provide our customers. This often comes in the form of working with customers to solve problems and then going back to our teams to see how we can scale those solutions for all customers. In recent months, you may have already seen some of this come to fruition in the following areas:

Data-driven optimization

Networks today generate more data than network operations teams can handle. Complexity dictates that AI and analytics are required to continue to optimize network performance, capacity planning, and resource allocation. By analyzing historical trends and patterns, teams can make informed decisions about where to invest resources, how to scale infrastructure, and how to continuously improve network operations. This data-driven approach can lead to significant cost savings, increased efficiency, and better overall network performance and user experience.

Faster root cause analysis

In complex, distributed, and hybrid environments, pinpointing the root cause of a problem can be a daunting task. To do this properly requires comprehensive visibility you don’t get with siloed point solutions. Observability tools provide deep visibility into the relationships between different components, allowing teams to quickly trace the source of issues and implement targeted solutions. This can dramatically accelerate troubleshooting and minimize the time it takes to resolve incidents.

Proactive problem resolution

Observability enables teams to shift from a reactive to a proactive approach to network management. By analyzing telemetry and applying increasingly intelligent analysis of that data in real-time, teams can identify potential issues before they escalate and have an impact on users or services. This can significantly reduce downtime, improve service reliability, and enhance the overall user experience.

Broadcom’s vision

Our overarching goal is to provide a comprehensive solution that addresses the gaps in existing network management tools. While many tools exist to deploy, manage, and monitor individual network components, there’s a critical lack of visibility into how these components interact and affect overall network performance.

We're tackling this challenge by offering end-to-end network visibility. This complete end-to-end view is needed to identify issues that are occurring at the demarcation points between different technologies. This enables organizations to proactively address problems before they have an impact on users and it streamlines the process of escalating specific issues to specialized teams.

By providing a unified view of the entire network delivery path, we're empowering organizations to improve network performance. We help teams identify and resolve issues quickly, so they can minimize downtime and disruptions. We’re focused on optimizing resource utilization by giving customers insights into network usage and performance so they can make data-driven decisions. Finally, we’re still focused on enhancing user experience to ensure consistent and reliable network access for employees, customers, and partners.

To effectively implement our end-to-end network visibility strategy, we've prioritized four key initiatives for this year:

1. Expert-driven intelligence: By leveraging the insights and best practices of our most successful customers, we're developing product features that empower all users to achieve similar outcomes.
2. Cloud-native focus: We're expanding our solution’s capabilities to provide comprehensive visibility into cloud environments, such as VMware Cloud Foundation. This will simplify adoption for customers running applications in these modern infrastructure models.
3. Scalable and streamlined: We’re committed to ensuring all aspects of our solution are designed to scale. We’re investing in making it easier for our customers to do setup, configuration, and management of production environments.
4. Consistent user experience: To ensure our platform remains adaptable and valuable for all customers and architectures, we're investing in a unified architecture that supports diverse deployment options and delivers consistent benefits across the board.

By executing these top-level initiatives as well as some that are under the water line, but no less important, we aim to provide meaningful upgrades to our customers with our latest release of Network Observability by Broadcom. To find out more or schedule time with our teams, you can contact us here.