Network complexity and visibility blind spots an issue for 80% of firms

The new reality of the modern workspace is continued support for remote workers, yet the broad proliferation of cloud infrastructure to support hybrid infrastructures is driving increased complexity and visibility challenges for network operations teams, according to a study from Broadcom, with the lack of skilled teams a growing challenge.

The study, Cloud and internet usage generates network observability blind spots, surveyed 505 networking, operations, cloud and architecture professionals at medium to global enterprise companies representing all seniority levels. Respondents were invited to comment on their company’s network operations practices. Participants were from five continents and all had enterprise security responsibilities.

With 98% of companies using or planning to use cloud infrastructure and 95% enabling remote workers, the network has become increasingly more complex, as noted by 78% of respondents. Network endpoints are spread far and wide, and often exist in workers’ homes, which makes it challenging to gain the visibility necessary to ensure uptime, performance and security.

Yet among the standout findings uncovered was a surprising shortage of skilled workers, requiring almost two-thirds of respondents to rely on third-party resources for network operations. Broadcom said such findings paint a concerning picture as organisations struggle to meet demand for modern IT networks.

An additional challenge is the lack of information provided by internet service providers (ISPs) and cloud providers, leading 80% to state that internet and cloud environments create network blind spots which can often create delays in issue remediation. These findings indicate that most companies don’t have proper network operations and observability tools for today’s modern IT environment.

When asked about the specific challenges they face with network operations management, 41% pointed to a lack of needed skillsets, while not having enough operations personnel was cited by 31%. Digging deeper to understand what is inhibiting teams’ ability to grow, nearly half (48%) of respondents said candidates lack the needed skills and 45% pointed to a general lack of available candidates.

In what Broadcom said was of no surprise, two-thirds of organisations were found to be turning to third parties for network operations support – a stop-gap measure to fill the void, but not a long-term solution. The result was that few teams were gaining the hands-on experience necessary to develop the capabilities they need to manage the network themselves, and with a consequent greater reliance on tools and third-party data.

Another key worry revealed was that teams were lacking critical data and learning about issues from users. Indeed, this was cited by as many as 84% of network professionals, meaning users are experiencing performance problems before the network team knows about it. This was seen as a clear reflection of the lack of information network teams have access to. Moreover, 95% of respondents said they do not get the information they need from ISPs and cloud providers. Just over three-quarters of respondents felt slow or missing data was impeding resolution times directly.

“Ensuring the performance of the network is mission-critical for every business. Yet, the data shows that teams aren’t getting the support, staff or tools they need to make their jobs simpler,” said Mike Melillo, senior director of network management solutions at Broadcom. “Given the importance of the network for modern business, the industry needs to continue to work to collect, correlate and normalise multi-vendor network data that produces intelligent remediation recommendations and focused triage workflows, and helps resolve the challenges captured in this research project.”