Chronosphere Report: engineers waste 25% of their work week on low-level troubleshooting tasks, costing US businesses over $44 billion each year

67% of engineers note that a strong observability function provides the foundation for business value in a cloud native world, but struggle with greater complexity, inconsistent performance, and data deluge

NEW YORK, Dec. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Chronosphere, the only cloud native observability platform that tames rampant data growth and complexity for engineers, today released "2023 Cloud Native Observability Report: Overcoming Cloud Native Complexity," an industry report based on a survey of 500+ full-time employees in engineering and software development roles who are familiar with observability tools and practices. It reveals that when observability is done right, it positively impacts both the top and bottom lines of a business, allowing organizations to innovate faster, improve customer experience, and increase return on investment. Conversely, when companies' observability functions fall short, the results can be catastrophic – amounting to billions of dollars in lost productivity across the US every year¹. The research shows that engineering and DevOps productivity falters – wasting an average of 10 hours or 25% of their time every week trying to triage and understand incidents. The full report can be accessed here.

Great Observability is Critical to Cloud Native Business Success
As the market increasingly moves toward cloud native environments, observability must adapt as well if it is to deliver as promised: effective cloud native observability leads to better business outcomes by mitigating incidents that cause customer pain, helps teams innovate faster and improves ROI on precious engineering time.

In addition to the technical benefits observability brings - like remediating issues before they negatively impact customers - it also provides higher-level business impact.

• 67% say having a strong observability function provides the foundation for all business value
• 71% say their business can't innovate effectively without good observability

For engineers, not all observability tools are created equal, as companies often choose between vendor's solutions or building their own. The report found that those using vendor solutions were three times as satisfied, and ultimately, more effective, than those using tools they've built.

• Those using a vendor solution are detecting issues 65% faster than those without a cohesive approach, and 30% faster than those with an in-house solution
• 42% of those using a vendor solution said they experienced very severe, customer-facing incidents quarterly or more; much less than the 61% using only their own observability solution who experience incidents quarterly

Poor Observability Wastes Money, Talent, and Time
Few engineers are fully satisfied with their current observability solution, saying it's too slow, lacks context, and is stifling their performance and ability to contribute meaningfully to the business. In fact, 96% of individual contributors spend most of their time resolving low level issues but say what they really want to do is innovate. These factors, on top of companies being forced to run leaner teams, have stretched engineers to the limits.

• 90% of individual contributors spend time on nights and weekends monitoring and resolving issues or being on call
• 88% of engineers report negative impacts to themselves and their career from spending so much time troubleshooting
• 62% say their company puts more money behind fixing issues rather than innovating new solutions (and that it's a bad use of funds)
• 39% say they are "frequently stressed out" by focusing so much on troubleshooting, and 33% say their personal lives are often disrupted by managing these tasks

A Divide Between Leaders and Individual Contributors
Notably, the survey showed that senior engineering leaders are often unaware of the plights of their teams, with more than twice as many individual contributors than senior leaders saying they are frequently stressed (45% of individual contributors vs. 20% of directors). Nearly all of the individual contributors surveyed have complaints about their observability solutions compared with only 12% of senior leaders. This "corporate digital divide" is not only costing companies customers and revenue, but also talented engineers who flee organizations because their voices aren't being heard.

"These findings reflect a trend we've seen in our customer base for several years – that old school approaches and tools are failing businesses." said Chronosphere co-founder and CEO, Martin Mao. "During today's economic uncertainty, companies will gravitate towards solutions that drive engineering efficiency and cost savings while continuing to enable rapid innovation cycles - and this is especially true for companies moving to cloud native who need to revisit their Observability strategy and solutions."

About Chronosphere
Chronosphere is the only cloud native observability platform that puts engineering organizations back in control by taming rampant data growth and cloud native complexity while accelerating innovation. Faster alerts and issue resolution ensures responsive and reliable cloud native workloads underlying the most valuable services at leading organizations like DoorDash, Robinhood, and Abnormal Security. Teams at organizations of all sizes trust Chronosphere to help them drive competitive advantage and world-class customer experiences while reducing engineering burnout and eliminating lock-in. Chronosphere is a remote-first company, backed by Greylock, Lux Capital, General Atlantic, Addition and Founders Fund. For more information, visit https://chronosphere.io or follow @chronosphereio.

Survey Methodology
Chronosphere conducted this research using a CATI survey prepared by Method Research and distributed by Jasper Colin Research among n=500 full-time employees in the United States working in engineering and development roles who are familiar with observability tools and practices at companies with 250+ employees. Data was collected from September 21 to October 6, 2022.

Additional resources:
Chronosphere blog

¹US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021

SOURCE Chronosphere