The State of Observability in the Pubic Sector

We surveyed ITOps and engineering professionals around the world to learn how organizations are building leading observability practices.

Here, we highlight key findings from respondents in the public sector.

Charting the course to observability success

Most (77%) public sector respondents have been using observability solutions for more than one year. But in the observability adoption journey, organizations in the public sector lag — more than half are beginners (54%, versus the 45% average).

This is unsurprising when you consider that about a third feel underfunded when it comes to observability tools and technologies (29% compared to the 15% average).

The view will be worth the climb

Many public sector respondents cite alert fatigue associated with observability tools as an issue. Over half (51%) call it somewhat or very problematic. And they’re much less likely to report having excellent visibility into their environments:

Private cloud: 38% versus 47% across all industries
Public cloud: 35% versus 47%

Citizens expect their digital interactions in the public sector to match the speed and ease of those provided by the private sector. Organizations can tackle these challenges by implementing observability to ensure the efficient, seamless, and intuitive delivery of essential public services.

Leading observability practices have big payoffs

Many public sector organizations are at the beginning of their journey — just 6% are observability leaders.

The public sector reports the lowest incidence of having a digital resilience strategy (17%). And they’re less likely to create hybrid roles spanning observability and security disciplines (42%).

Still, investing in observability has proven, significant value. On average, public sector agencies report an annual return on investment of 2x.

77%
of public sector respondents say their ITOps, developers, and security are better aligned thanks to observability

Unlocking the potential of OpenTelemetry

A leading observability practice prioritizes standardization, clarity, and control of its data. One way to do that is through OpenTelemetry (OTel).

Currently, only 35% of public sector organizations say their primary observability tool leverages OTel, compared to 58% across industries.

In an industry that’s often challenged with siloes and disparate systems, standardization throughout teams and tools is ranked as the number one motivator for adoption.

Public sector respondents see the advantages of OpenTelemetry

59% can more easily adopt modern frameworks due to OTel

Platform engineering ushers in a new DevOps future

Only 67% of public sector respondents employ platform engineering — the lowest adoption rate across all industries.

Yet agencies have been successful in driving adoption of standards across the organization for security and compliance controls/guardrails (93%). Adopters are experiencing other benefits as well:

56% cited increased IT operations efficiency
40% have retired legacy IT infrastructure/reduced technical debt
40% report increased developer productivity/efficiency

so-pub-sector-platform-engineering-river-image

AI in observability is starting to take shape

AI and machine learning (ML) within observability tools have become table stakes.

Yet adoption remains low in the public sector. Only 27% of organizations have adopted AIOps into their observability toolset, compared to 52% across all industries.

A positive sign: half (50%) of public sector respondents say ROI from AIOps tools has exceeded expectations.

91% of public sector respondents are exploring generative AI in observability

63% have tried generative AI for data analysis

8% have adopted these capabilities — the lowest of any industry

Organizations in the public sector can build leading observability practices

Learn more about The State of Observability report and how Splunk can help you earn your spot on the observability leaderboard.

Get the full report

Public sector overview