Why unified observability is key to better UX

Government agencies are taking on a range of IT priorities, from improving the quality of the user experience to defending against an increasingly sophisticated cyberthreat landscape. They are also working on improving troubleshooting techniques and their overall cybersecurity maturity. 

A common thread among those challenges is the significant role unified observability can play in helping agencies boost efficiency in each of those areas while helping solve problems resulting from workforce and skills shortages, budget constraints and an onslaught of data from distributed cloud environments. 

Seamless digital experiences

Improving the user experience has become a top priority for government agencies, not only for constituents who interact with government services online but also for employees who interact with the public and deliver online services. Both expect a level of responsiveness and ease of use that they’ve become accustomed to in the private sector.

To improve user experiences, a White House executive order calls for agencies to “design and deliver services with a focus on the actual experience” of the public, noting that the quality of the customer experience is essential to building trust in government. On the 2024 Top 10 Priorities list of the National Association of State CIOs, improving the digital experience for users is tied for first place with cybersecurity and risk management.

Just as important as improving the experience for constituents, however, is improving the digital employee experience for a workforce that increasingly insists on it. Riverbed’s Global Digital Employee Experience Survey found that 92% of public sector leaders believe that providing a seamless DEX was important (49% called it critical), and that 63% believe that employees would leave the agency if their DEX was not up to par. This was especially true for millennial and Generation Z employees, who are making up an increasingly larger portion of the workforce. 

Unified observability platforms, which provide full visibility across virtual and physical environments along with AI capabilities and automated tools, address those challenges, providing the means to meet the needs of employees and missions of government agencies while boosting productivity. 

Proactive steps on cybersecurity

Agencies face an increasingly sophisticated and targeted threat landscape that includes attacks such as phishing, supply chain attacks and, especially, ransomware. According to Comparitech’s research, ransomware attacks cost government agencies more than $860 million in 2023. Many of these attacks begin by compromising network identities and user credentials, which has prompted agencies to seriously pursue zero-trust security strategies.

The White House 2021 cybersecurity executive order emphasized a zero trust approach and set in motion a series of initiatives, including mandates from the Office of Management and Budget, and guidance from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The Department of Defense’s zero trust strategy calls for all DOD components to adopt zero-trust principles. 

For all its benefits, however, implementing zero trust has an unexpected consequence. Agencies lose visibility into their applications as data tunnels through complex cloud environments. Teams can’t see what’s going on with the data, which works against cybersecurity. Observability assesses the state of a system by measuring its outputs, giving security teams the fine-grained data they need to counter threats, while also allowing IT teams to improve efficiency and productivity. 

Shift left, solve problems

It’s not unusual for agencies to run into performance problems, such as bottlenecks caused by slow-running applications – problems that can persist for months as its impact spreads across departments.

A unified observability platform, which provides holistic visibility and tracks the actual experience of users, allows teams to quickly locate any problem or trouble spots. Unified observability allows teams to shift left to diagnose the problem quickly, reducing resolution times, mproving productivity, and, not incidentally, improving the user experience for the public, agency workers and IT staff.

Government agencies are facing challenges such as the need to provide high-quality user experiences and improve cybersecurity while working within budget constraints and IT skills shortages. Unified observability enables them to take proactive steps to address those challenges while giving an agency’s chief experience officer the information they need about where to make investments and which processes to prioritize in order to improve the overall user experience. It can also help CXOs decide when to implement recruiting or retraining programs.

All of that makes implementing unified observability at government agencies a critical priority, especially in the face of an increasingly dangerous threat landscape targeting an increasingly complex cloud-based infrastructure.