New Relic’s ‘2024 Observability Forecast’ Reveals Outages in ASEAN Can Cost Businesses Over USD $2.5M an Hour

New Relic, the Intelligent Observability Platform, released its “2024 Observability Forecast,” the industry’s most comprehensive report on the state of observability. Surveying over 1,700 technology professionals across 16 countries, the report highlights key growth areas, challenges, and external trends influencing observability investments.

Data from the “2024 Observability Forecast” reveals that the median outage cost for high business impact outages in ASEAN was USD $2.5 million per hour, 32% higher than the median USD $1.9 million per hour outage cost across all respondents. Notably, 80% in Singapore said their Mean Time to Resolve (MTTR) improved to some extent since adopting observability, which was more than any other country. The report findings highlight the critical role observability plays in reducing disruptions, maximising operational efficiencies and improving the bottom line.

2024 Observability Forecast: Outages Cost Engineers Time and Money

According to the research, respondents estimated that engineering teams spend an average of 30% of their time addressing disruptions, which is equivalent to 12 hours across a 40-hour work week. The most common causes of unplanned outages over the last two years were network failure (35%), third-party or cloud provider services failure (29%), and human error (28%).

The report highlights that costly outages are impacting the bottom line of ASEAN companies, and about a third (33%) are experiencing high business impact outages once a week or more. Additionally, 87% in ASEAN estimated that business-critical application outages cost their organisation at least USD $500,000 per hour of downtime. However, observability can help mitigate these challenges. 80% in Singapore said their MTTR improved to some extent since adopting observability; more than any other country surveyed in the report. This figure was 56% for Indonesia.

Tool Sprawl and Manual Checks Are Problematic

While observability adoption is growing, tool consolidation is still an issue, according to the “2024 Observability Forecast.” More than a quarter of respondents in ASEAN (27%) learned about outages with multiple monitoring tools, and 22% with manual checks, tests, or complaints. Only 18% learned about them with just one observability platform, with respondents in Singapore being the most likely to do so at 30%.

In spite of this, the desire to consolidate tools is growing. While 20% of ASEAN respondents to the “2024 Observability Forecast”said they had achieved full-stack observability, this figure was 40% in Indonesia—making it the top country in the region for tool consolidation. Similarly, 65% in Indonesia had deployed 10 or more capabilities, while only 20% in Singapore had reached that level of adoption. Across ASEAN, a complex tech stack (36%) and lack of budget (30%) were the top challenges preventing full-stack observability.

Adopting AI: A Key Observability Driver

The biggest technology strategy or trend driving the need for observability in ASEAN was the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies (38%), followed by the integration of business apps, and migrating to a multi-cloud environment (both 34%). Security monitoring was the most deployed capability in ASEAN (55%), followed by infrastructure monitoring (54%).

Globally, security monitoring was the most deployed capability (58%), while AI-related capabilities deployed included AI monitoring (42%), Machine Learning (ML) model monitoring (29%), and AIOps (24%). An additional third are expected to deploy AI for IT operations (AIOps) capabilities (39%), AI monitoring (36%), and ML model monitoring (34%) in the next year. Those deploying these capabilities estimated receiving a higher annual total value from observability and had a higher median return on investment (ROI) than average.

Observability Delivers ROI for ASEAN Companies

Most ASEAN respondents to the “2024 Observability Forecast” said observability delivered a substantial return on investment (ROI), with 80% saying they spent $1 million or more on observability per year. In terms of ROI, Malaysia had a median annual ROI of 302%, the highest among ASEAN countries and second-highest in the Asia Pacific region. Thailand followed closely with a median annual ROI of 300%, while Singapore achieved 258%.

Observability has a wide-reaching impact on businesses in this region, with 87% of respondents to the “2024 Observability Forecast” saying that their organisation recorded at least $1 million in total value per year from their observability investment. More than two-fifths (42%) said observability reduced security risks, and 37% said it improved system uptime and reliability. Those in ASEAN countries were also more likely than respondents from other countries to view observability as a key enabler for achieving core business goals to some extent (62% compared to 50% overall).

“With organisations across ASEAN looking to observability to enable their core business goals, it’s clear that the need for full-stack observability has never been greater,” said Peter Marelas, Field Chief Technology Officer for APJ at New Relic. “The ‘2024 Observability Forecast’ has once again highlighted the tangible business benefits that observability delivers including less downtime, fewer critical outages, and high ROI, and cemented its role in helping organisations achieve their core business goals.”

Other key findings from the “2024 Observability Forecast” include:

• Full-stack observability adoption rates varied. Close to half (40%) of those surveyed in Indonesia achieved full-stack observability, while in Singapore this was only 10%. Similarly, 65% in Indonesia had deployed 10 or more capabilities, while only 20% of those in Singapore had done so.
• There is a strong desire for tool consolidation. Nearly half (49%) of ASEAN respondents use five or more tools for observability, compared to 45% overall. However, 14% said they were using only one tool, which is a significant increase from 3% in 2023 and highlights the desire for tool consolidation. Furthermore, 63% preferred a single, consolidated platform, while only 18% preferred multiple point solutions.
• Finding and fixing outages is time consuming.Across the region, 75% said they take at least 30 minutes to detect outages, and 72% take at least 30 minutes to resolve them. When it came to high-business-impact outages, 78% of those impacted said it cost them at least USD $1 million per hour.
• Business observability is on the rise.Correlating business outcomes with telemetry data (business observability) was a top priority for IT professionals globally, with 40% already deploying it and 47% planning to deploy it within the next three years. Those with business observability experienced 40% less annual downtime, spent 24% less on hourly annual outage costs, and spent 25% less time addressing disruptions compared to those without.

The “2024 Observability Forecast” is available today. For more information:

• Read the full report.
• View the raw data

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