As organizations build, modernize, and deploy business-critical applications including traditional and on-premise, hybrid applications, and modern, distributed (cloud native), they need more observability into their increasingly complex, dispersed workloads. Using multiple domain-specific monitoring, visibility, and observability tools can provide insights into individual domains, but it's difficult to do at scale, and creates multiple sources of truth. How can organizations bring together enterprise workload details to the insights they need for better application experiences?

Breaking through layers of complexity with full stack observability

Cisco Observability Platform is an open and extensible, API-driven platform focused on OpenTelemetry and anchored on metrics, events, logs, and traces (MELT), providing AI/ML driven analytics. It brings data together from multiple domains including application, networking, infrastructure, security, cloud, sustainability, and business sources.

Cisco Observability Platform also empowers a new observability ecosystem delivering relevant and impactful business insights through new use-cases and extensions. Cisc  flexible modules that help customers with specific business outcomes. One great example is the vSphere Observability and Data Modernization built by Cisco technology partner CloudFabrix.

CloudFabrix vSphere Observability and Data Modernization

Many organizations are utilizing the VMware vSphere enterprise workload platform for their business-critical applications. So CloudFabrix took the initiative to develop a module that helps them observe vSphere through Cisco Observability Platform for a more centralized, consolidated view.

"Most of our customers today are running hybrid environments, so we decided our first module should bring vSphere into Cisco FSO Platform, to make them "first class citizens" of FSO," said Raja Penmetsa, CTO of CloudFabrix. "CloudFabrix collects the infrastructure information underneath your application, translates into OTEL telemetry signals, and puts it into FSO."

CloudFabrix enables organizations to acquire a vast amount of data and entity insights from across the technology stack make them easily accessible on Cisco Observability Platform, to support application or infrastructure modernization, performance impact analysis, and other use cases.

The module also enriches vSphere and VMware vRealize Operations data with their environment's Kubernetes and infrastructure data.

CloudFabrix provides visibility and correlation into where services are running and how they are connected, including details about which Kubernetes service is running on a particular VMware host, on a specific VM.

Our technology partners like CloudFabrix say that Cisco Observability Platform has enabled them to hit the ground running as they commence work on expansion modules. Its rich modeling available right out of the box helps them build and bring new solutions to market fast, and rapidly fill use cases for specific domains and vertical use cases.

Seizing emerging market opportunities and use cases faster

"First and foremost, Cisco Observability Platform has done a really good job of enabling us to extend the platform," said Penmetsa. "Based on our past experiences, something like this would have taken about six to 12 months to build. Working with the Cisco Observability Platform for the first time, it took us less than four weeks to build our vSphere Observability and Data Modernization module. And now that we're familiar with the platform, we should be able to churn out future deliverables on our roadmap even faster."

Watch the full interview between Raju Penmetsa, CTO, Cloudfabrix and Sunder Parameswaran, VP Product Management, Cisco FSO.

As Cisco continues to enhance the platform with additional tools and documentation for developers, CloudFabrix and other technology partners will gain access to even more robust support.

Together, Cisco Observability Platform and its partner modules deliver a comprehensive solution that scales with the pace of business, with easy extensibility everywhere, across the infrastructure and the application life cycle.

 

Learn more about  Cisco Observability Platform and the CloudFabrix Module