Why public sector needs AI-powered observability: Cost savings, ROI, and analyst efficiency

Forrester asked organizations about the challenges they had been trying to solve with Elastic Observability. Rising to the top of interviewees’ concerns were data silos, data inaccessibility, and legacy IT. Accessible, searchable, actionable data is critical in attaining many public sector goals, from efficient citizen experiences, to operational resilience, to strengthening cybersecurity postures. Being able to have visibility into all data, of all types, from one platform, can solve multiple challenges and use cases.

Data silos: Prior to using Elastic, Forrester noted that the organizations lacked consolidated logging and monitoring data, and information wasn’t accessible to employees who needed it. A vice president of IT noted that before using Elastic, their organization had to “engage up to 10 teams at once to properly identify issues.” This process was often time-consuming as well. Elastic Observability, notes a public sector customer in the study, “is a product that seems to be [at the] front of evolution in observability research. And it’s very easy to orchestrate clusters and upgrade, and lifecycle handling is very easy. I can do something else with my hours.”

Data inaccessibility: The public sector organization interviewed for the study was able to reduce its data storage costs by 75% after moving to Elastic. Using Elastic Searchable Snapshots, the organization can now search data in “cold storage” lower-cost tiers, freeing up costs from having to keep data in more expensive “warm” tiers. The customer noted that “Elastic allows us to be more cost-efficient with storage, and we save time and have the chance to grow.” 

Legacy IT: The composite organization in the Forrester study is able to save $250,000 each year in external and labor costs by moving away from legacy monitoring and logging tools. The organization also saved $915,000 over three years by using Elastic Observability to identify operational inefficiencies and optimize data storage, infrastructure usage, and system performance. 

As public sector organizations are being asked to do more with less — and with operational and maintenance (O&M) consuming large amounts of already-limited budgets — the ability to modernize, enhance, and transform while saving costs can be a significant asset.

For additional data and insights, download the full Forrester Total Economic Impact study.