of the network can be more effectively optimized through real-time policy changes, ensuring better-performing cloud applications align with the latency requirements. Additionally, contextualization facilitates simplified network management and monitoring. For example, when a site experiences degraded performance, multiple alerts might be triggered across routers, firewalls and SD-WAN devices. Without contextualization, these generate separate tickets, which increases the time to resolution. Intelligent correlation reduces this noise by linking alerts to a single event. Comprehensive observability also enables the assessment of network health and efficiency, supported by detailed analytics and real-time reporting. Anomaly detection and identifying issues are critical functions supported by end-to-end observability to ensure network availability and uptime. Security-related incidents are a facet of this functionality at both the individual user and device levels, as is the case with secure access service edge (SASE) type solutions, which demand immediate remediation to protect an enterprise’s confidential data resources and brand reputation. Additionally, the integrated services view, offered through a single pane of glass with system-wide observability, drives streamlined network management across wireline and wireless applications. This extends to the more efficient management of customer and marketing data, which impacts the quality and use of an enterprise’s business and marketing intelligence, while enhanced data visibility resulting from telemetry-driven observability can also drive improved supply chain management. Not All Network Management Platforms are the Same When assessing the various network management and monitoring platforms offered by network solution providers in the marketplace today, it’s essential to consider the functional robustness of the single-pane-of-glass approach and the level of full-stack observability it provides. It starts with a consolidated dashboard view at an integrated services level across wireline and wireless device connections, which can be a differentiator compared to the various SaaS-enabled network management platform offerings. This also applies to the breadth of network services that can be viewed across a single interface. The adaptability of the provider’s API is also a critical capability, enabling the integration of local access providers as well as third-party network technologies and solutions. The breadth and flexibility of dashboard customization is another key consideration, especially when evaluating from a reseller perspective. The security functionality is a further differentiator, leveraging a platform’s comprehensive observability to address security incidents in real-time. Sitelevel visibility is another differentiator, ensuring better performance on an end-to-end basis. AI has also moved the needle with automation and analytics, leading to more outcome-based SLAs as a differentiator. Finally, the degree of contextualization engineered into the platform should be carefully assessed, as this will drive better network performance, narrow troubleshooting timeframes and enhance network reliability. This is an area of network management functionality where there is a significant variance of capability across the MSP spectrum. Building versus buying this network management and portal functionality is another key strategic aspect that MSPs, resellers and end-users must consider carefully. The versatility of SaaS-enabled platforms has significantly improved the efficiency of acquiring much of the network management functionality, rather than implementing a DIY approach. Beyond cost, the buildversus-buy decision also hinges on staffing. Internally managing a platform like this requires skilled personnel who understand implementation, tuning and ongoing optimization, often necessitating more than one dedicated full-time equivalent (FTE) technician. To address this resource requirement, MSPs can offer out-of-the-box functionality, including preconfigured contextualization, reducing internal overhead. The Security Imperative The value of a single pane of glass with end-to-end observability in helping to protect an enterprise’s network and IT infrastructure from malicious attacks and breaches cannot be overstated. SSE (secure service edge) and ZTNA (zero trust network access) technologies and solutions have served to fortify cloud security and network access since their initial rollout more than five years ago. Integrating these service capabilities into the dashboard view through a single pane of glass can significantly improve the effectiveness of security incident monitoring and remediation. The enhanced ability of data-driven observability to detect anomalies and remediate them through AI-driven automation is a more effective defense against security threats, especially as these malicious attacks become increasingly sophisticated. A single pane of glass with systemwide observability functions serves as a data aggregation and analytics tool, used to measure network performance, bandwidth utilization and application performance, which are often specified in service level agreements (SLAs). This includes latency performance, network uptime and availability and bandwidth usage. Additionally, a single pane of glass with system-wide observability has a significant impact on metrics relating to ticket management and problem resolution, including ticket volumes, escalations and MTTR. These metrics are critical to assuring the operational integrity of an enterprise network and that business applications run uninterrupted. In today’s managed network services market, a single pane of glass with holistic observability has become a critical factor when evaluating a provider’s capabilities. In many ways, it has become the “secret sauce” to providing an exceptional user and customer experience through its enhanced visibility, dynamic monitoring, improved automation, actionable insights and faster remediation. Jamie Pugh is CTO of Globalgig. 20 CHANNELVISION | SUMMER 2025
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