Monitoring & Observability in 2026

Another Christmas and New Year holiday has been had, and we have a new date to remember to type on our documents. Yes, 2026 is here, and these are my personal thoughts on what I foresee over the course of this year. 

AI – Yes I had to start here 

2025 was the year that AI took over everything in IT, where all the exhibitions and events I attended, if you did not have AI in your product, did the attendees dismiss you as being irrelevant? Not completely, but it certainly seemed that is how the vendors feel. 

I’m not going to dwell on the hype cycle or speculate on whether the AI “bubble” is close to bursting. From my discussions with customers and partners, one thing is clear: there is still significant ground to cover before AI consistently delivers the value currently being marketed. 

That said, as someone who has worked in IT monitoring for over 25 years, the speed at which AI is already delivering tangible benefit is remarkable and accelerating fast. We are moving from an era of “here is a wall of charts and metrics, go interpret them” to true observability, where AI actively cuts through noise, correlates signals, and presents insight rather than raw data. AI’s greatest strength is its ability to process and interpret vast quantities of structured data, precisely the foundation of any serious monitoring platform, making observability one of AI’s most natural and powerful use cases. 

Currently the focus has been on the AI being used for the reactive functionality, which for the majority of organisations is the focused requirement of the solution/s, the movement to more predictive is only going to get better. With that additional AI delivered analysis organisations will be able to improve their uptime and performance metrics by fixing issues before they manifest into service affecting. 

Another area I find fascinating is we are being asked more and more to monitor the quality of AI solutions, where an organisation needs to be able to monitor the usage, effectiveness and accuracy of AI capabilities being deployed across their business. This can be achieved of course, by monitoring/observability platforms, which in turn use their internal AI capabilities too. 

Tooling Integration & Automation 

AI today primarily augments human operations, but 2026 may well be the year when it becomes sufficiently capable and trusted to enable far higher levels of automated response. 

Speaking of which, we have been pushing our clients to integrate and automate through the ITSM and ITOM tooling for a long time now. Our Youtube channel has a number of videos and webinars on this subject and I see more capabilities being driven by this. The combination of process automation and AI is extraordinarily powerful, and adoption is moving from experimental to production-grade. Attend our n8n launch webinar on the 22nd of January to see more on this. 

The nirvana position of your monitoring capabilities is for an issue to be detected, the issue analysed, a solution determined, a solution to be generated and then applied. The human involvement in this can be validating the solution before applying or simply to perform a post-incident review, which AI can also provide. 

Whilst vendors such as SolarWinds keep adding features to tie their solutions together, the vast majority of organisations do not standardise on a single vendor for their monitoring, service management and alerting platforms, but this should not be a barrier to building this into your disparate tooling. They can work with each other and you should be looking at making them. 

OpenTelemetry Wider Adoption 

What else has been happening in our IT segment; well OpenTelemetry (OTel) has been gaining more and more attention, with more vendors adding this protocol to their tech stack. OTel has quickly taken on the role of the de facto standard for telemetry data, allowing Metrics, Logs & Traces (MELT – yes another acronym in IT) to be consistent across the vendors.  

Standards are essential for sustainable IT ecosystems, and OpenTelemetry is now firmly on that path. 

However, there is an important consequence: telemetry volume is exploding. 

 
Moving from pull-based data collection (API, SNMP) to push-based telemetry significantly increases data ingestion. While bandwidth is rarely the bottleneck, data storage and processing costs, particularly in cloud environments most certainly are. 

Organisations adopting modern observability must therefore design with data economics firmly in mind. 

A summary of 2026 

• Observability deepens its analytical foundation 

• Predictive operations become mainstream 

• OpenTelemetry adoption accelerates 

• Observability expands across roles and workloads 

• Full-stack visibility delivered through fewer, smarter platforms 

• AI and data-centric observability become the operational core 

If 2026 is the year you want to move from reactive IT to predictive operations, now is the time to act. 

Speak with Prosperon about how modern observability, AI-driven insight, and automation can transform your IT operations — from improved uptime and performance to reduced cost and operational risk. 

Don’t forget – Join our upcoming n8n Launch Webinar on the 22nd of January and discover how we are helping organisations integrate monitoring, ITSM and automation into a single, intelligent operations platform 

 Highlights from Our Latest Webinar: Insights and Takeaways

In case you missed our recent webinar, we’ve got a recap for you. Whether you attended or just wanted to learn more, here’s a quick rundown of what we covered and why we think you should keep the conversation going.

A Big Thank You for Joining Us

First off, thank you to everyone who joined us for our recent webinar. We know it’s August, and many of you are balancing work with summer plans, so we truly appreciate the time you spent with us.

The session was packed with insights, discussions, and a few moments of humour, but the goal was always clear: provide you with something valuable you can take away and apply. Whether you’re in IT, business operations, or simply looking to learn about the latest trends, we hope you walked away with new ideas and insights.

What We Covered: Key Insights from the Webinar

During the webinar, Daniel Symonds and Mark Roberts discussed several important topics that are shaping our landscape today. Here’s a quick rundown:

1. AI and the Future of Tech Platforms
   One topic that sparked a lot of discussion was AI—specifically, how platforms like SolarWinds are leveraging AI to automate tasks and make smarter, faster decisions. As AI continues to evolve, it’s a tool that can help businesses streamline operations and stay ahead of the curve. If AI’s on your radar, or if you’re wondering how it fits into your strategy, we’d be happy to continue the conversation.
2. Customising Tech Solutions to Fit Your Needs
   Mark shared how SolarWinds can be tailored to meet the specific needs of any business, regardless of size. We believe that the best solutions are the ones that fit your unique requirements—not the other way around. If you’re in a phase where you’re exploring customization options or are just trying to figure out what works best for your business, we’ve worked through plenty of these scenarios and would be happy to offer insights based on real-world examples.
3. Solving Common Tech Challenges
   Let’s face it: tech issues are inevitable. Whether it’s integration problems or figuring out how to scale, every business encounters roadblocks. But what really stood out during the webinar was the way we approached problem-solving as a community. The group shared challenges, brainstormed solutions, and leaned on each other’s experiences. This kind of collaborative problem-solving is what we’re all about, and we always enjoy helping people navigate those tricky moments.

Interaction is Key: Your Questions Answered

One of the highlights of our session was how interactive it was. We kept things open for questions and discussions throughout the webinar, so it wasn’t just a presentation—it was a conversation. If you didn’t get a chance to ask your question live, no worries. You can always reach out to us directly. The goal is to keep the conversation going beyond the session itself.

If you’re ever looking for advice, or just want to bounce around an idea, don’t hesitate to get in touch. We’ve been in the trenches and are always happy to offer guidance, whether it’s on specific tools, best practices, or navigating tech challenges.

• The Wrap-Up: What’s Next?

  As the session came to a close, Mark had a moment of humor about his last-minute packing for an upcoming holiday (because who doesn’t leave packing to the last minute?), but on a more serious note, we reminded attendees that we’re here as a resource whenever they need us. The webinar was just a starting point, and we’re always open to continuing the discussion on any of the topics we covered.

  If you’re interested in diving deeper into any of the areas we discussed, or if you have questions on how to approach your specific challenges.

  Keeping the Conversation Going

  Our webinar was only a glimpse of the kind of expertise and problem-solving we offer. If you’re interested in a deeper dive into AI, platform customization, or just need someone to talk through your tech challenges, we’re here. No strings attached—just experts who genuinely want to help.

  Feel free to connect with us on LinkedIn, or reach out through the contact details we’ve shared. We’re looking forward to hearing from you and continuing the conversation.

  A Final Thank You

  Once again, thank you for taking the time to join us. Whether you’re ready to take the next step or just want to chat, we’re here when you’re ready. In the meantime —have a great rest of the summer!

What you will learn on this webinar:

• Optimise Database Health & Configure Performance: Discover how to efficiently optimise database health and configure performance using SolarWinds SQL Sentry.
• Administrate Databases Using Advanced Automation: Learn how to administrate databases and automate essential tasks using automation and a library of scripts.
• Minimise Downtime & Resolve Database Issues Faster: Explore how SolarWinds can help mitigate database performance issues and reduce costly downtime.
• Live Product Demonstrations: SolarWinds Engineers will demonstrate the core functionality of SolarWinds SQL Sentry.

What you will learn on this webinar:

• Understand What Database KPIs & Metrics Are Important: Discover what data is needed to identify underlying database issues affecting application performance.
• Meet Database Monitoring & Administration Requirements: Learn how to identify database problems and how to troubleshoot advanced database performance issues.
• Reduce Data Loss & Resolve Issues Faster With SolarWinds: Explore how SolarWinds Database Performance Analyser can help meet your Junior DBA needs.
• Live Product Demonstrations: SolarWinds Engineers will demonstrate the core functionality of SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer.

What you will learn on this webinar:

• Understand What Database KPIs & Metrics Are Important: Discover what data is needed to identify underlying database issues affecting application performance.
• Meet Database Monitoring & Management Requirements: Learn how to identify database anomalies, troubleshoot database health, and respond to issues.
• Resolve Database Performance Issues With SolarWinds: Explore how SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor and Database Performance Analyser can help you.
• Live Product Demonstrations: SolarWinds Engineers will demonstrate the core functionality of SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor and SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer.

In this webinar, you will discover how to enhance SolarWinds® by going beyond default reports. This webinar examines how to improve the efficiency of your platform by going beyond out-of-the-box SolarWinds reports. Discover how advanced reports can help increase your visibility into performance issues, respond to challenges faster, and better plan future resourcing needs.

What you will learn on this webinar:

• Customise Out-of-the-Box SolarWinds Reporting Templates: Go beyond default reports using the Orion reporting engine to enhance existing and build new reports.
• Meet Internal & External Reporting Requirements: Discover how to display critical data needed for SLA reporting, compliance, operational analysis and forecasting.
• SolarWinds Reporting Best Practices & Expert Tips: Learn how reports can be enriched using custom properties, and how to create and send user-specific reports.
• Live Demonstrations & Q&A Session: A Senior SolarWinds Engineer will demonstrate real-world custom reporting examples and answer all of your questions.

In this webinar, you will discover how to enhance SolarWinds® by going beyond default alerts. This webinar examines how to improve the efficiency of your platform by going beyond out-of-the-box SolarWinds alerts. Discover how advanced alerts can help you respond to problems faster, increase your visibility into potential issues and reduce the time it takes to troubleshoot issues.

What you will learn on this webinar:

• Enhance Out-of-the-Box SolarWinds Alert Definitions: Discover how to improve the trigger point of a SolarWinds alert to reduce false-positive alerts immediately.
• Take Control Of SolarWinds Alerting Noise & Fatigue: Explore how to quickly identify and customise default SolarWinds alerts that generate excessive noise.
• SolarWinds Alerting Best Practices & Expert Tips: Learn how to consolidate alerts to as few as possible to improve ongoing alert management and maintenance.

In this webinar, you will discover how to resolve network issues faster using network automation, by integrating SolarWinds® with NetBrain® – the leader in Network automation. This webinar examines how to visualise your network and simplify documentation with dynamic maps that provide critical and contextualised IT data. Discover how to accelerate troubleshooting using runbooks to automate vital diagnostics steps; and easily streamline critical IT tasks using workflow integrations with your existing ticketing and monitoring solutions.

What you will learn on this webinar:

• Create On-demand Dynamic Maps Of Your Network: Learn how to go beyond static network diagrams. Use on-demand mapping that provides end-to-end visibility, and one-click drill down into infinite detail, contextualised to the task at hand.
• Automate Network Troubleshooting Diagnostics Steps: Discover how to easily identify the root cause of network problems and automate repetitive troubleshooting tasks using runbooks – automatically executed step-by-step diagnostic procedures.
• Leverage Powerful Network Workflow Integrations: Explore how to enhance workflows by integrating ticketing solutions (such as ServiceNow®) with SolarWinds to trigger NetBrain to collect, analyse and visualise critical network data.
• Live Product Demonstrations & Q&A Session: A Senior Engineer will demonstrate the benefits of SolarWinds and NetBrain working together.

We provide consultancy, design, implementation and training as part of our Professional Services offerings. Since implementing an MSP service for the SolarWinds Orion® platform, the question of ‘What is the difference’ gets raised. What is suitable for the individual customer? the customer’s requirement, expectation or the position the customer is actually in. All of these and other drivers contribute to the way this question gets answered.

Let’s reset with some basics.

Why do organisations want a Managed Service?

Outsourcing has, in IT terms, been around for a long time, and whilst there are reasons why outsourced turns back to being insourced, the benefits of outsourcing an IT function are well known.

• Access to specialist knowledge
• Immediate scalability
• Resource focus
• Budgetary
• Cost savings

Often a combination of these will determine that outsourcing a function is the right choice for an organisation. Still, any one of these alone can be the decision-maker for outsourcing.

An MSP service is aimed at organisations with an IT service or infrastructure that has the driving forces that fit with an outsourced managed service, which will take over the day-to-day, often referred to as Business as Usual (BAU). Our responsibility as the MSP for the management of an Orion installation is to be an organisations BAU team member who brings in to the organisation the resource to perform the day to day operations.

However, this is not sufficient for a solution such as Orion. As a result, we repeatedly see that customers do not take advantage of all of their investment in the SolarWinds monitoring platform’s capability.

Therefore, the managed service goes beyond this BAU scope of performing typical day-to-day tasks such as adding new devices, reviewing and tuning alerts generated, tweaking thresholds and dashboard presentations. Our goal is to provide a dedicated technical resource that has access to further specialists within the team so that continual improvements to the Orion platform are identified and worked through the whole organisation.

Having such a continuous resource during the lifetime of a solution such as Orion means that they become embedded in the business and, therefore, can assist with technical solution delivery and align to the organisation’s business goals.

Benefits can manifest across the solution and business, as a principal goal of any monitoring solution is to provide knowledge and information to the company. There may be obvious indicators that a service is down or not working to the required level; this, in turn, may affect staff efficiency or even go so far as to cause business functions to fail. For example, customers going to another e-commerce website orders not processing through the ERP system, and many other actual-world conditions cost a business real money.

As part of the service remit, the continuous resource will drive improvements and increase the benefit of the Orion platform, which may otherwise not have an internal owner or help to know what it is capable of delivering and work to implement.

Project Based Approach

The management of any IT solution with many configuration capabilities, and certainly something that the SolarWinds Orion platform has as a breadth of features and function, is a separation between day to day and project-based configuration items. This is where the first of the distinguishments surface; our Professional Service engagements are project-based. We will be approached and work with a customer to identify for delivery known and agreed objectives. These will have target dates to work to, which we can determine how much time is required from our engineering team to implement.

Projects can have several catalysts for inception and, from our experience, are typically based on the fact that something is not working to the level it needs to. This then extends to delivery items such as migrating the platform to the cloud or to new servers to allow an upgrade to be performed but predominantly is where someone in the business identifies that more must be achieved. At this point, we may hold workshops or scoping meetings to identify the project’s objectives, work with the customer to determine the work effort to provide, quote and then deliver. This has been the mainstay of any Professional Services organisation for a long time. We work hard to make sure we have the best knowledge and experience, which for Prosperon is IT Operations Management (ITOM), for which customers pay for that knowledge and experience for their benefit.

What is right for you?

This is a complex question, but with some clear distinctions which may steer towards a Managed Service or work to project delivery:

• Does change need to be applied to a known short term deadline
• Is there an initial package of work required, which will tail off over time
• Internally owned and held knowledge is preferred, and the volume of BAU exists to have a full/near full-time resource dedicated to Orion

Suppose you evaluate the above and see that deadlines are not short term and that improvements can be applied over time. Perhaps the foundation for the platform is already strong, or that the team member with true expertise on monitoring and the ITOM stack does not need to be working within the organisation every day. In that case, the delivery method opens up options to work with an external consultancy like Prosperon. Identifying the projected amount of regular work effort aligned to BAU and project goals can fit nicely into a managed service offering, providing all the known and proven benefits such a purchasing model can deliver.

In this webinar, you will discover how to Monitor Application Health & Performance across the Application Stack with SolarWinds®. This webinar examines how to gain visibility across your application environment, from servers, virtual machines, storage and database layers. Discover how to troubleshoot and speed up resolution times by correlating application performance metrics from multiple sources, and how to accelerate application performance by removing infrastructure bottlenecks.

What you will learn on this webinar:

• Gain Deep Visibility Across All Application Layers: Learn how to visualise the relationship between applications and underlying IT infrastructure layers with intuitive SolarWinds application dependency maps that deliver end-to-end visibility.
• Correlate Cross-Stack Application Performance Metrics: Discover how to accelerate application resolution time by comparing network, systems, virtualisation, storage and database data side-by-side on a common timeline.
• Quickly Eliminate Infrastructure Related Application Issues: Explore the relationship between underlining infrastructure layers and application health, and how to optimise and fine tune infrastructure layers to accelerate application performance.
• Live Product Demonstrations & Q&A Session: Our SolarWinds Engineers will demonstrate the core functionality of the SolarWinds System Management portfolio.