This documentation and the Cisco Observability Platform functionalities it describes are subject to change. Data saved on the platform may disappear and APIs may change without notice.

Platform Introduction

What Is the Cisco Observability Platform

The Cisco Observability Platform enables developers to build custom observability solutions to gain valuable insights across their technology and business stack. By leveraging OpenTelemetry™ collectors, the platform can collect metrics, events, logs, and traces (MELT) telemetry and transform it into flexible, scalable objects that can be correlated and queried.

Platform Use Cases

The Cisco Observability Platform supports a variety of observability use cases, including data ingestion and transformation, network observability, and rapid development of third-party applications. Additionally, the platform provides core capabilities for business transactions and metrics, bespoke user interfaces, alerting and actioning, and customized reports.

The Cisco Observability Platform can serve observability use cases requiring:

  • Data ingestion and transformation of MELT and system data from different environments and clusters
  • Insights based on correlated MELT and system data
  • Network observability within the context of your application
  • Extended functionality of existing Cisco observability, monitoring, and security products
  • Rapid development of third-party standalone applications
  • Business transactions and metrics for critical business operations and goals
  • Bespoke user interfaces
  • Alerting and actioning
  • Customized reports

Who Can Use the Cisco Observability Platform

The Cisco Observability Platform is designed for developers, system integrators, third-party vendors, and enterprise customers who need to gain insights into their ingested data.

System integrators can use their expertise and Cisco's relationship to create highly integrated modules. Third-party developers can create standalone applications and interfaces integrating with their own SaaS products.

All developers can easily export insights and data from the platform to be integrated with products or platforms (such as ServiceNow® and Splunk®) or custom tools.

Cisco Observability Platform Ecosystem

The Cisco Observability Platform ecosystem consists of data and developer components, each with APIs and interfaces for developers to build solutions, administer accounts, and manage subscriptions:

  • Cisco Observability Platform Data Platform: The core of the Cisco Observability Platform that is responsible for handling various data-related tasks such as modeling, ingestion, storage, and querying.
  • Cisco Observability Platform Developer Platform: The set of tools and components provided by the Cisco Observability Platform that developers use to create solutions.
  • Account Administration: The online services for managing Cisco Observability Platform accounts, including viewing and managing tenant access, users, roles, permissions, and subscriptions.
  • Cisco Observability Platform Exchange: The online venue where end users of the Cisco Observability Platform can discover and subscribe to applications and modules. The exchange also enables developers to list and market their solutions to Cisco Observability Platform customers.

Benefits of the Cisco Observability Platform

The Cisco Observability Platform is for developers, but Cisco customers can benefit as consumers of solutions created with the platform or develop custom solutions to meet their observability goals. In addition, third-party developers can leverage the platform and Cisco's branding and marketing support to develop solutions for the exchange, where they can be monetized.

Developers for Cisco Customers Third-Party Developers Cisco End Users
  • Cisco Observability Platform Exchange provides a direct route to the solution market.
  • Enhance the default observability of Cisco products with cross-domain insights, anomaly detection, and root-cause analysis.
  • Correlate MELT data.
  • Provide extensions on top of existing Cisco Observability capabilities in the Cisco Observability Platform (e.g., SLO/SLA tracking & reporting using MELT data).
  • Develop Cisco Observability Platform modules as building blocks for or on top of existing ones.
  • Provide completely encapsulated solutions using additional data (e.g., a PaaS cloud monitoring that brings new types of MELT data and correlates it to existing ones).
  • Monetize opportunities by building on domain or vertical-specific solution catalogs.
  • Reduce customer acquisition costs with Cisco’s branding and marketing support for the exchange.
  • Integrate existing SaaS applications with Cisco Observability Platform to make them available/visible and correlate with the Cisco Observability Platform data.
  • Leverage a turnkey platform that is developer ready, fully backed, and supported by Cisco, allowing for a rapid time to market and providing all the key SaaS capabilities such as scalability, performance, security, and availability.
  • Subscribe and configure new solutions through the exchange.
  • Build custom solutions to address their own specific needs.