What is Root Cause Analysis?
Root cause analysis (RCA) is a problem-solving approach commonly used in IT to identify the source of an issue. This root cause may be different from causal factors, which are events or conditions that lead to the problem but aren’t the ultimate source. If you remediate the causal factors without addressing the root cause, the problem may recur as that underlying trigger remains untreated. RCA is a multi-step process that typically includes the following activities:
- Defining the problem
- Gathering data
- Identifying contributing issues or causal factors
- Determining root cause
- Recommending and implementing solutions
The Importance of Root Cause Analysis in a Hybrid Cloud Environment
Because slowdowns and outages can have a significant impact on revenue, costs, reputation, regulatory compliance, etc., enterprises need to find and fix root causes quickly. But most enterprise infrastructures are highly complex hybrid/multi-cloud environments with a large number of services and systems working interdependently. This complicates problem-solving and can lead to unacceptably long mean time to resolution (MTTR). Implementing RCA tools and techniques helps enterprises identify root causes faster and implement resolutions more efficiently.
Enhancing Root Cause Analysis with Virtana
Virtana Platform helps you identify and resolve issues faster across your entire hybrid/multi-cloud environment. Virtana’s RCA capabilities include:
- AI-driven root cause analysis and recommendations: Cutting-edge AI and ML tools to evaluate detected issues, correlate them with related objects, analyze potential causes to reduce MTTR, and provide recommended resolutions.
- Breadth of data: Collection and correlation of data metrics from disparate systems to provide a true, real-time, application-aware view of your infrastructure.
- Dependency mapping: Automatic discovery of infrastructure elements and mapping of the relationships between them.
- Fishbone diagrams: Identification of underlying causes of incidents with contextual traces, flow analytics, and configuration data.
- Real-time end-to-end tracing: Tracking of user sessions, services, databases, and serverless functions.
Suggested Reading and Related Topics
- Application Mapping: Read about the process of application mapping and its importance in understanding the dependencies between your applications and infrastructure components.
- Application Performance Management (APM): Learn how APM enables you to detect and diagnose complex application performance issues.
- Infrastructure Performance Management (IPM): Learn how IPM enables you to maintain optimal performance levels, troubleshoot issues quickly, and make data-driven decisions for your IT infrastructure.
- Observability: Discover how infrastructure observability can improve the monitoring and management of your IT environment.
- IPM Guide—Infrastructure Performance Monitoring: Learn more about IPM and how it can benefit your organization.