Let’s take a look at the different IT issues affecting public sector organizations as they return to office and how the right observability platform provides the support that tech professionals need.
Relieving Infrastructure Pressure
The most pressing issue at hand relates to infrastructure. Many federal and local government agencies have been operating with a reduced on-site presence since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. In some cases, this may have led to neglect of the servers, databases, routers, and devices that make up the IT environment. Now, potentially outdated systems must support a full in-person workforce five days a week. This sudden increase in load can cause stoppages, outages, and slower network performance. However, a full-stack observability platform includes a range of capabilities to help ensure IT pros aren’t caught off guard.
- NetFlow traffic analysis helps identify network congestion issues by analyzing bandwidth usage and pinpointing top consumers of network resources
- Network performance monitoring provides real-time monitoring and alerts for network performance issues
- Quality of service (QoS) reporting allows organizations to optimize traffic flow and enhance end-user experience by segmenting traffic
- Network configuration management helps maintain efficient network configurations to prevent bottlenecks
Some exceptions to the RTO mandate will be made, and hybrid work is likely to continue in certain areas. Not only can observability maintain operations on site, but it can also support any continued teleworking arrangements.
Supporting Workforce Re-Adjustment
Then there is the human question. Many employees who joined the workforce during the remote period may be unfamiliar with on-site operations. The RTO directive has also raised concerns about the impact on productivity and work-life balance. Staff now carry the added burden of commuting, and the reported lack of space in a range of facilities is likely to cause strain. With tensions high, unreliable IT services could have a big impact on morale. Of course, the same pressures that apply to general staff also apply to IT workers. Potentially under-resourced teams cannot afford to spend their time trawling through data to find the root of IT incidents. With observability:
- Holistic visibility gives real-time insights into the health and performance of IT systems
- Intelligent alerting offers smart correlation to help eliminate alert storms so that your tools only tell you what you need to know
- A single pane of glass provides a centralized dashboard for all relevant information, allowing teams to monitor their environment without toggling between tools
- ITSM support helps ensure that full-stack observability is integrated with service desk tools so teams have the structures in place to resolve issues efficiently
- Artificial intelligence capabilities can be optimized to automate routine tasks, significantly reducing workloads
Minimizing Cybersecurity Risks
Getting federal workers back on-site is just one of the government's priorities. The White House has also renewed its focus on cybersecurity. On June 6, 2025, President Donald J. Trump issued the executive order "Sustaining Select Efforts to Strengthen the Nation’s Cybersecurity and Amending Executive Order 13694 and Executive Order 14144." But federal employees going back on-site comes with its own set of risks.
Office tech etiquette is a crucial aspect of cybersecurity, and employees may have developed bad habits during the remote period. Personal devices, unapproved applications, shadow IT, and even failing to lock PCs when not in use can increase the chances of sensitive data loss. Training is crucial, but observability tools can also play a role by providing built-in safety features to help keep critical information protected:
- Secure configuration provides best practices for securing deployments, including firewall settings, access controls, and protocol management
- Security event management offers real-time log monitoring, threat detection, and incident response capabilities
- Server and application monitoring help ensure critical infrastructure applications run smoothly, addressing potential vulnerabilities and performance issues that could be exploited
- Patch management aids in managing software updates, closing vulnerabilities that adversaries could exploit
- User device tracker monitors user devices on the network, which can help identify unauthorized access attempts or insider threats
Efficient operations and secure data go hand-in-hand; an end-to-end observability solution supports both.
Putting IT Pros Back In Control
Change isn't easy, and now more than ever, agencies need intelligent tools to nurture trust in the systems that facilitate their work. A comprehensive observability solution operates as a safety net for IT pros, alerting them to issues and, in many cases, automatically remediating problems. Returning to the office needn’t be characterized by storms of alerts and painstaking remediation processes. Observability puts the information that matters right where you can see it, so IT teams can lead the way to a successful transition back to on-site work.
