This article is based on reporting originally published by FCW.com covering the 2017 Splunk Public Sector IT Operations Survey, conducted by the Ponemon Institute.
Public-Sector IT Confidence Is Slipping
Confidence in public-sector IT organisations may be on the decline, according to the 2017 Splunk Public Sector IT Operations Survey. The Ponemon Institute — in a Splunk-sponsored survey released in July 2017 — polled 1,227 IT decision-makers and managers, approximately 60 percent of whom work in U.S. federal agencies. The survey aimed to identify both the barriers holding agencies back and the investments most likely to move them forward.
The headline finding was stark: at least 60 percent of respondents said they felt as confident or less confident in carrying out their IT responsibilities than they did the previous year. The primary culprit identified in the report was organisational and technical siloing.
Silos: The Root Cause of Most IT Pain
IT staff ranked siloed operations as their number-one concern, citing a direct link between siloing and a lack of system integration and visibility. The inability to integrate systems was rated a severe threat by survey participants. A secondary but closely related problem was identified as a skills gap among existing staff — the second-highest-ranked concern overall.
Silos do not just create information blind spots; they also force teams into an over-reliance on manual processes. One of the starkest data points from the report underscores the operational cost of this fragmentation: according to Splunk Vice President for Public Sector Kevin Davis, the survey found that an average system outage carries a 44-hour downtime period and requires 12.5 staff members working to bring systems back online.
“One of the things the report brought back was that an average system outage has a 44-hour downtime and takes 12.5 staff members working” to bring systems back online.
Kevin Davis, Vice President for Public Sector, Splunk (via FCW)
Why DevOps Is Seen as the Solution
Despite the pessimism, the survey identified a clear source of optimism: investment in DevOps practices. Bill Emmett, then responsible for product marketing for IT operations at Splunk, explained the core value proposition plainly:
“Stronger DevOps basically means having a tighter integration between developers that are developing new systems and the operation teams that are deploying them and keeping them up and running. By having a tighter relationship, it ensures things like being able to reduce the amount of downtime incidences and the time required to recover.”
Bill Emmett, Splunk (via FCW)
Emmett argued that tighter developer–operations collaboration creates a practical feedback loop that directly compresses recovery times. When developers are embedded in — or at least tightly coupled to — operational workflows, they can introduce fixes in hours rather than weeks. For agencies managing critical infrastructure or citizen-facing systems, that kind of responsiveness is not merely a quality-of-life improvement; it is a mission-critical capability.
Spending Trends: DevOps and Cloud Up, On-Premises Down
The survey data on planned spending reinforces the shift in priorities:
- ~50% of respondents anticipated an increase in DevOps and cloud operations spending over the following year.
- Only 29% anticipated any increase in on-premises (on-site) infrastructure spending.
Emmett characterised the projected DevOps spending increase as significant for the federal IT community, predicting that greater DevOps adoption would yield two compounding benefits: fewer problems occurring in the first place, and faster, more agile responses when problems do arise.
“Half of respondents anticipate more resources being devoted to [DevOps] over the next year and that projected increase … is significant to the federal IT community. That you avoid problems in the first place, and that you’re very nimble at responding to them when they do arrive.”
Bill Emmett, Splunk (via FCW)
Key Takeaways for Public-Sector DevOps Teams
- Break down silos first. No tooling investment will compensate for teams that cannot share data, context, or accountability. Cross-functional visibility is a prerequisite for DevOps to work.
- Address the skills gap deliberately. Identifying which skills are missing — automation, observability, cloud operations — and investing in training or hiring is as important as the technology itself.
- Measure what matters. The 44-hour average outage statistic is a compelling baseline. Tracking mean time to recovery (MTTR) and outage frequency before and after DevOps investment provides concrete evidence of progress.
- Align developer and operations incentives. The core DevOps insight — that developers and operations staff need shared goals and shared tools — applies just as much in a government agency as it does in a commercial startup.
- Plan for cloud, but manage the transition. With on-premises spending projected to decline and cloud adoption rising, agencies need migration strategies that preserve continuity and compliance.
While this survey data is from 2017, the structural challenges it identified — siloing, manual processes, skills gaps, and the difficulty of integrating legacy systems — remain active concerns in public-sector IT environments today. The directional conclusion — that DevOps practices reduce downtime and improve organisational agility — has only grown more broadly supported in the years since.