One-day conference addresses tool sprawl, telemetry costs, and AI reliability as open observability adoption surges across the region
Grafana Labs, the company behind the open observability cloud, is bringing its global ObservabilityCON on the Road series to Sydney with a one-day conference on March 10, 2026. The event will bring together engineering leaders, customers, and partners to explore how organisations across APAC are tackling urgent observability challenges — from tool sprawl and rising telemetry costs to running AI-driven systems reliably at scale — through technical sessions and real-world case studies. Asia-Pacific has become one of Grafana Labs’ fastest-growing regions globally, driven by accelerating cloud adoption and digital transformation, prompting expanded investment across Australia and the broader APAC region.
According to Grafana Labs’ 2025 Observability Survey, nearly four in ten engineering teams (39 percent) say complexity and operational overhead are their biggest obstacle in observability — the single most cited challenge — and organisations report juggling an average of eight different observability tools across their stack. At the same time, cost dominates purchasing decisions for 74 percent of organisations, signalling that telemetry spend is a board-level concern, not just a technical line item. Grafana Labs addresses these challenges through an open, AI-powered observability platform that unifies signals, controls cost at scale, and gives teams confidence to run complex systems in production.
Key Insights at a Glance
- Observability Complexity Crisis: 39 percent of engineering teams cite complexity and operational overhead as their biggest observability obstacle, with organisations managing an average of eight different tools across their stack.
- Cost as Board-Level Concern: Telemetry spend dominates purchasing decisions for 74 percent of organisations, driving demand for platforms that control cost without sacrificing visibility.
- APAC Growth Acceleration: Asia-Pacific has become one of Grafana Labs’ fastest-growing regions, with expanded local support, community engagement, and partner ecosystem including DNX Solutions as APAC Partner of the Year.
- Customer Momentum: Grafana Labs has surpassed 7,000 customers worldwide, including Anthropic, Salesforce, and Microsoft, with APAC adopters including Blinkit, Atlassian, Harrison.ai, and Dubber.
Open Observability as Foundation for Complex Systems
Technology leaders across industries confront the same reality: systems are becoming more distributed, data volumes surge while observability value plateaus, and AI workloads expose the limits of fragmented, closed observability tools. Grafana Labs flips that model by offering an open platform built on open source, open standards, and open ecosystems. “Some of the most complex, large-scale systems in the world are being built and operated here in Australia and across APAC,” said Anthony Woods, co-founder of Grafana Labs. “As software becomes more distributed and AI-driven, open observability is no longer optional — it’s foundational. Bringing ObservabilityCON on the Road to Sydney is about investing in our local community, learning from customers at scale, and sharing how open, AI-powered observability helps teams move faster with confidence.” The company’s approach enables organisations to reduce tool sprawl, control cost, and regain clarity across complex environments without vendor lock-in.
AI-Native Organisations Rely on Grafana Cloud for Production Confidence
The impact of Grafana’s platform is especially pronounced among AI-native organisations, where rapidly evolving models and unpredictable usage patterns place extreme demands on production infrastructure. Leading APAC AI companies such as Harrison.ai and Dubber rely on Grafana Cloud to run complex, high-velocity systems with confidence in production. “As an AI-driven platform operating at global scale, we need deep, real-time visibility into highly distributed systems,” said Brendon Hay, CTO at Dubber. “Grafana Cloud gives our teams a unified view across metrics, logs, and traces, helping us quickly understand system behaviour, resolve issues faster, and confidently support AI workloads.” Using Grafana Cloud, these teams observe AI workloads end-to-end, correlating metrics, logs, traces, and profiles across training pipelines, inference services, and downstream applications. They rapidly troubleshoot distributed AI systems where model behaviour, data pipelines, and user experience converge across multiple services, while managing telemetry cost at scale as AI usage and data volumes fluctuate unpredictably. “Running AI in production, especially in clinical settings, means there’s no margin for blind spots,” said Graham Bucknell, Platforms Engineering Manager at Harrison.ai. “Grafana Cloud gives us end-to-end visibility across our systems, so our teams can understand what’s happening, act quickly, and scale safely. That transparency lets us move fast without compromising reliability or trust.”
ObservabilityCON Sydney: AI, Economics, and Simplified Complexity
ObservabilityCON on the Road Sydney features a keynote with Grafana Labs co-founder Anthony Woods, technical presentations from Grafana engineers and senior product leaders, and customer success sessions from Dubber and Tally Group. The Actually Useful AI track shares how Grafana’s AI capabilities deliver practical, day-to-day value for engineering and SRE teams, including Grafana Assistant for querying telemetry and generating dashboards, and Assistant Investigations, an autonomous agentic AI for multi-step incident analysis that coordinates metrics, logs, traces, and profiles to surface evidence and actionable recommendations. The Reimagined SaaS Economics track explores how organisations regain control of observability spend through Grafana’s Adaptive Telemetry suite, which provides unified intelligent management of telemetry volume, and flexible deployment models like Bring Your Own Cloud for sustainable scaling. The Complexity, Simplified track showcases Grafana Cloud Knowledge Graph for automatic relationship mapping across services, infrastructure, and telemetry, plus new out-of-the-box solutions including Instrumentation Hub and Database Observability. These sessions reflect Grafana Labs’ recent industry recognition, including being named a Leader in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Observability Platforms, ranked #13 on Forbes’ Cloud 100 for the fifth consecutive year, and named Best Observability Solution for Grafana Cloud in the 2025 DevOps Dozen Awards.
Future Outlook
Grafana Labs’ expanded investment in APAC arrives as organisations across financial services, telecommunications, technology, government, and critical infrastructure confront the limits of fragmented observability tools. The 39 percent of teams citing complexity as their primary obstacle, combined with 74 percent prioritising cost in purchasing decisions, creates demand for unified platforms that deliver visibility without vendor lock-in or unpredictable expense. AI-native organisations like Harrison.ai and Dubber demonstrate how Grafana Cloud enables production confidence for rapidly evolving systems, while the company’s open approach ensures customers retain control of their data and can scale cost-effectively. As cloud-native and AI workloads continue driving telemetry volumes higher, platforms that combine open standards with intelligent cost management will gain further advantage. The Sydney ObservabilityCON event signals Grafana Labs’ commitment to engaging directly with the APAC engineering community and learning from the complex, large-scale systems being built across the region.
Conclusion
Grafana Labs brings ObservabilityCON on the Road to Sydney to address the urgent observability challenges facing APAC organisations, from tool sprawl and rising costs to AI system reliability. With 39 percent of teams citing complexity as their biggest obstacle and 74 percent prioritising cost control, the company’s open, AI-powered platform offers a unified approach to observability that scales with customer needs. Customer stories from Dubber and Harrison.ai demonstrate how Grafana Cloud enables production confidence for AI-native workloads while maintaining cost visibility.
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