The 4th P of AI Network Observability and Security Monitoring: Priority
By Mark Grodzinsky, CPMO
The Next Challenge: Experience is Retiring
The enterprise network was built by a generation of engineers with decades of experience — the ones who designed the backbone, configured the failovers, and knew why every port, VLAN, and BGP session was there. But that generation is retiring. And they’re not being replaced fast enough.
The phenomenon has been dubbed the "Silver Tsunami" — a mass retirement wave of aging technical professionals across industries. In network operations, this wave is especially disruptive. These engineers remember why that obscure port was left open. They know the real story behind an undocumented route. They remember the decisions made two reorgs ago. They instinctively prioritize issues by risk and relevance, not just by noise level.
Meanwhile, the next generation of engineers is entering the field with a different focus. When those retiring entered the workforce, networking was hot. Today, AI is. While brilliant talent is joining the IT ranks, far fewer are training to become deep network specialists. The result? A widening knowledge gap at a time when network complexity is growing exponentially.
AI Must Do More Than Analyze — It Must Prioritize
In our Vision blog, we talked about how AI is becoming a force multiplier — distilling trillions of packets and billions of sessions into actionable insights. In the 3 P’s blog, we outlined the foundation AI needs to be effective: Packets, Precision, and Performance.
Now, it's time to introduce the 4th P: Priority.
AI isn’t just here to analyze — it must also help teams act faster and smarter. That means making intelligent decisions about what matters most, right now. The true value of AI lies not in highlighting every issue, but in prioritizing which ones to address first.
This is where the true wisdom of those retiring engineers lies: instinctual prioritization. They knew which alerts were noise and which were smoke before the fire. They could triage outages from behind a terminal without dashboards. Now, AI has the opportunity — and the responsibility — to carry that logic forward.
Why Prioritization Matters
Let’s be clear: This isn’t about replacing people. It’s about empowering them.
A well-prioritized queue of actions can:
- Guide junior engineers who lack deep context.
- Protect up time by focusing effort on the most business-critical issues.
- Reduce fatigue and noise by eliminating low-priority distractions.
- Improve cross-team collaboration, with shared clarity on what’s urgent and why.
In short, it helps IT teams do more with less — and do it more confidently.
Making Priority a Core Capability of AI-Enhanced NetOps
At cPacket, we’re building more than just AI for alerts — we’re building AI for action. And at the heart of that vision is our Relevance Engine: a context-aware intelligence layer that elevates not just what’s urgent, but what’s relevant to you.
Because in modern NetOps, one-size-fits-all alerting is no longer enough. Every engineer works in a different context — with different responsibilities, different regions, different SLAs. What’s a top priority for one person might be background noise for another. That’s why prioritization needs to be personal.
The Relevance Engine evaluates three core dimensions:
- Operational Role – what you’re accountable for
- Infrastructure Scope – which devices, services, or regions fall under your purview
- Business Impact – how network events translate into business consequences
By combining these signals, the Relevance Engine powers three essential capabilities:
- Contextual Awareness: It understands your environment and aligns alerts with your specific responsibilities — so you focus only on what truly matters to you.
- Predictive Escalation: It doesn’t just flag anomalies; it identifies patterns and trends to alert you to issues that are about to become critical.
- Intelligent Workflows: It cuts through the noise to deliver a clear, prioritized plan of action — enriched with context on what’s happening, why it matters, and what to do next.
This means:
- Junior engineers get the direction they need to take action confidently
- Senior engineers regain time to focus on strategic priorities
- Everyone works more efficiently — without drowning in irrelevant alerts
It's AI that not only understands the network, but also understands your job.
Conclusion: From Insight to Action
With Packets as the source of truth, Precision as the measure of trust, Performance as the guarantee of scale, and Priority as the driver of action, AI-augmented observability becomes a complete, end-to-end solution for the networks of tomorrow. This evolution transforms observability from a passive exercise in data collection into an active system of decision intelligence. It’s not just about seeing more — it’s about knowing what to do next, faster and with confidence. At cPacket, we’re building more than monitoring tools — we’re creating an operating model that empowers every engineer — from the most experienced veteran to the newest recruit — with the context, clarity, and confidence to act decisively. The Silver Tsunami is real. But so is the opportunity to evolve. With AI-augmented network observability — powered by the 4 Ps — the next generation of NetOps and SecOps is ready to thrive.
In the months ahead, we’ll highlight how cPacket customers are putting the 4 Ps into practice — and how AI-driven observability is reshaping enterprise networks to meet the speed, scale, and stakes of the AI era.
