Assessing the Potential of the Extended Berkeley Packet Filter

Assessing the Potential of the Extended Berkeley Packet Filter

This IDC Perspective evaluates the state of extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) as of 2023 to offer guidance on the extent to which the typical business can benefit from this technology. The extended Berkeley Packet Filter is a powerful tool that should interest not just practitioners but also IT leaders interested in gaining speed, cost efficiency, and security advantages across a range of use cases related to monitoring and observability. However, adopting eBPF may prove challenging for some organizations. Although the technology is sufficiently mature for production deployment, it is also complex, and businesses lacking specialized expertise may struggle to implement eBPF on their own.Vendor tools that leverage eBPF offer a potential solution to this challenge by allowing organizations to take advantage of the technology without building it themselves, but vendor tools come with their own set of trade-offs, such as limited customizability of eBPF-based workflows.“eBPF is a fascinating technology that may dramatically change monitoring and observability strategies. But it’s also a complex technology, and businesses must carefully evaluate whether the benefits they stand to gain through eBPF outweigh the adoption challenges,” says Chris Tozzi, adjunct research advisor, IDC’s IT Executive Programs (IEP).

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