Most IT issues don’t announce themselves with a press release. They surface quietly through rising crash counts, unusual behavior patterns, or a sudden increase in “something feels off” tickets.
By the time issues are widely documented, many IT teams have already been fighting to resolve them for weeks, often without enough context to understand whether a problem is isolated or systemic. Closing the gap between when issues begin and when they are understood is precisely what we set out to address.
Exposing Real-World IT Problems as They Emerge
Over the past several months, the ControlUp Innovation Guild ‘s team of experts has been analyzing anonymized crash and performance metadata across our global customer base to identify real issues as they emerge. Not one-off events. Not anecdotes. But patterns that consistently appear across environments.
Through this work, and utilizing the power of the ControlUp ONE platform, we have uncovered a growing set of meaningful findings. These include application crash surges, unstable components, configuration-related failures, and emerging stability risks that many teams were already experiencing without yet knowing the root cause.
A Recent Example: Catching a Global Crash Issue Early
One of the most striking examples surfaced through our crash anomaly detection: a sudden, global spike in Microsoft Word crashes tied to a specific build.
Within days, crash volumes jumped from a steady baseline of a few hundred per day to tens of thousands of crashes across hundreds of organizations. At the time, there was no formal Microsoft advisory and very little public discussion of the issue. Yet IT teams were already experiencing increased user tickets and unexplained instability.
By correlating crash signatures across environments, we were able to:
- Identify the affected Word build
- Isolate the faulting module
- Understand the scope and scale of impact across the global dataset
This visibility helped IT teams quickly rule out local misconfigurations, avoid prolonged investigation cycles, and take informed action while awaiting an official fix. It’s a textbook example of how early, data‑driven insight can significantly reduce investigation time and operational noise.
Introducing Global DEX Findings by ControlUp
Today, we’re making this work easier to access with the launch of Global DEX Findings by ControlUp.
Global DEX Findings surface real‑world application and system stability issues identified through ControlUp’s anonymized global dataset. These findings highlight emerging risks, configuration‑related failures, and performance anomalies to help IT teams:
- Recognize problems early
- Understand their impact
- Take informed action
Each finding is structured, evidence‑based, and focused on practical relevance. They reflect patterns observed across many customer environments in near-real-time, often before issues are widely documented or formally acknowledged by vendors.
Turning Insight into Action
In several cases, these insights have already informed deeper technical investigations and provided clearer guidance for teams encountering similar issues. They offer a broader frame of reference, answering critical questions such as:
- Is this happening only in my environment, or everywhere?
- How widespread is the issue?
- Is this likely configuration‑related, or tied to a specific application or build?
By making these insights visible, Global DEX Findings help teams move from reactive troubleshooting to proactive understanding.
Where Global Telemetry Meets Community Expertise
To delve deeper, join the ControlUp Community to get notified when new findings are published. It’s also a place to ask questions, share observations from your own environment, and contribute insights that help validate and refine the data.
This is where global telemetry and real-world, community-sourced expertise come together to help IT teams respond faster and with greater confidence.
To stay ahead of emerging issues, explore our findings.
