3 New technologies enterprises should consider for advanced APM

April 11 2019
 

A new report from 451 Research highlights three key elements IT leaders should address to prepare for the future of performance monitoring. Here’s a quick summary (and your free copy) of its findings.


The game remains the same, but the rules are changing for technologists of today’s digital enterprise. And while cloud adoption hasn’t altered their commitment to end-to-end customer satisfaction, it has made it more complex from a performance and reliability perspective. That’s why the proliferation of cloud means a corresponding increase in the importance of application performance monitoring, and the power of strong alignment between technology and key customer touch points.

To handle the mounting complexity of application environments as well as the data generated by them, enterprises are now shifting their focus to handling rapid data growth while maintaining service availability.

But this requires prioritizing new — but crucial — capabilities when it comes to performance monitoring. According to a new report from 451 Research, IT leaders should look for three key elements to better prepare themselves for this shift.

Here’s a quick summary of the report’s recommendations.

APM + ACI

From its research, 451 found that network admins are increasingly siloed, leading to application slowdowns and longer outage-resolution times. For the admins themselves, of course, that organizational structure makes it difficult to connect the dots in the data.

The solution, 451 Research says, is to integrate application-level data with that of the wider network. This is something we’ve been working on with Cisco ACI, for example. By correlating ACI’s network intelligence with our own visibility into applications and infrastructure monitoring, we can find performance problems related to issues in our customers’ networks.

At the same time, this solution gets application and network teams on the same page. With a shared understanding of how apps work together, they can solve issues faster and ultimately deliver positive user experiences.

Serverless Monitoring

It’s no surprise everyone’s so excited about serverless (or FaaS). Services like AWS Lambda, which commands a solid 70% share of the serverless market, are great for building and deploying apps with more agility and without worrying about the nuts and bolts of infrastructure.

But maintaining performance? That comes with its fair share of challenges. While still in their early days, third-party serverless architectures come with a trade-off: lack of control over system downtime, functionality, or unexpected limits.

The problem isn’t unsolvable. It just poses APM vendors new technical hurdles and exciting opportunities for innovation. According to 451 Research, vendors are working on innovative ways to bring their conventional agents into this serverless paradigm. Lambda monitoring, for example, can provide more visibility into application performance by tracing transactions end-to-end through the system architecture.

Machine Learning-Driven Monitoring

Similarly, advanced analytics has enhanced user experiences across industries from streaming (à la Netflix recommendations) to self-driving cars. Digital companies can now think bigger about technological innovation without managing all the complexities of reporting.

The most recent use case underway in our space is machine learning-powered infrastructure monitoring.

By shifting to an artificial intelligence for IT operations (or AIOps) model, APM vendors can sift business-impacting problems from massive amounts of data not only in ways businesses can easily understand, but also in ways that prevent problems from happening in the future. In other words, machine learning can automate root cause analysis. For digital enterprises, that means increased agility in the face of potential downtime.

Want more details on the next wave of APM tech? Download the report

We’re barely scraping the surface of what these new technologies are capable of in the world of performance monitoring. Big data shows no signs of slowing any time soon, and equally quick to evolve are ever-rising customer expectations. The question is how technology keeps up with the level of service expected and when, not if, enterprises can keep pace, too.

Check out the full report for 451 Research’s take on these three capabilities and how ours stack up against our competitors (complete with a SWOT analysis you might find useful). You can download your copy of report here.

Adrienne Jack
Adrienne is a B2B content marketer who writes for tech and SaaS businesses that care about accelerating their customers' success. A few of her favorite things about sharing ideas online: learning something new every day, nerding out on data, and connecting with people all over the world. Say hello on Twitter @adriennegjack or learn more at adriennegracejack.com.

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