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Why Application Performance Management is dead
De IT world is always in motion. What was once state-of-the-art, can become redundant or outdated over time. The term "Application Performance Management" (APM) once was an essential strategy for every organization running applications, but more and more often you hear APM is dead. And I agree. Well, mostly ...
Although it is a bold statement, we can no longer deny that the traditional APM approach is disappearing. So lets have a look why APM in it's original form has become ever less relevant. And what the future holds for being in control of how well your applications support the running of your business. Because if you still depend solely on APM then quite soon you won't be able to solve your performance issues or prevent them.
Standalone applications no longer exist
Application Performance Management works exactly as it's name implies: it manages the performance of an application. In a modern application landscape that gives you a negligible limited value. An application no longer exists in a vacuum, an application depends on the environment it runs in and that environment has a large influence on the performance of the application. Where the environment used to be limited to the operating system the application runs on, nowadays you're faced with hypervisors - yours or your cloud provider's - authorization and authentication, database, complex networks ... And then applications are often linked to one another.
To find out where your performance issues are, you need to to see the entire environment. APM is not capable of seeing modern, complex application environments in their entirety. Conclusion, cuse and effect of slow applications can no longer be found. Problem!
APM has become too complicated
Not just applications and their environment have become too complicated, APM itself too has become so complicated that most IT administrators only understand a small part of it. There are so many metrics that you need to look at to know how an application is doing. On top of that you need to know how they all interact to draw valid conclusions. To get useful information from all that you need to have a deep knowledge of the application, the database, the operating system, the hypervisor and much more. Problem! (number 2)
I often draw the comparison with aviation. I'm a hobby pilot. I can fly a Cessna 150 of 172 just fine. But put me in the cockpit of an Airbus or Boeing en the sheer number of dials and buttons make me lose my way completely. Ja I'm a pilot, no, I do not have the skill set tha't needed to fly an airliner.
Just like with an airliner APM requires a deep and long education these days. And then you also have to have a talent for it. Effect is that only a limited number of people really know how to work with APM. Problem! (number 3)
Is user experience more important than technical metrics?
The shift from purely technical metrics to the user experience is a nail in the coffin of APM. Companies are more and more aware of the importance of customer satisfaction and user experience (UX). En dat is absolutely important. Instead of focusing on internal performance metrics, the attention is shifting to monitoring how end users are experiencing the application. This requires new approaches that track user interactions and satisfaction.
The user experience is increasingly determined by component that are not in the application itself. The JavaScript that's used in a browser can't be measured in the application chain. But more and more components are used that don't originate on your own servers, so called third party components, that are not monitored by traditional APM.
Working from home is also making APM ever less relevant. The experience of home workers is determined for a significant part by the quality of their home network connection and to what extent their neighbors are binging Netflix - consumer connections are shared by an entire neighborhood, even if they use different Internet providers - which gives you a 100% guarantee that traditional APM will paint you an incomplete picture.
How do you know how well your IT is supporting your business?
You have IT to support your business. If your IT offers no support, it's just costing you money. APM was built to determine how well your applications are running at the IT level. Even the 'user monitoring' many APM tools have only measures how fast your servers are pumping data to a browser, but not how fast your customers or employees are being served. And also not how well your business is being supported by your IT.
Lets be honest, you really don't care how well your CPU's - or your cloud providers - are enjoying themselves ans the satisfaction score of hard disks doesn't do it for you either. It's about the ROI of the - quite expensive - IT and applications you procured for your company. APM tells you mostly how well IT is running from a technical standpoint, but now where your applications are slowing down your business.
More and more often we see that applications are hindering employees more than helping them. And that the APM that's present has no clue and so gives you false 'certainty' that all is well. While your productivity is crashing down, your employees are no longer complaining because too slow, too expensive and too complicated has slowly crept into your organization as the 'new normal'. The real problem.
Is APM really dead? The solution!
It may be a bit of an exaggeration to claim that APM is completely dead, but the traditional approach is quite old and dying out. the complexity of modern applications and the increasing focus on user experience and IT that supports the business require a completely different approach.
APM, as it once was, just doesn't cut it anymore in a modern, dynamic and complex IT environment. Organizations need to transition to solutions that visualize the entire environment from the perspective of the user and the business instead from a technical IT perspective.
Problem 1: That APM does not see your problems anymore is something you can solve by choosing a different solution. A solution that looks broader and deeper than old fashioned APM. And that comes from the experience of the user and the efficiency of your business processes.
Problem 2: That APM has become too complicated is something you can solve by not using a tool, but a managed service. Then you no longer need to have all that knowledge in your own organization because that service will give you actionable and directly implementable solutions.
Problem 3: Is also solved with a managed service because the service delivers the required qualified manpower.
The real problem: If you measure objectively and analyze actively you're no longer dependent on your employees reporting issues. You'll know about the issue before they do.
The solutions Sciante provides solve all these problems at once for you. Issues you already have are located, but also issues that are not yet manifesting, but coming your way.
Make an appointment with me, no strings attached. That 15 minute investment gives you the solution to get back in control of your application landscape.