Absolute Performance Inc.

Written by: Beth Bacheldor, Network Computing
(Original Article)

Application management--particularly solutions with built-in automation designed to help organizations monitor and manage performance and availability from a cohesive, end-to-end view--are becoming top concerns for both IT and business executives, according to a new study conducted by research and consulting firm Enterprise Management Associates (EMA). In fact, in 53 percent of the companies EMA surveyed, C-level IT executives, directors and managers are shaping application management their organization's application strategy, and in 42 percent of those surveyed, C-level executives are directly involved in planning, implementing or promoting application management, compared to 37 percent in 2008.  Director-level executives are involved in 29 percent of companies surveyed, versus 18 percent  in 2008. Moreover, application management acquisitions are increasingly being funded out of IT executive versus IT operations budgets, the survey found.

EMA conducted the survey in late 2009, querying more than 150 respondents that met certain criteria, including familiarity with enterprise application deployment, maintenance, monitoring or management as IT specialists, managers responsible for application support teams, or line-of-business professionals involved in application management. Potential respondents were also screened regarding the types of "enterprise applications" they were managing. Nearly half the respondents were from enterprise-sized companies, those with 10,000 or more employees. The remaining were fairly evenly distributed among smaller companies, varying in size from less than 250 up to 10,000.

Written By: Michael Biddick, NetworkComputing
(Original Article)

Previously, we looked at laying the foundation for an APM solution, but now it's time to get to work. We introduced Jim - a veteran IT manager who lacks any APM solution. As we discussed, he needs to establish key performance indicators around a critical application, including performance metrics and SLAs. His billing system also has a service catalog and detailed security and reporting modules built into the system. As a Web-based application, the backend database is distributed and the application serves just under 2,000 users. As Jim lacks application fault or performance monitoring, he really is starting from scratch. So we are going to start with creating a document Jim can use for his requirements and build his business case. 

Jim's first inclination was to search the Internet and analysts like Gartner for potential APM vendor products that might fit in his environment. After some discussion, we encouraged Jim to first build a business case that includes his requirements. Even though time is short, and Jim is under pressure to deploy a solution, to effectively evaluate the APM vendors he needs to understand what specific technical and business requirements he has. Otherwise, even the seasoned IT manager may get lost in a sea of marketing.

Written by: Bojan Simic, TracResearch
(Original Article)

In October of 2010, when we launched TRAC Research, we based our approach for covering IT performance management technologies on two advises that we were given by end-users:

• Don’t evaluate products by throwing them into technology buckets, but talk about what these products can do in specific usage scenarios

• Distinguish impactful from “cool” technologies, meaning discover what are the measurable business benefits from deploying a technology solution, not how “hot” the technology is

We thought that the best approach for doing this would be to launch an end-user survey and ask folks that are using this technology what their experiences are. This is when things started to get really messy. Before we even formulated the questions, we conducted close to 150 interviews with end-users, executives of technology vendors, prominent writers and some true thought leaders in this space to make sure that the questions are spot on to what they care about. Just to clarify, none of us are rookies in this space and for me, this is the 18^th survey of this type that I’ve created. Although, this time, launching the survey was more “interesting” than usual.

Keep users happy with service-level agreements and application performance management.

Written By: Michael Biddick, InformationWeek
(Original Article)

Lots of IT organizations use an informal metric for measuring how satisfied employees are with application performance: If they aren't calling the help desk, things must be OK. But this is less a strategy than an avoidance tactic. Proactive organizations will work with business units to create internal service-level agreements that define acceptable performance metrics. An SLA provides a formal mechanism for CIOs to report on progress in meeting performance goals--and to demonstrate to business leaders the very valuable services that IT provides.

Of course, if we're going to offer SLAs, we must measure service levels with some kind of quantifiable metric. This is where application performance management comes in. APM tools are a vital source of information about the components that support an application, including software, server hardware, and network systems.

Written by: Beth Schultz, NetworkWorld
(Original Article)

In a recent interview, Jimmy Harris, managing director of cloud computing at Accenture, a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, shared his thoughts on how the job of IT management will change over time as enterprises take a more services-centric view of their worlds. His advice in a nutshell:

If you've got a penchant to know everything about anything, then you best shake it. And, likewise, polish your IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)-like service management knowledge and business acumen.

Here's why, he explains. As more robust cloud services bubble up, abstraction of infrastructure will become the IT endgame. "Enterprises won't be managing infrastructure from an operational and service delivery perspective but essentially acquiring it as services," he says.

Written By: Krishnan Subramanian
(Original Article)

SaaS is slowly gaining adoption not just in the small and mid market range but also in big enterprises. According to a new Gartner report "Software as a Service 2009-2014", the SaaS revenues within the enterprise software market will grow in 2010 by 14.1 percent from the 2009 revenues. In 2009, the revenues were $7.5 billion and it is growing to $8.5 billion this year.

Written By: Michael Biddick
(Original Article)

This week I was working with a client, we will call him Jim, who was telling me about their mission critical business application. It's primarily a billing system, but also has service catalog and fairly detailed security and reporting modules built into the system. As a web-based application, the backend database is distributed and the application services just under 2,000 users. The CIO is seeking to establish key performance indicators around the application including performance metrics and SLAs. Unfortunately, there is currently no fault or performance monitoring in place. The current performance of the application is judged based on anecdotal calls to the help desk. Obviously, this will not cut it.

The community of APM vendors grows each week. As the industry finally adopts a service-based approach for IT management, the services really end up being applications at the end of the day. The tidal wave of ITIL process initiatives has been a big catalyst for APM projects as organization try and consolidate their legacy application and system management tools from the past 20 years and provide more proactive metrics around the critical business applications.

Written by: Robert Bravery
(Original Article)   

A website or blog’s load time is pivotal to it’s success. Studies have shown that the highest cause of users abandoning a site is because it takes too long to load.

It’s a strange world we live in where patience is not the order of the day. We have faster computers, faster internet, better looking websites, interactive sites. Yet users still want that instant gratification.

It’s a never ending spiral. The more you put into your site to make it more attractive and interactive, the faster users expect it to load.

Google Incorporating page load into rankings

Google has incorporated site speed into their ranking algorithms. Although not a significant part, it is Google’s way of suggesting to us to get our sites to load faster.

Google’s official blog post about site speed encourages users to test their website load times in order to evaluate and improve.

(Original Article)

IT, by nature, is innovative – changing and adapting to remove the constraints of manual business operations and streamline the efficiency of organization. To adopt the mentality of “set it and forget it” with your technology is a sure way to tell your clients “we are resolved to becoming outdated and inferior.” At the same time, the industry has taught us that technology for technology’s sake is not a sound business model either. Keeping up with trends in the technology world becomes an even more overwhelming challenge for with every new, in vogue capability, there are countless iterations already in incubation. So, how do CIO’s and IT executives stay ahead of the curve to ensure systems will grow with an organization and protect valuable capital from being flushed away? Server Virtualization is a prime example of what was once looked upon skeptically as an interesting attempt to change the way IT managed cost and systems until it was proven prudent and lucrative by Fortune 500 firms across the spectrum. Now however, companies are out of license compliance, and have lost control and visibility into the enterprise.

Business is constantly changing, and this trend of change is seen more than ever in recent years with virtualization, cloud computing and IT outsourcing. These changes are difficult to effectively orchestrate but your people, your needs, your clients, and you must be able to adjust and evolve if everyone is to survive as value-players within the organization. Like any other evolution cycle, this one, too, is survival of the fittest.

So are you adapting (driving business innovation) or are you strong (stabilizing the platforms for better business operation)? To begin, you need to take a step back and evaluate your current IT situation and the services IT is providing. Understanding the longevity and sustainability of the services, software, and hardware you are currently managing is imperative to current viability. Whereas adapting to changing business needs is crucial for your future viability.

Where’s the balance?

Here’s how to avoid stagnancy and keep your IT systems evolving, while keeping your company’s long-term goals in mind.

Written by: John (cloudbzz.com)

(Original Article)

Last week I got into a nice discussion on Twitter regarding the role of open source in an infrastructure as a service (IaaS) stack.  With open source cloud stacks from Eucalyptus, Cloud.com, Abiquo and others competing against proprietary source solutions from Enomaly, VMware and others, this can get fairly confusing quickly.

For clarity, here is my position on open source vs. proprietary source in this aspect of the market:  both have a role to play and natively one is not better or more advantaged than the other.  However, when you get into the details there are factors that might favor one model over the other in specific cases. I will look at this from the perspective of the service providers and enterprises who use cloud stacks.  In a future post I may touch on factors that vendors should when choosing between open source and closed source models.