Q&A: AppDynamics Talks About APM - Part 3

Pete Goldin
APMdigest
Learn more about Cisco

In Part 3 of APMdigest's exclusive interview, AppDynamics talks about Unified Monitoring, analytics and the AppDynamics Summer 15 release. Bhaskar Sunkara is AppDynamics CTO and SVP of Product Management. Jonah Kowall is VP of Market Development and Insights at AppDynamics. Kalyan Ramanathan is VP of Product Marketing at AppDynamics.

Start with Part 1 of the Interview

Start with Part 2 of the Interview

APM: What does AppDynamics mean by "Unified Monitoring"?

Ramanathan: Unified Monitoring is the industry-first, application-centric solution that traces and monitors transactions from the end user, through the entire application and infrastructure environment, to help quickly and proactively solve performance issues, and ensure excellent user experience. The unified solution leverages a common data platform, making it easy to install and manage, and provides consistent and shareable interfaces for all users. This approach replaces the miscellany of siloed, non-integrated, infrastructure-specific tools that characterize the monitoring solution for many enterprises.

APM: What makes AppDynamics Unified Monitoring different?

Kowall: AppDynamics’ vision of Unified Monitoring starts with the user and transaction as they flow through  application components and relate this user and their transactions to the other parts of the infrastructure. Our Unified Monitoring is not about availability or event management. Rather, it is about how the infrastructure relates back to the user and the transaction— both of which are key to today’s businesses as they become software-defined. This visibility and technology is made possible by watching every line of code.

Sunkara: In the past, “unified monitoring” has been multiple products supplying you with multiple views— more of a top down approach and leading with a business transaction. The difference between the old attempts at unified monitoring and AppDynamics’ approach is that we are bringing all of the data throughout the various layers and placing them in a single data store. This allows for a much more powerful correlation, done organically.

APM: How does integrated analytics add an advantage?

Sunkara: Integrated analytics—especially with what AppDynamics’ is doing with analytics— really paint a picture of how performance is linking back to business. For example, APM tells you where the problem is and how to fix, whereas analytics tell you the impact of that problem— who was impacted, whether the business and/or customers were affected, etc. You need a lot more context to deal with the business impact and without an integrated approach to put both the APM and analytics pieces together, the performance dimension will be extremely difficult.

APM: What is AppDynamics war room feature? How does it alleviate the problems associated with the traditional war room?

Ramanathan: One of the biggest challenges IT organizations face in trying to solve urgent application issues is getting the entire organization on the same page, to see the same data, and reach conclusions together. Typically, a mix of communication tools are involved — phone calls, chat, emails, in-person discussions, etc.—  which often leaves the team collectively out of sync. The AppDynamics Virtual War Room solves those issues by creating a virtual space where everyone — development, operations, and business users —  can see the same data, chat, make changes to application configuration and settings in real time, and collaborate on every level, in the same space. Such collaboration radically shortens time-to-resolution for application issues and reduces their business impact. The results of this process then can be captured and indexed in knowledge management systems to streamline future troubleshooting.

APM: What other new features does the Summer 15 release offer?

Ramanathan: The Summer 15 release includes:

■ Unified Monitoring: the industry-first, application-centric integrated monitoring solution.

■ Public beta availability of Browser Synthetic Monitoring: AppDynamics’ distributed, cloud-based, intelligent monitoring solution for programmatically testing website availability, functionality, and performance.

■ Server Monitoring: AppDynamics’ new server monitoring platform is available as a public beta. Fully integrated into the Application Intelligence Platform interface, it extends the AppDynamics Server Monitoring capability to provide enhanced host visibility, extended CPU, network and storage performance metrics, comprehensive dashboard, and detailed process list information.

■ Python Application Performance Monitoring: AppDynamics’ Python APM provides code-level application monitoring, business transaction monitoring, errors and exception detection in real time, and as part of AppDynamics Unified Monitoring, visibility into processes, components, and dependencies that impact Python performance.

ABOUT Bhaskar Sunkara

As CTO and SVP of Product Management, Bhaskar Sunkara is responsible for product management, user experience, and field engineering enablement at AppDynamics. He also drives AppDynamics' Customer-centric Innovation methodology to combine customer feedback with fast-paced innovation. Sunkara was an original founder of AppDynamics and served as Director of Engineering responsible for all product development. Prior to joining AppDynamics, Sunkara was Lead Engineer at Wily Technology, where he pioneered a dynamic instrumentation engine as well as the company's product expansion into .NET. Prior to that, he was Lead Engineer for Pramati Technologies, where he was one of the key people behind the design and development of their J2EE Application Server. Sunkara received a BS degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Madras University.

ABOUT Jonah Kowall

As VP of Market Development and Insights at AppDynamics, Jonah Kowall helps drive the AppDynamics product roadmap and vision, while developing entry into new markets and providing valuable technology and business insights to fuel the accelerating and broad-based demand for the company’s Application Intelligence Platform. Kowall has a diverse background including 15 years as an IT practitioner at several startups and larger enterprises focused on infrastructure and operations, security, and performance engineering. These included running tactical and strategic operational initiatives, going deep into monitoring of infrastructure and application components. In 2011, Kowall changed careers, moving to Gartner to focus on availability and performance monitoring and IT operations management (ITOM). He led Gartner's influential Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Network Performance Monitoring and Diagnostics (NPMD) Magic Quadrants and research as a Research VP.

ABOUT Kalyan Ramanathan

Kalyan Ramanathan is VP of Product Marketing at AppDynamics. He as more than 20 years of experience in software and marketing, with a deep understanding of the mobile ecosystem and the broader IT operations market. Prior to AppDynamics, he served as CMO at Crittercism, a provider of mobile application performance management (mAPM) solutions. Prior to Crittercism, Ramanathan served as VP of Marketing at Electric Cloud, a DevOps automation leader, and as Senior Director of Product Marketing at Opsware/HP, where he oversaw marketing for HP’s data center automation and application performance management suite. Prior to Opsware, Ramanathan led product marketing and product management at Collation (acquired by IBM) and Portal Software (acquired by Oracle). Ramanathan began his career at Intel and has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

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Q&A: AppDynamics Talks About APM - Part 3

Pete Goldin
APMdigest
Learn more about Cisco

In Part 3 of APMdigest's exclusive interview, AppDynamics talks about Unified Monitoring, analytics and the AppDynamics Summer 15 release. Bhaskar Sunkara is AppDynamics CTO and SVP of Product Management. Jonah Kowall is VP of Market Development and Insights at AppDynamics. Kalyan Ramanathan is VP of Product Marketing at AppDynamics.

Start with Part 1 of the Interview

Start with Part 2 of the Interview

APM: What does AppDynamics mean by "Unified Monitoring"?

Ramanathan: Unified Monitoring is the industry-first, application-centric solution that traces and monitors transactions from the end user, through the entire application and infrastructure environment, to help quickly and proactively solve performance issues, and ensure excellent user experience. The unified solution leverages a common data platform, making it easy to install and manage, and provides consistent and shareable interfaces for all users. This approach replaces the miscellany of siloed, non-integrated, infrastructure-specific tools that characterize the monitoring solution for many enterprises.

APM: What makes AppDynamics Unified Monitoring different?

Kowall: AppDynamics’ vision of Unified Monitoring starts with the user and transaction as they flow through  application components and relate this user and their transactions to the other parts of the infrastructure. Our Unified Monitoring is not about availability or event management. Rather, it is about how the infrastructure relates back to the user and the transaction— both of which are key to today’s businesses as they become software-defined. This visibility and technology is made possible by watching every line of code.

Sunkara: In the past, “unified monitoring” has been multiple products supplying you with multiple views— more of a top down approach and leading with a business transaction. The difference between the old attempts at unified monitoring and AppDynamics’ approach is that we are bringing all of the data throughout the various layers and placing them in a single data store. This allows for a much more powerful correlation, done organically.

APM: How does integrated analytics add an advantage?

Sunkara: Integrated analytics—especially with what AppDynamics’ is doing with analytics— really paint a picture of how performance is linking back to business. For example, APM tells you where the problem is and how to fix, whereas analytics tell you the impact of that problem— who was impacted, whether the business and/or customers were affected, etc. You need a lot more context to deal with the business impact and without an integrated approach to put both the APM and analytics pieces together, the performance dimension will be extremely difficult.

APM: What is AppDynamics war room feature? How does it alleviate the problems associated with the traditional war room?

Ramanathan: One of the biggest challenges IT organizations face in trying to solve urgent application issues is getting the entire organization on the same page, to see the same data, and reach conclusions together. Typically, a mix of communication tools are involved — phone calls, chat, emails, in-person discussions, etc.—  which often leaves the team collectively out of sync. The AppDynamics Virtual War Room solves those issues by creating a virtual space where everyone — development, operations, and business users —  can see the same data, chat, make changes to application configuration and settings in real time, and collaborate on every level, in the same space. Such collaboration radically shortens time-to-resolution for application issues and reduces their business impact. The results of this process then can be captured and indexed in knowledge management systems to streamline future troubleshooting.

APM: What other new features does the Summer 15 release offer?

Ramanathan: The Summer 15 release includes:

■ Unified Monitoring: the industry-first, application-centric integrated monitoring solution.

■ Public beta availability of Browser Synthetic Monitoring: AppDynamics’ distributed, cloud-based, intelligent monitoring solution for programmatically testing website availability, functionality, and performance.

■ Server Monitoring: AppDynamics’ new server monitoring platform is available as a public beta. Fully integrated into the Application Intelligence Platform interface, it extends the AppDynamics Server Monitoring capability to provide enhanced host visibility, extended CPU, network and storage performance metrics, comprehensive dashboard, and detailed process list information.

■ Python Application Performance Monitoring: AppDynamics’ Python APM provides code-level application monitoring, business transaction monitoring, errors and exception detection in real time, and as part of AppDynamics Unified Monitoring, visibility into processes, components, and dependencies that impact Python performance.

ABOUT Bhaskar Sunkara

As CTO and SVP of Product Management, Bhaskar Sunkara is responsible for product management, user experience, and field engineering enablement at AppDynamics. He also drives AppDynamics' Customer-centric Innovation methodology to combine customer feedback with fast-paced innovation. Sunkara was an original founder of AppDynamics and served as Director of Engineering responsible for all product development. Prior to joining AppDynamics, Sunkara was Lead Engineer at Wily Technology, where he pioneered a dynamic instrumentation engine as well as the company's product expansion into .NET. Prior to that, he was Lead Engineer for Pramati Technologies, where he was one of the key people behind the design and development of their J2EE Application Server. Sunkara received a BS degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Madras University.

ABOUT Jonah Kowall

As VP of Market Development and Insights at AppDynamics, Jonah Kowall helps drive the AppDynamics product roadmap and vision, while developing entry into new markets and providing valuable technology and business insights to fuel the accelerating and broad-based demand for the company’s Application Intelligence Platform. Kowall has a diverse background including 15 years as an IT practitioner at several startups and larger enterprises focused on infrastructure and operations, security, and performance engineering. These included running tactical and strategic operational initiatives, going deep into monitoring of infrastructure and application components. In 2011, Kowall changed careers, moving to Gartner to focus on availability and performance monitoring and IT operations management (ITOM). He led Gartner's influential Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Network Performance Monitoring and Diagnostics (NPMD) Magic Quadrants and research as a Research VP.

ABOUT Kalyan Ramanathan

Kalyan Ramanathan is VP of Product Marketing at AppDynamics. He as more than 20 years of experience in software and marketing, with a deep understanding of the mobile ecosystem and the broader IT operations market. Prior to AppDynamics, he served as CMO at Crittercism, a provider of mobile application performance management (mAPM) solutions. Prior to Crittercism, Ramanathan served as VP of Marketing at Electric Cloud, a DevOps automation leader, and as Senior Director of Product Marketing at Opsware/HP, where he oversaw marketing for HP’s data center automation and application performance management suite. Prior to Opsware, Ramanathan led product marketing and product management at Collation (acquired by IBM) and Portal Software (acquired by Oracle). Ramanathan began his career at Intel and has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Related Links

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The Performance Bottleneck in Enterprise AI Has Been Exposed – Now We Must Fix It

Performance bottlenecks aren't uncommon when it comes to rolling out new technology, regardless of how capable or game-changing that technology might be. Every generation of new tech has encountered roadblocks that had to be overcome before it was truly able to shine. Virtualization forced organizations to rethink resource allocation, cloud transformation had us shift our focus toward scalability and elasticity, and microservices introduced entirely new challenges around observability and distributed systems. There's something different about AI, however ...

What Capital Markets Can Teach Enterprises About Integrated Data Infrastructure

Consider a single order represented across order-management, execution, and settlement systems. Each database, message broker, and application may be online and processing its own records correctly. Yet the workflow has failed if related events arrive on different clocks, rely on inconsistent state, or cannot be reconciled before an operational decision must be made ...

Why AI in IT Is Producing High Productivity but Heavy Workloads

AI now exists in almost every IT workflow. In a recent survey of more than 800 IT service professionals, all respondents indicated the use of AI in some form within their organization. But there's a growing paradox: if dashboards are clearing faster and alerts are resolved at unprecedented speed, why aren't IT service desks reporting lighter workloads? The research found that 71% of IT teams said their actual workload has remained flat or increased since adopting AI. This reality appears to contradict what we’ve been told about AI ...

Implementing AI Isn't the Hard Part Anymore - Adoption Is

Two years ago, almost every customer conversation about AI started with the same questions: Which model should we use? What can it do? Is it ready for the enterprise? Today, those discussions have moved on. CIOs are far more interested in how to govern AI, integrate it with existing systems, prepare their workforce and make it part of everyday operations. The challenge is no longer to prove that AI can deliver value. It's instead about how to embed AI into the business in a way that's secure, scalable and delivers measurable outcomes ...

The Incident Load Is Rising, but Recovery Times Aren't Moving

Two things happened to production incidents between 2023 and now, and they did not happen at the same speed. The first is that a class of dependency that barely existed three years ago now accounts for one incident in ten. Incidents disclosed by AI model and AI application providers rose from 1.7% of all disclosed unplanned incidents in 2023 to 10.7% in 2026 year to date, roughly a sixfold rise; that counts only incidents at AI companies themselves, so the true share is higher. The second is that the time to close an incident has not come down ...

Your AI Pipeline May Have a Document Observability Problem

When an AI assistant gives an incomplete or incorrect answer, teams often blame the model. They adjust prompts, switch models, increase context windows or test a new retrieval strategy. However the model may not be a problem. In many enterprise AI workflows, the problem begins inside the document-ingestion pipeline ...

The SIEM Isn't the Problem. Your Telemetry Architecture Is

If you talk to any security or observability teams right now, they're all fighting the same fire: their tooling was built to ingest X, but their sources are pumping Y and soon to be doing Z. The knee-jerk reaction is always the same: we need more platform. However, this reaction is wrong. Let me explain why, because the solution to this problem is foundational, not financial. Instead of hurling yet more money at the problem, make sure you've done what's needed upstream ...

As AI Scales Across Enterprises, Breaking Points Emerge

Rapid AI adoption and the unique ways AI workloads operate is redefining the scope and structure of what these teams must deliver. This shift is forcing organizations to rethink how they manage scale, automation, and control, according to The State of SRE and Platform Engineering 2026, a new report from Dynatrace ...

Preparing Network Infrastructure for AI Starts with the Basics

AI is usually talked about as a software tool, but it also depends heavily on the network behind it. Whether a company is using AI for chatbots, automation, monitoring, analytics, or employee support, all of that information has to move across the network in a reliable and secure way. That means AI is not just an application decision. It is also an infrastructure decision. Before organizations rush into AI, they should ask a simple question: Is our network ready to support it? ...

Agentic Operations Begin with Governed Middleware Access

Enterprise AI often lacks governed access to where business processes actually execute. Without that access, AI agents may be able to reason, but they cannot operate reliably across enterprise workflows. For AI agents to effectively carry out workflows, they will require integration-layer context and controls. Organizations can implement these prerequisites by providing AI with managed access to the middleware layer ...