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Next Steps for ITOA - Part 3

APMdigest asked experts across the industry — including analysts, consultants and vendors — for their opinions on the next steps for ITOA. These next steps include where the experts believe ITOA is headed, as well as where they think it should be headed. Part 3 covers monitoring and user experience.

Start with Next Steps for ITOA - Part 1

Start with Next Steps for ITOA - Part 2

MONITORING INTEGRATES WITH ITOA

Advanced analytics and machine learning will become table stakes in monitoring tools. Initially this will create a flurry of unsubstantiated rebranding efforts by vendors eager to catch up, but these will eventually either acquire their way into ITOA or exit the market.
Trace3 Research 360 View Trend Report: IT Operations Monitoring & Analytics (ITOMA)

USER EXPERIENCE

As powerful as APM tools are, they have always been application- or infrastructure-centric and have therefore missed a very important piece of the puzzle: the actual users. I predict that IT departments, with the encouragement of corporate management, will not only begin to recognize the value of understanding user experience and behavior, but will take the lead in leveraging these analytics to improve the quality of service they deliver. They will begin integrating user analytics as a core capability within their toolset to see exactly what happens when users enter information and navigate through screens. These unique insights will help them improve problem resolution, system performance, process optimization, employee efficiency and more.
Brian Berns
CEO, Knoa Software

DIGITAL EXPERIENCE MONITORING

In a customer-centric age, empowered users are accustomed to getting extremely high levels of service, a reality that is forcing companies to evolve traditional performance monitoring into what Gartner now calls digital experience monitoring (DEM). DEM treats the user experience as the ultimate metric, and identifies how the myriad of underlying services, systems and components influence it. DEM is far more multi-dimensional than past end user experience monitoring approaches. IT Operations Analytics will evolve concurrently with DEM, handling more complexity (ingesting and analyzing more data from more sources), and increasing diagnostic accuracy and speed.
Dennis Callaghan
Director of Industry Innovation, Catchpoint

MONITOR WHAT MATTERS

We will see a significant shift away from "monitor everything", and a return to "monitor what matters." But this time, "what matters" will be determined algorithmically, not by policy, and consequently the performance data will be more adaptive and relevant.
Richard Whitehead
Chief Evangelist, Moogsoft

PREDICTABILITY

IT Operations Analytics (ITOA), in relation to performance management has yet to deliver the first promise of analytics: predictability. Although there are a number of interesting solutions around that are that advanced, especially in areas like network management (in combination with vertical/domain problems), the market has yet to witness an easy-to-use, intelligent solution that can see within the crystal ball and predict outages, failures and problems.
Goran Garevski
VP of Engineering, Comtrade Software

Read Next Steps for ITOA - Part 4, covering automation and dynamic IT environment.

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According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...

Next Steps for ITOA - Part 3

APMdigest asked experts across the industry — including analysts, consultants and vendors — for their opinions on the next steps for ITOA. These next steps include where the experts believe ITOA is headed, as well as where they think it should be headed. Part 3 covers monitoring and user experience.

Start with Next Steps for ITOA - Part 1

Start with Next Steps for ITOA - Part 2

MONITORING INTEGRATES WITH ITOA

Advanced analytics and machine learning will become table stakes in monitoring tools. Initially this will create a flurry of unsubstantiated rebranding efforts by vendors eager to catch up, but these will eventually either acquire their way into ITOA or exit the market.
Trace3 Research 360 View Trend Report: IT Operations Monitoring & Analytics (ITOMA)

USER EXPERIENCE

As powerful as APM tools are, they have always been application- or infrastructure-centric and have therefore missed a very important piece of the puzzle: the actual users. I predict that IT departments, with the encouragement of corporate management, will not only begin to recognize the value of understanding user experience and behavior, but will take the lead in leveraging these analytics to improve the quality of service they deliver. They will begin integrating user analytics as a core capability within their toolset to see exactly what happens when users enter information and navigate through screens. These unique insights will help them improve problem resolution, system performance, process optimization, employee efficiency and more.
Brian Berns
CEO, Knoa Software

DIGITAL EXPERIENCE MONITORING

In a customer-centric age, empowered users are accustomed to getting extremely high levels of service, a reality that is forcing companies to evolve traditional performance monitoring into what Gartner now calls digital experience monitoring (DEM). DEM treats the user experience as the ultimate metric, and identifies how the myriad of underlying services, systems and components influence it. DEM is far more multi-dimensional than past end user experience monitoring approaches. IT Operations Analytics will evolve concurrently with DEM, handling more complexity (ingesting and analyzing more data from more sources), and increasing diagnostic accuracy and speed.
Dennis Callaghan
Director of Industry Innovation, Catchpoint

MONITOR WHAT MATTERS

We will see a significant shift away from "monitor everything", and a return to "monitor what matters." But this time, "what matters" will be determined algorithmically, not by policy, and consequently the performance data will be more adaptive and relevant.
Richard Whitehead
Chief Evangelist, Moogsoft

PREDICTABILITY

IT Operations Analytics (ITOA), in relation to performance management has yet to deliver the first promise of analytics: predictability. Although there are a number of interesting solutions around that are that advanced, especially in areas like network management (in combination with vertical/domain problems), the market has yet to witness an easy-to-use, intelligent solution that can see within the crystal ball and predict outages, failures and problems.
Goran Garevski
VP of Engineering, Comtrade Software

Read Next Steps for ITOA - Part 4, covering automation and dynamic IT environment.

Hot Topics

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

Image
Broadcom

From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...