Q&A Part Two: Ovum Talks About APM

Pete Goldin
APMdigest

In Part Two of APMdigest's exclusive interview, Michael Azoff, Principal Analyst at Ovum, talks about APM hot topics including Big Data, Cloud, SaaS, Mobile and DevOps.

Click here to start with Q&A Part One: Ovum Talks About APM

APM: Your APM Solution Guide promotes a “unified view” and states that “a comprehensive APM solution is essential.” Does this require one large solution that covers all APM capabilities?

MA: It is possible to get a unified view by choosing point solutions that together provide that unified view and some of those decisions may be driven by the different communities that are buying these solutions. Operations people are not really interested in source code level detail but developers obviously are. You are going to have these different solutions that are targeted at these different communities within the IT department. It is possible to have a set of point solutions that together cover the whole spectrum of performance issues.

APM: One point I see in your research, that we both agree on, is that Big Data is going to change APM. How do you see APM vendors addressing that challenge?

MA: Big Data was quite an eye-opener. You've got vendors like Netuitive and NEC that provide solutions that complement the traditional APM tools that do not provide the Big Data analytics. So you can buy an add-on tool. The big vendors are building their own solutions. And then you've got another bunch of vendors who are taking the complex event processing approach. So you have different ways of dealing with Big Data, but the vendors are addressing it. They are recognizing that there is a need for that.

APM: In terms of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), your report states that some vendors are waiting to see how the market goes. What progress do you see?

MA: Some have SaaS APM products, some are building them, some products are half completed. I think in 2013 and 2014 you will see a lot more activity in this area. This is all being lead by the customers. It is reflecting enterprise moves to the cloud. We are seeing a greater shift towards use of Cloud services, greater confidence now, and the APM vendors have to cater to that need.

APM: I noticed in the Solution Guide you did not include the lack of SaaS as a weakness for any of the vendors. Does that mean you do not consider SaaS a market requirement today?

MA: We are at a turning point. If I was going to do this Solution Guide next year I probably would put SaaS down as essential.

APM: What is the level of maturity you are seeing in terms of monitoring applications across mobile devices?

MA: Mobile is an area that has become quite prominent very recently. We are seeing a shift towards the enterprise use of mobile devices, and with that the means to monitor the performance. I think the vendors are on top of that in providing capability for managing mobile apps. There are only two vendors in my Solution Guide that have absolutely nothing to offer – so that is a high proportion of vendors that provide this capability.

APM: How do you see DevOps impacting APM over the next year?

MA: DevOps is all about these two communities – developers and operations – collaborating, but they still have their individual needs which are quite separate. So from an APM perspective, vendors are clearly targeting their solutions at one community or another, or both in an integrated approach, but they are providing different information for these different communities. I think DevOps is a very forward thinking and necessary way of bringing down the silo walls.

APM: Do you have any predictions on how the APM market will change over the next year or so?

MA: I think the major waves – cloud, mobile, agile – have been initiated. I don't think we will see anything of the same magnitude in the next few years at least. I am not expecting something completely new, but I am expecting to see maturity in cloud and mobile, and consolidation of APM features.

Click here to read Q&A Part One: Ovum Talks About APM

ABOUT Michael Azoff

Michael Azoff (PhD, MIEEE) has been working as an IT industry analyst since 2003, bringing over 20 years of experience in pure and applied research and consulting in the IT industry. At Ovum he leads the software development and lifecycle management (SDLM) research and his current focus is on Agile practices in software development, including Application Performance Management, enterprise Agile transformation initiatives, DevOps, cloud related SDLM, rich Internet applications, and enterprise IT mobile development.

Related Links:

www.ovum.com

Ovum Solution Guide: Application Performance Management

Ovum Application Performance Management Market Overview

The Business Benefits of a Lifecycle Approach to Software Development

Michael Azoff's blog: Defining Modern Application Performance Management

Michael Azoff's blog: Application Performance Management and Data Overload

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Q&A Part Two: Ovum Talks About APM

Pete Goldin
APMdigest

In Part Two of APMdigest's exclusive interview, Michael Azoff, Principal Analyst at Ovum, talks about APM hot topics including Big Data, Cloud, SaaS, Mobile and DevOps.

Click here to start with Q&A Part One: Ovum Talks About APM

APM: Your APM Solution Guide promotes a “unified view” and states that “a comprehensive APM solution is essential.” Does this require one large solution that covers all APM capabilities?

MA: It is possible to get a unified view by choosing point solutions that together provide that unified view and some of those decisions may be driven by the different communities that are buying these solutions. Operations people are not really interested in source code level detail but developers obviously are. You are going to have these different solutions that are targeted at these different communities within the IT department. It is possible to have a set of point solutions that together cover the whole spectrum of performance issues.

APM: One point I see in your research, that we both agree on, is that Big Data is going to change APM. How do you see APM vendors addressing that challenge?

MA: Big Data was quite an eye-opener. You've got vendors like Netuitive and NEC that provide solutions that complement the traditional APM tools that do not provide the Big Data analytics. So you can buy an add-on tool. The big vendors are building their own solutions. And then you've got another bunch of vendors who are taking the complex event processing approach. So you have different ways of dealing with Big Data, but the vendors are addressing it. They are recognizing that there is a need for that.

APM: In terms of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), your report states that some vendors are waiting to see how the market goes. What progress do you see?

MA: Some have SaaS APM products, some are building them, some products are half completed. I think in 2013 and 2014 you will see a lot more activity in this area. This is all being lead by the customers. It is reflecting enterprise moves to the cloud. We are seeing a greater shift towards use of Cloud services, greater confidence now, and the APM vendors have to cater to that need.

APM: I noticed in the Solution Guide you did not include the lack of SaaS as a weakness for any of the vendors. Does that mean you do not consider SaaS a market requirement today?

MA: We are at a turning point. If I was going to do this Solution Guide next year I probably would put SaaS down as essential.

APM: What is the level of maturity you are seeing in terms of monitoring applications across mobile devices?

MA: Mobile is an area that has become quite prominent very recently. We are seeing a shift towards the enterprise use of mobile devices, and with that the means to monitor the performance. I think the vendors are on top of that in providing capability for managing mobile apps. There are only two vendors in my Solution Guide that have absolutely nothing to offer – so that is a high proportion of vendors that provide this capability.

APM: How do you see DevOps impacting APM over the next year?

MA: DevOps is all about these two communities – developers and operations – collaborating, but they still have their individual needs which are quite separate. So from an APM perspective, vendors are clearly targeting their solutions at one community or another, or both in an integrated approach, but they are providing different information for these different communities. I think DevOps is a very forward thinking and necessary way of bringing down the silo walls.

APM: Do you have any predictions on how the APM market will change over the next year or so?

MA: I think the major waves – cloud, mobile, agile – have been initiated. I don't think we will see anything of the same magnitude in the next few years at least. I am not expecting something completely new, but I am expecting to see maturity in cloud and mobile, and consolidation of APM features.

Click here to read Q&A Part One: Ovum Talks About APM

ABOUT Michael Azoff

Michael Azoff (PhD, MIEEE) has been working as an IT industry analyst since 2003, bringing over 20 years of experience in pure and applied research and consulting in the IT industry. At Ovum he leads the software development and lifecycle management (SDLM) research and his current focus is on Agile practices in software development, including Application Performance Management, enterprise Agile transformation initiatives, DevOps, cloud related SDLM, rich Internet applications, and enterprise IT mobile development.

Related Links:

www.ovum.com

Ovum Solution Guide: Application Performance Management

Ovum Application Performance Management Market Overview

The Business Benefits of a Lifecycle Approach to Software Development

Michael Azoff's blog: Defining Modern Application Performance Management

Michael Azoff's blog: Application Performance Management and Data Overload

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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 ...

The Network Data Problem Slowing Down Enterprise AIOps

Enterprise networks rarely behave the same way for very long. A routing adjustment in one region may unexpectedly alter application performance in another. A cloud migration may introduce hidden dependencies that go unnoticed until an outage occurs. All the while, the network is managed by several different teams, each of whom use different tool sets — and as a result, have different views of the network ... There’s usually an engineer who remembers why traffic fails over a certain way between sites, or which transparent firewall was added where. The problem is that human memory cannot scale alongside enterprise-scale networks ...

The Governance Gap Behind AI's Infrastructure Problem

Ask an infrastructure team how confident they are in their ability to govern AI, and most will tell you they've got it handled. A recent survey of 406 IT decision-makers and platform engineering leaders found 86% expressing exactly that confidence. Ask the same group whether they have a formal written AI governance policy, and the number drops to 30%, according to Spacelift's Infrastructure Automation Report ...

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This year, many of the cloud infrastructure contracts signed in the early days of the AI boom will come up for renewal. As the year goes on, I anticipate we'll see a significant amount of cloud vendor swapouts and multi-cloud adoption, and the reason isn't just GPU depreciation. It's because they're tired of their current cloud providers ...

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