2018 Application Performance Management Predictions - Part 1

The Holiday Season is the time for the annual list of Application Performance Management (APM) predictions, the most popular content on APMdigest, viewed by tens of thousands of people in the IT community around the world every year. Industry experts — from analysts and consultants to users and the top vendors — offer thoughtful, insightful, and often controversial predictions on how APM and related technologies will evolve and impact business in 2018.

APMdigest covers a variety of related technologies beyond APM, and this year's predictions list does the same. In addition to APM, the related technologies covered include IT Operations Analytics (ITOA) also called Advanced IT Analytics (AIA), IT Service Management (ITSM), End-User Experience Management (EUEM), Network Performance Management (NPM), as well as infrastructure monitoring.

The 2018 APM Predictions List is the longest predictions list ever featured on APMdigest. Last year's list featured 50 prediction categories, while this year's list features 60 categories. This extensive list of predictions reflects the vast scope of digital transformation accompanied by the continuously changing IT landscape.

Some of these predictions may come true in the next 12 months, while others may be just as valid but take several years to be realized. Still others may be wishful thinking or unbased fears. Some predictions even directly conflict with each other. But taken collectively, this list of predictions offers a timely and engrossing snapshot of what the IT industry and the APM market are thinking about, planning, expecting and hoping for next year.

The predictions will be posted in 7 parts over the next few weeks.

A forecast by the top minds in Application Performance Management today, here are the predictions:

SINGLE PANE OF GLASS

Based on 315+ reviews of APM solutions on IT Central Station, the feature that many of our community members expect from their APM solution is a single pane of glass. In 2018, APM vendors who continue to build-out their single pane of glass functionalities will be the champions in the competitive market.
Russell Rothstein
Founder and CEO, IT Central Station

Download IT Central Station's free 2018 review roundup report for APM solutions

We expect 2018 to be the pivotal year where the majority of IT teams re-engineer their traditional and functionally silo'd structures towards cross-discipline teams aligned to customer journeys and business outcomes. In doing so, narrow tech-centric tooling will give way to monitoring models that facilitate fast feedback, collaboration and knowledge sharing. In this sense, application performance management will be a critical enabler; providing all teams a single source-of-truth into customer experience and presenting any performance impact in context of roles and responsibilities — all the way from the office of the CIO to site reliability engineering squads.
Amy Feldman
Director, Product Marketing, CA Technologies

UNIFIED OBSERVABILITY

Silo monitoring of yesteryear will give way to unified observability. Breaking down the monitoring silos between user, application, system, network and security event data will help us pinpoint which optimization will have most impact on overall performance.
Peco Karayanev
Sr. Product Manager, Riverbed

APM: MISSION-CRITICAL

Application Performance Management (APM) tools help organizations to scrupulously monitor and create applications that ensure desired performance and accessibility. APM will continue to add business value for enterprises in 2018, as it will help diagnose the complex issues and lead to an improvement in application performance and customer experience. APM will also play a crucial role in ensuring that applications continue to sustain and perform even in a virtual scenario that is prone to cyber-attacks and risks.
Sairam Vedam
VP & Global Head, Marketing, Cigniti Technologies

BSM REVIVAL

Business Service Management will continue to have a revival in 2018. While the term has been around for over a decade, the ability to understand, quickly and easily, how Business and IT services are actually driving business benefits has been difficult. The evolution of APM now makes this possible and through this next year, APM vendors will be evaluated on how they are able to provide real-time information on how applications and processes are driving business outcomes.
John Rakowski
Director of Technology Strategy, AppDynamics

OPEN SOURCE APM

Open source APM and transaction tracking will begin to mature significantly in 2018, but will still require an extremely heavy lift (code changes and lots of infrastructures) from organizations creating what will eventually become unmaintainable systems over time due to complexity.
Jonah Kowall
VP of Market Development and Insights, AppDynamics

Read Jonah Kowall's Blog: Looking Back at 2017 APM Predictions - Did They Come True?

SELF SERVICE IT

In 2018, ITSM vendors will continue improving the UX of their platforms, with an eye towards increasing workflow efficiency for both IT department staff and for IT end-users. Self-service tools (for end-users) really took off in 2017 and we expect by the end of 2018 they'll have become an expected feature and included in even the most basic ITSM suites.
Craig Borowski
Content Analyst, Software Advice (a Gartner Company)

SITE RELIABILITY ENGINEERING

In 2018 we will see the rise of site reliability engineering. One of the key tools they need is an APM solution that is developer friendly.
Matt Watson
Founder and CEO, Stackify

With the rise of continuous delivery and DevOps, a new breed of IT operations professionals is defining how services are delivered and managed. As comfortable with Python and Ruby as with configuration and capacity, they are leading the way in areas like systems automation, architectural flexibility, developer empowerment and site reliability to deliver better applications faster and with an exceptional user experience. As such, the Site Reliability Engineer role will become mainstream as many professionals refresh their software development skillsets so they can collaborate more effectively with developers.
Rick Fitz
SVP and GM of IT Markets, Splunk

DEVOPS TRANSFORMS INCIDENT MANAGEMENT

Trends in agile/DevOps will continue to transform incident management and war-room decision making, but the transformation will be a two-way street, as core advances in IT alerting, incident handling and analytics impact both sides of the equation, and best practices evolve to support a wider variety of toolsets and stakeholders.
Dennis Drogseth
VP of Research, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA)

Read Dennis Drogseth's Blog: At the Crossroads of Digital Transformation: The Future of the Advanced IT Analytics "Market"

APM ENABLES DEVOPS SUCCESS

2018 is the year that the industry realizes that you can't "just scratch the surface" either in adopting a DevOps culture or in adopting a cloud native architecture to get the business outcomes you desire. As a consequence, the APM market will fill the gap to steer application teams toward success in both adopting cloud native architectures and embracing DevOps best practices. This will include building in key business metrics allowing teams to quickly iterate to reach the desired business outcomes.
Mike Mallo
Offering Management Lead for APM, IBM

Read 2018 Application Performance Management Predictions - Part 2, covering ITIL, ITSM and more.

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2018 Application Performance Management Predictions - Part 1

The Holiday Season is the time for the annual list of Application Performance Management (APM) predictions, the most popular content on APMdigest, viewed by tens of thousands of people in the IT community around the world every year. Industry experts — from analysts and consultants to users and the top vendors — offer thoughtful, insightful, and often controversial predictions on how APM and related technologies will evolve and impact business in 2018.

APMdigest covers a variety of related technologies beyond APM, and this year's predictions list does the same. In addition to APM, the related technologies covered include IT Operations Analytics (ITOA) also called Advanced IT Analytics (AIA), IT Service Management (ITSM), End-User Experience Management (EUEM), Network Performance Management (NPM), as well as infrastructure monitoring.

The 2018 APM Predictions List is the longest predictions list ever featured on APMdigest. Last year's list featured 50 prediction categories, while this year's list features 60 categories. This extensive list of predictions reflects the vast scope of digital transformation accompanied by the continuously changing IT landscape.

Some of these predictions may come true in the next 12 months, while others may be just as valid but take several years to be realized. Still others may be wishful thinking or unbased fears. Some predictions even directly conflict with each other. But taken collectively, this list of predictions offers a timely and engrossing snapshot of what the IT industry and the APM market are thinking about, planning, expecting and hoping for next year.

The predictions will be posted in 7 parts over the next few weeks.

A forecast by the top minds in Application Performance Management today, here are the predictions:

SINGLE PANE OF GLASS

Based on 315+ reviews of APM solutions on IT Central Station, the feature that many of our community members expect from their APM solution is a single pane of glass. In 2018, APM vendors who continue to build-out their single pane of glass functionalities will be the champions in the competitive market.
Russell Rothstein
Founder and CEO, IT Central Station

Download IT Central Station's free 2018 review roundup report for APM solutions

We expect 2018 to be the pivotal year where the majority of IT teams re-engineer their traditional and functionally silo'd structures towards cross-discipline teams aligned to customer journeys and business outcomes. In doing so, narrow tech-centric tooling will give way to monitoring models that facilitate fast feedback, collaboration and knowledge sharing. In this sense, application performance management will be a critical enabler; providing all teams a single source-of-truth into customer experience and presenting any performance impact in context of roles and responsibilities — all the way from the office of the CIO to site reliability engineering squads.
Amy Feldman
Director, Product Marketing, CA Technologies

UNIFIED OBSERVABILITY

Silo monitoring of yesteryear will give way to unified observability. Breaking down the monitoring silos between user, application, system, network and security event data will help us pinpoint which optimization will have most impact on overall performance.
Peco Karayanev
Sr. Product Manager, Riverbed

APM: MISSION-CRITICAL

Application Performance Management (APM) tools help organizations to scrupulously monitor and create applications that ensure desired performance and accessibility. APM will continue to add business value for enterprises in 2018, as it will help diagnose the complex issues and lead to an improvement in application performance and customer experience. APM will also play a crucial role in ensuring that applications continue to sustain and perform even in a virtual scenario that is prone to cyber-attacks and risks.
Sairam Vedam
VP & Global Head, Marketing, Cigniti Technologies

BSM REVIVAL

Business Service Management will continue to have a revival in 2018. While the term has been around for over a decade, the ability to understand, quickly and easily, how Business and IT services are actually driving business benefits has been difficult. The evolution of APM now makes this possible and through this next year, APM vendors will be evaluated on how they are able to provide real-time information on how applications and processes are driving business outcomes.
John Rakowski
Director of Technology Strategy, AppDynamics

OPEN SOURCE APM

Open source APM and transaction tracking will begin to mature significantly in 2018, but will still require an extremely heavy lift (code changes and lots of infrastructures) from organizations creating what will eventually become unmaintainable systems over time due to complexity.
Jonah Kowall
VP of Market Development and Insights, AppDynamics

Read Jonah Kowall's Blog: Looking Back at 2017 APM Predictions - Did They Come True?

SELF SERVICE IT

In 2018, ITSM vendors will continue improving the UX of their platforms, with an eye towards increasing workflow efficiency for both IT department staff and for IT end-users. Self-service tools (for end-users) really took off in 2017 and we expect by the end of 2018 they'll have become an expected feature and included in even the most basic ITSM suites.
Craig Borowski
Content Analyst, Software Advice (a Gartner Company)

SITE RELIABILITY ENGINEERING

In 2018 we will see the rise of site reliability engineering. One of the key tools they need is an APM solution that is developer friendly.
Matt Watson
Founder and CEO, Stackify

With the rise of continuous delivery and DevOps, a new breed of IT operations professionals is defining how services are delivered and managed. As comfortable with Python and Ruby as with configuration and capacity, they are leading the way in areas like systems automation, architectural flexibility, developer empowerment and site reliability to deliver better applications faster and with an exceptional user experience. As such, the Site Reliability Engineer role will become mainstream as many professionals refresh their software development skillsets so they can collaborate more effectively with developers.
Rick Fitz
SVP and GM of IT Markets, Splunk

DEVOPS TRANSFORMS INCIDENT MANAGEMENT

Trends in agile/DevOps will continue to transform incident management and war-room decision making, but the transformation will be a two-way street, as core advances in IT alerting, incident handling and analytics impact both sides of the equation, and best practices evolve to support a wider variety of toolsets and stakeholders.
Dennis Drogseth
VP of Research, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA)

Read Dennis Drogseth's Blog: At the Crossroads of Digital Transformation: The Future of the Advanced IT Analytics "Market"

APM ENABLES DEVOPS SUCCESS

2018 is the year that the industry realizes that you can't "just scratch the surface" either in adopting a DevOps culture or in adopting a cloud native architecture to get the business outcomes you desire. As a consequence, the APM market will fill the gap to steer application teams toward success in both adopting cloud native architectures and embracing DevOps best practices. This will include building in key business metrics allowing teams to quickly iterate to reach the desired business outcomes.
Mike Mallo
Offering Management Lead for APM, IBM

Read 2018 Application Performance Management Predictions - Part 2, covering ITIL, ITSM and more.

Related Links

Hot Topics

The Latest

The Hidden Data Engineering Work Required to Make Enterprise AI Viable

If AI is the engine of a modern organization, then data engineering is the road system beneath it. You can build the most powerful engine in the world, but without paved roads, traffic signals, and bridges that can support its weight, it will stall. In many enterprises, the engine is ready. The roads are not ...

Why AI Is the Differentiator for Operationally Resilient Organizations

In the world of digital-first business, there is no tolerance for service outages. Businesses know that outages are the quickest way to lose money and customers. For smaller organizations, unplanned downtime could even force the business to close ... A new study from PagerDuty, The State of AI-First Operations, reveals that companies actively incorporating AI into operations now view operational resilience as a growth driver rather than a cost center. But how are they achieving it? ...

Escaping Pilot Purgatory: How AI Becomes an Operational Advantage

In live financial environments, capital markets software cannot pause for rebuilds. New capabilities are introduced as stacked technology layers to meet evolving demands while systems remain active, data keeps moving, and controls stay intact. AI is no exception, and its opportunities are significant: accelerated decision cycles, compressed manual workflows, and more effective operations across complex environments. The constraint isn't the models themselves, but the architectural environments they enter ...

Closing the Gap in Modern Tech and the Tools Meant to Monitor Them

Like most digital transformation shifts, organizations often prioritize productivity and leave security and observability to keep pace. This usually translates to both the mass implementation of new technology and fragmented monitoring and observability (M&O) tooling. In the era of AI and varied cloud architecture, a disparate observability function can be dangerous. IT teams will lack a complete picture of their IT environment, making it harder to diagnose issues while slowing down mean time to resolve (MTTR). In fact, according to recent data from the SolarWinds State of Monitoring & Observability Report, 77% of IT personnel said the lack of visibility across their on-prem and cloud architecture was an issue ...

MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Podcast - Episode 23: NetOps Labor Shortage

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 23, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses the NetOps labor shortage ... 

Why FinOps Rewrote Its Mission and What It Signals for Technology Management

Technology management is evolving, and in turn, so is the scope of FinOps. The FinOps Foundation recently updated their mission statement from "advancing the people who manage the value of cloud" to "advancing the people who manage the value of technology." This seemingly small change solidifies a larger evolution: FinOps practitioners have organically expanded to be focused on more than just cloud cost optimization. Today, FinOps teams are largely — and quickly — expanding their job descriptions, evolving into a critical function for managing the full value of technology ...

Clearing the Path to AI: Why Vendor Consolidation Matters Now

Enterprises are under pressure to scale AI quickly. Yet despite considerable investment, adoption continues to stall. One of the most overlooked reasons is vendor sprawl ... In reality, no organization deliberately sets out to create sprawling vendor ecosystems. More often, complexity accumulates over time through well-intentioned initiatives, such as enterprise-wide digital transformation efforts, point solutions, or decentralized sourcing strategies ...

Cold Data, Hot Problem: Why AI Is Rewriting Enterprise Storage Strategy

Nearly every conversation about AI eventually circles back to compute. GPUs dominate the headlines while cloud platforms compete for workloads and model benchmarks drive investment decisions. But underneath that noise, a quieter infrastructure challenge is taking shape. The real bottleneck in enterprise AI is not processing power, it is the ability to store, manage and retrieve the relentless volumes of data that AI systems generate, consume and multiply ...

Observability at a Crossroads: AI, Economics, Complexity and the Enduring Power of Open Source

The 2026 Observability Survey from Grafana Labs paints a vivid picture of an industry maturing fast, where AI is welcomed with careful conditions, SaaS economics are reshaping spending decisions, complexity remains a defining challenge, and open standards continue to underpin it all ...

Explainability Is the New Battleground in AI-Powered Observability

The observability industry has an evolving relationship with AI. We're not skeptics, but it's clear that trust in AI must be earned ... In Grafana Labs' annual Observability Survey, 92% said they see real value in AI surfacing anomalies before they cause downtime. Another 91% endorsed AI for forecasting and root cause analysis. So while the demand is there, customers need it to be trustworthy, as the survey also found that the practitioners most enthusiastic about AI are also the most insistent on explainability ...