As enterprise networks become more complex, to quickly root out and address the source of performance problems IT needs to be able to evaluate not just the behavior of applications and services on the network, but their interaction with the network.
At Fluke Networks, we've long considered this approach to be distinct from – and superior to – the more narrow APM definition. But from a market perspective, application-aware network performance management (AANPM) tools have often been lumped in with other NPM and APM solutions by analysts and media, despite the fact that they have somewhat (and occasionally very) different purposes. That's created some less than apt comparisons that are confusing for customers and frustrating for us and other vendors.
So we're very gratified to see that the larger market is finally coming around to the integrated APM and NPM point of view.
Perhaps the greatest evidence of that is Gartner's recent announcement of an entirely new Magic Quadrant. We see the upcoming launch of the Network Performance Monitoring and Diagnostics market Magic Quadrant as recognition of both the uniqueness and the growing importance of application-aware analytics to the larger problem of network performance management. Not only will this make it easier for comapnies to compare AANPM solutions with similar feature sets, approaches and purposes, it's a nice bit of validation to AANPM that we've seen bubbling in the market for the past few years.
Bruce Kosbab is CTO of Fluke Networks.
Related Links:
Gartner Blog from Jonah Kowall: Application Aware Network Performance Monitoring (NPM) and Network Packet Broker (NPB) Research
