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AANPM and NPMD Hit the Mainstream

Bruce Kosbab

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:

www.flukenetworks.com

Gartner Blog from Jonah Kowall: Application Aware Network Performance Monitoring (NPM) and Network Packet Broker (NPB) Research

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AANPM and NPMD Hit the Mainstream

Bruce Kosbab

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:

www.flukenetworks.com

Gartner Blog from Jonah Kowall: Application Aware Network Performance Monitoring (NPM) and Network Packet Broker (NPB) Research

Hot Topics

The Latest

AI is becoming the operating system of the enterprise. It acts as an invisible coordination layer that understands intent, connects systems, and executes work across complex SaaS environments. Previously, employees had to click through multiple systems — CRM, ERP, support tools, collaboration platforms — to complete a single task. Now, instead of navigating each application manually, they can simply state what they need to accomplish ...

In 2026, the cost of downtime or an outage is no longer just a technical inconvenience; it's a $600 billion wake up call for global businesses. As our digital ecosystems become  more interconnected, each touchpoint introduces new risks and multiplies the consequences when things go wrong. And the data is clear: aggregate downtime costs  for Global 2,000 companies have surged 50% since 2024, reaching a staggering $600 billion ...

Deloitte found that 74% of enterprises expect to deploy agentic AI solutions in the next 24 months. However, the rush to deployment is outpacing foundational work, though. Only 21% of enterprises have fully formed agent governance models in place. The result? AI agents deployed without guidance or governance begin to function as fragmented islands of complexity ...

Cloud spending is no longer viewed as a passthrough IT expense, but as a strategic financial lever that directly impacts innovation capacity, profitability and enterprise resilience, according to the CFO Cloud Cost Optimization Report from Azul ...

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I've spent a lot of time in the channel, and one thing I keep coming back to is this: a partner program is only as good as what it looks like in the field. Many programs look great on paper, but when a partner is in front of a customer navigating a complex hybrid environment or trying to make the case for AI-powered observability, the gap between what a vendor promises and what it actually delivers becomes very clear, very fast ...

Enterprises today operate in a real-time environment where uninterrupted access to trusted data has become a baseline expectation for users, applications and automated systems. Traditional DataOps models, built on manual effort and human triage, cannot keep pace with this always active demand. AI agents are emerging as the operational backbone, ensuring consistent data availability, reinforcing trustworthiness and enabling a level of scale that manual processes cannot achieve ...

For decades, trust in the digital workplace rested on familiar signals. We trusted faces on video calls, voices on the phone, and emails that appeared to come from people we knew. These cues felt human and intuitive. They anchored how decisions were made, approvals were granted, and access was authorized. AI-powered deepfakes have quietly broken that model ...

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Over the past few years, large language models (LLMs) have revolutionized the software industry. Given their ability to excel at multi-step reasoning, LLMs have helped enterprises streamline workflows and adapt to the unknown. However, employing such models comes with sky-high costs, latency issues, and limited flexibility. In the realm of IT operations, it is generally wiser to employ smaller, domain-specific models instead ...