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If You Are Looking to Invest in Advanced Analytics for IT, Exactly What Should You Be Shopping For? Part 2: Environments

Dennis Drogseth

EMA published the AIA buyer's guide — directed at helping IT invest in Advanced IT Analytics(AIA), what the industry more commonly calls "Operational Analytics." We created what we called "Shopping Cart Criteria" based on our prior research on AIA adoptions over the past three years. We divided the sixteen shopping cart criteria into three parts: Cost advantage, Environments and Scenarios.

Start with Part 1: Cost Advantage

In this blog, I will address environments. Environments, as indicated by the list below, indicate "where" the AIA solutions we investigated can be applied. All 13 solutions supported cloud for performance, core infrastructure, and application performance and availability. Mainframe had the support of six of our respondents, and IoT and cloud for change and capacity were not yet prime areas of focus for most of the vendors in our guide.

■ Cloud for Performance Management

■ Cloud for Change/Capacity/Cost Optimization

■ Core Infrastructure (Network/Data Center)

■ Legacy/Mainframe

■ Application Performance and Availability Management

■ Internet of Things (IoT)

Cloud for Performance Management

Here we addressed cloud in all its forms, including public cloud, virtualization, microservices and containers, and hybrid cloud environments — with a focus on performance management of IT services and their associated infrastructure. We saw fairly pervasive support for AWS, Azure, Docker and containers, and microservices. Present but less prevalent was support for Google Cloud, IBM Bluemix, Rackspace and Fujitsu Cloud. We also saw integrations with Pivotal Cloud Foundry in support of DevOps initiatives.

Cloud for Change/Capacity/Cost Optimization

Capacity and cost decisions are often joined at the hip in dealing with planning deployment choices across public and private cloud. These decisions can also significantly impact performance. And in fact, in last year's AIA research, optimizing cloud resources generally ranked higher than pure-play performance management in AIA requirements. This unique but critical area was addressed proactively by several of the vendors in this report, especially those with integrations for capacity analytics, and in two cases even cloud-related pricing models.

Core Infrastructure (Network/Data Center)

All of the solutions represented in this report were directed to some degree at cross-domain operational needs. But the approach they took varied dramatically. In evaluating ratings associated with this criterion, we looked for breadth of coverage, relevant stakeholder support, and breadth of capabilities for assessing issues with infrastructure performance both in itself, and in the context of service delivery. 

Legacy/Mainframe

Mainframes in various form factors have hardly disappeared, and many of the world's most critical IT business services are still dependent on mainframe availability and performance. In evaluating this criterion, we looked at the established architectural support for mainframes, as well as the history of the vendor in mainframe support, and its currency in keeping up with new mainframe design and features. 

Application Performance and Availability Management

If IT is a business, then theoretically it has "products." And unquestionably the single most prominent products of IT are its application business services. In evaluating this criterion, we looked at breadth and depth of support for a wide range of application types, insight into application-to-application and application-to-infrastructure interdependencies, advanced levels of transaction awareness, and handshakes to support DevOps and business impact.

Internet of Things (IoT)

IoT is an emerging area, and one that many solutions in this report are architecturally designed to support — even if, in most cases, IoT has not yet been a priority in deployments. In evaluating this criterion, we looked at three things: architectural feasibility to support IoT data inputs, proof points of IoT use cases from actual deployments, and proactive support for IoT with unique out-of-the box functionality.

In my next blog I address our seven "scenarios" ranging from DevOps and SecOps to business impact and business alignment.

Read Part 3: Scenarios

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A Gartner analyst recently suggested that GenAI tools could create 25% time savings for network operational teams. Where might these time savings come from? How are GenAI tools helping NetOps teams today, and what other tasks might they take on in the future as models continue improving? In general, these savings come from automating or streamlining manual NetOps tasks ...

IT and line-of-business teams are increasingly aligned in their efforts to close the data gap and drive greater collaboration to alleviate IT bottlenecks and offload growing demands on IT teams, according to The 2025 Automation Benchmark Report: Insights from IT Leaders on Enterprise Automation & the Future of AI-Driven Businesses from Jitterbit ...

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According to Gartner, Inc. the following six trends will shape the future of cloud over the next four years, ultimately resulting in new ways of working that are digital in nature and transformative in impact ...

2020 was the equivalent of a wedding with a top-shelf open bar. As businesses scrambled to adjust to remote work, digital transformation accelerated at breakneck speed. New software categories emerged overnight. Tech stacks ballooned with all sorts of SaaS apps solving ALL the problems — often with little oversight or long-term integration planning, and yes frequently a lot of duplicated functionality ... But now the music's faded. The lights are on. Everyone from the CIO to the CFO is checking the bill. Welcome to the Great SaaS Hangover ...

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An overwhelming majority of IT leaders (95%) believe the upcoming wave of AI-powered digital transformation is set to be the most impactful and intensive seen thus far, according to The Science of Productivity: AI, Adoption, And Employee Experience, a new report from Nexthink ...

Overall outage frequency and the general level of reported severity continue to decline, according to the Outage Analysis 2025 from Uptime Institute. However, cyber security incidents are on the rise and often have severe, lasting impacts ...

If You Are Looking to Invest in Advanced Analytics for IT, Exactly What Should You Be Shopping For? Part 2: Environments

Dennis Drogseth

EMA published the AIA buyer's guide — directed at helping IT invest in Advanced IT Analytics(AIA), what the industry more commonly calls "Operational Analytics." We created what we called "Shopping Cart Criteria" based on our prior research on AIA adoptions over the past three years. We divided the sixteen shopping cart criteria into three parts: Cost advantage, Environments and Scenarios.

Start with Part 1: Cost Advantage

In this blog, I will address environments. Environments, as indicated by the list below, indicate "where" the AIA solutions we investigated can be applied. All 13 solutions supported cloud for performance, core infrastructure, and application performance and availability. Mainframe had the support of six of our respondents, and IoT and cloud for change and capacity were not yet prime areas of focus for most of the vendors in our guide.

■ Cloud for Performance Management

■ Cloud for Change/Capacity/Cost Optimization

■ Core Infrastructure (Network/Data Center)

■ Legacy/Mainframe

■ Application Performance and Availability Management

■ Internet of Things (IoT)

Cloud for Performance Management

Here we addressed cloud in all its forms, including public cloud, virtualization, microservices and containers, and hybrid cloud environments — with a focus on performance management of IT services and their associated infrastructure. We saw fairly pervasive support for AWS, Azure, Docker and containers, and microservices. Present but less prevalent was support for Google Cloud, IBM Bluemix, Rackspace and Fujitsu Cloud. We also saw integrations with Pivotal Cloud Foundry in support of DevOps initiatives.

Cloud for Change/Capacity/Cost Optimization

Capacity and cost decisions are often joined at the hip in dealing with planning deployment choices across public and private cloud. These decisions can also significantly impact performance. And in fact, in last year's AIA research, optimizing cloud resources generally ranked higher than pure-play performance management in AIA requirements. This unique but critical area was addressed proactively by several of the vendors in this report, especially those with integrations for capacity analytics, and in two cases even cloud-related pricing models.

Core Infrastructure (Network/Data Center)

All of the solutions represented in this report were directed to some degree at cross-domain operational needs. But the approach they took varied dramatically. In evaluating ratings associated with this criterion, we looked for breadth of coverage, relevant stakeholder support, and breadth of capabilities for assessing issues with infrastructure performance both in itself, and in the context of service delivery. 

Legacy/Mainframe

Mainframes in various form factors have hardly disappeared, and many of the world's most critical IT business services are still dependent on mainframe availability and performance. In evaluating this criterion, we looked at the established architectural support for mainframes, as well as the history of the vendor in mainframe support, and its currency in keeping up with new mainframe design and features. 

Application Performance and Availability Management

If IT is a business, then theoretically it has "products." And unquestionably the single most prominent products of IT are its application business services. In evaluating this criterion, we looked at breadth and depth of support for a wide range of application types, insight into application-to-application and application-to-infrastructure interdependencies, advanced levels of transaction awareness, and handshakes to support DevOps and business impact.

Internet of Things (IoT)

IoT is an emerging area, and one that many solutions in this report are architecturally designed to support — even if, in most cases, IoT has not yet been a priority in deployments. In evaluating this criterion, we looked at three things: architectural feasibility to support IoT data inputs, proof points of IoT use cases from actual deployments, and proactive support for IoT with unique out-of-the box functionality.

In my next blog I address our seven "scenarios" ranging from DevOps and SecOps to business impact and business alignment.

Read Part 3: Scenarios

The Latest

AI is the catalyst for significant investment in data teams as enterprises require higher-quality data to power their AI applications, according to the State of Analytics Engineering Report from dbt Labs ...

Misaligned architecture can lead to business consequences, with 93% of respondents reporting negative outcomes such as service disruptions, high operational costs and security challenges ...

A Gartner analyst recently suggested that GenAI tools could create 25% time savings for network operational teams. Where might these time savings come from? How are GenAI tools helping NetOps teams today, and what other tasks might they take on in the future as models continue improving? In general, these savings come from automating or streamlining manual NetOps tasks ...

IT and line-of-business teams are increasingly aligned in their efforts to close the data gap and drive greater collaboration to alleviate IT bottlenecks and offload growing demands on IT teams, according to The 2025 Automation Benchmark Report: Insights from IT Leaders on Enterprise Automation & the Future of AI-Driven Businesses from Jitterbit ...

A large majority (86%) of data management and AI decision makers cite protecting data privacy as a top concern, with 76% of respondents citing ROI on data privacy and AI initiatives across their organization, according to a new Harris Poll from Collibra ...

According to Gartner, Inc. the following six trends will shape the future of cloud over the next four years, ultimately resulting in new ways of working that are digital in nature and transformative in impact ...

2020 was the equivalent of a wedding with a top-shelf open bar. As businesses scrambled to adjust to remote work, digital transformation accelerated at breakneck speed. New software categories emerged overnight. Tech stacks ballooned with all sorts of SaaS apps solving ALL the problems — often with little oversight or long-term integration planning, and yes frequently a lot of duplicated functionality ... But now the music's faded. The lights are on. Everyone from the CIO to the CFO is checking the bill. Welcome to the Great SaaS Hangover ...

Regardless of OpenShift being a scalable and flexible software, it can be a pain to monitor since complete visibility into the underlying operations is not guaranteed ... To effectively monitor an OpenShift environment, IT administrators should focus on these five key elements and their associated metrics ...

An overwhelming majority of IT leaders (95%) believe the upcoming wave of AI-powered digital transformation is set to be the most impactful and intensive seen thus far, according to The Science of Productivity: AI, Adoption, And Employee Experience, a new report from Nexthink ...

Overall outage frequency and the general level of reported severity continue to decline, according to the Outage Analysis 2025 from Uptime Institute. However, cyber security incidents are on the rise and often have severe, lasting impacts ...