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APIs and CD: Rekindling Interest in APM - Part 1

Julie Craig

I last researched the topic of Application Performance Management (APM) back in 2013 with a report entitled Application Performance Management (APM) in the Age of Hybrid Cloud. Hybrid cloud was then, and still is, an important topic. One key finding garnered from that research, however, was the fact that the term "hybrid cloud" is defined differently by virtually every vendor and IT organization.

For vendors, "hybrid cloud" solutions seem to be most frequently defined as "whatever cloud-related products we're trying to sell." On the IT side, the term "hybrid cloud" is most often defined as "whatever types of cloud services we're trying to integrate." Regardless, while hybrid cloud is still a topic of lively discussion on multiple fronts, I decided to let the dust settle for a bit and turn my attention to other important topic areas in 2014 and 2015.

For 2014, the focus areas were management of public cloud and DevOps/Continuous Delivery. In 2015, the topics included API management and DevOps/Continuous Delivery (again — a lot of interest and business value here). However, another very interesting outcome came out of the process of doing deep dives into a variety of seemingly unrelated topic areas: As is often the case, findings in one topic area always seem to contain breadcrumbs that generate questions relating to adjacent spaces.

The API research, for example, uncovered the fact that transactions leveraging APIs are more often managed from the perspective of the API Gateway (45% of respondents) than with APM solutions (32%). In essence, the Gateway has become another monitoring silo, which IT organizations are utilizing in standalone mode to track transaction performance and availability.

So at a time when software is becoming increasingly business relevant, IT teams are, in too many cases, retreating to the silo monitoring techniques of the past to track and troubleshoot application performance. This may well be due to the fact that they lack access to APM solutions. Nevertheless, as is always the case with silo-based monitoring, the problem is that monitoring the gateway alone results in too many gaps in visibility to efficiently automate end-to-end troubleshooting and root cause analysis.

The DevOps and Continuous Delivery studies uncovered APM-related breadcrumbs as well. The 2015 research, for example, found that while Continuous Delivery has a proven upside to the business, it is also siphoning both Dev and Ops resources away from the development and delivery processes and into production support.

Specifically, companies in which "Continuous Delivery" frequency increased by 10% or more during the prior year were 2.5 times more likely to experience double-digit revenue growth than their less nimble competitors. In other good news for the business, almost 50% of survey respondents reported that the increase in delivery frequency resulted in "higher levels of customer satisfaction."

At the same time and on the opposite end of the spectrum, the impact on IT is not as rosy. Approximately 50% of respondents reported that development is being drawn into the troubleshooting process more often; a similar percentage reported that operations is spending more time on production support as well. The culprit seems to be the increased production change volumes introduced by accelerated Agile and Continuous Delivery practices.

Survey respondents also point to "manual troubleshooting processes arising from production changes" as the #1 bottleneck slowing down the Continuous Delivery pipeline. So while acceleration of the Continuous Delivery process has a strong impact on the business bottom line, increased time spent on production support is reducing the time Dev and Ops teams can actually spend rolling out new services.

These findings point to a need for "smart" APM solutions. For more, Read APIs and CD: Rekindling Interest in APM - Part 2.

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APIs and CD: Rekindling Interest in APM - Part 1

Julie Craig

I last researched the topic of Application Performance Management (APM) back in 2013 with a report entitled Application Performance Management (APM) in the Age of Hybrid Cloud. Hybrid cloud was then, and still is, an important topic. One key finding garnered from that research, however, was the fact that the term "hybrid cloud" is defined differently by virtually every vendor and IT organization.

For vendors, "hybrid cloud" solutions seem to be most frequently defined as "whatever cloud-related products we're trying to sell." On the IT side, the term "hybrid cloud" is most often defined as "whatever types of cloud services we're trying to integrate." Regardless, while hybrid cloud is still a topic of lively discussion on multiple fronts, I decided to let the dust settle for a bit and turn my attention to other important topic areas in 2014 and 2015.

For 2014, the focus areas were management of public cloud and DevOps/Continuous Delivery. In 2015, the topics included API management and DevOps/Continuous Delivery (again — a lot of interest and business value here). However, another very interesting outcome came out of the process of doing deep dives into a variety of seemingly unrelated topic areas: As is often the case, findings in one topic area always seem to contain breadcrumbs that generate questions relating to adjacent spaces.

The API research, for example, uncovered the fact that transactions leveraging APIs are more often managed from the perspective of the API Gateway (45% of respondents) than with APM solutions (32%). In essence, the Gateway has become another monitoring silo, which IT organizations are utilizing in standalone mode to track transaction performance and availability.

So at a time when software is becoming increasingly business relevant, IT teams are, in too many cases, retreating to the silo monitoring techniques of the past to track and troubleshoot application performance. This may well be due to the fact that they lack access to APM solutions. Nevertheless, as is always the case with silo-based monitoring, the problem is that monitoring the gateway alone results in too many gaps in visibility to efficiently automate end-to-end troubleshooting and root cause analysis.

The DevOps and Continuous Delivery studies uncovered APM-related breadcrumbs as well. The 2015 research, for example, found that while Continuous Delivery has a proven upside to the business, it is also siphoning both Dev and Ops resources away from the development and delivery processes and into production support.

Specifically, companies in which "Continuous Delivery" frequency increased by 10% or more during the prior year were 2.5 times more likely to experience double-digit revenue growth than their less nimble competitors. In other good news for the business, almost 50% of survey respondents reported that the increase in delivery frequency resulted in "higher levels of customer satisfaction."

At the same time and on the opposite end of the spectrum, the impact on IT is not as rosy. Approximately 50% of respondents reported that development is being drawn into the troubleshooting process more often; a similar percentage reported that operations is spending more time on production support as well. The culprit seems to be the increased production change volumes introduced by accelerated Agile and Continuous Delivery practices.

Survey respondents also point to "manual troubleshooting processes arising from production changes" as the #1 bottleneck slowing down the Continuous Delivery pipeline. So while acceleration of the Continuous Delivery process has a strong impact on the business bottom line, increased time spent on production support is reducing the time Dev and Ops teams can actually spend rolling out new services.

These findings point to a need for "smart" APM solutions. For more, Read APIs and CD: Rekindling Interest in APM - Part 2.

Hot Topics

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...