30 Ways APM Should Evolve - Part 6

APMdigest asked the top minds in the industry what they feel is the most important way Application Performance Management (APM) tools must evolve. The recommendations on this list provide a rare look into the long-term future of APM technology. Part 6, the final installment of the list, covers development and DevOps.

Start with 30 Ways APM Should Evolve - Part 1

Start with 30 Ways APM Should Evolve - Part 2

Start with 30 Ways APM Should Evolve - Part 3

Start with 30 Ways APM Should Evolve - Part 4

Start with 30 Ways APM Should Evolve - Part 5

25. MICROSERVICES

Docker is going to disaggregate applications into hundreds and thousands of micro-services each of which will communicate with each other over virtual networks. APM tools need to evolve to technically step up to be able to monitor 100X or 1000X as many things and the transaction flows across those things as is the case today.
Bernd Harzog
CEO, OpsDataStore

We need to not only be able to understand the status of individual microservices, but also the state of the holistic microservice architecture itself as the complexity shifts from the internals of the application or service to the accelerating number of interdependencies. Understanding this latter perspective has been a challenge for even the most experienced of Web-scale firms.
Cameron Haight
Research VP, IT Operations, Gartner

26. API MANAGEMENT

APM providers are evolving to be one stop shops for all things application performance. Customers too are looking for solutions that fit well in their NOC or IT ecosystem. Over the years, we have learned, that any ecosystem play is impossible without a sound API strategy. As more tools enter the ecosystem, more APIs will be offered. Monitoring and managing the performance of those APIs will be critical to ensure the ecosystem harmony. As for the APM ecosystem, it's about time we start rethinking the conceptual APM framework and include API management and deep monitoring as an essential piece of APM.
Priyanka Tiwari
Product Marketing Manager, AlertSite, SmartBear

27. THE ENTIRE STACK

The introduction of RUM in the web performance world was a disruptive force. It was clear that occasional synthetic checks from a few locations around the world were wholly insufficient in understanding the behavior of web applications. I see the "RUM-trend" driving its way down stack. Synthetic checks against APIs, databases, micro services and even disks will slowly be displaced by the observation, recording and analysis of every single transaction. You will be able to profile every IOP on every spindle in your whole data center second by second – and people will wonder how we lived without before. We're close.
Theo Schlossnagle
Founder and CEO, Circonus

28. SSL DECRYPTION

With a high percentage of business applications now encrypted in SSL, decrypting SSL is imperative for effective APM. Given the high processing power required for SSL decryption that eats into the processing capacity left over for APM, organizations are best served by having a purpose-built network visibility solution offload SSL decryption from the APM tool.
Ananda Rajagopal
VP - Product Line Management, Gigamon

29. INTEGRATION WITH TESTING

One of the challenges with APM is to gap the chasm to performance testing and continuous integration. Load testing and APM need to work well together to enable the full vison of DevOps, but very few vendors have found a way to automate findings in APM to relevant tests and vice versa.
Sven Hammar
Founder and CEO, Apica

30. SUPPORT FOR CLIENT-SIDE TECHNOLOGY EVOLUTION

Going forward, the most successful APM Vendors will be those who create and sustain competitive advantage based on effective support for client-side technology evolution, for example RUM refinements to support Single Page Applications or synthetic test visual endpoints. As always, most benefit will be delivered by accessibility/usability rather than "tick the box" support.
Larry Haig
Senior Consultant, Intechnica

If you have additional ideas about the evolution of Application Performance Management, send a blog to APMdigest.

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30 Ways APM Should Evolve - Part 6

APMdigest asked the top minds in the industry what they feel is the most important way Application Performance Management (APM) tools must evolve. The recommendations on this list provide a rare look into the long-term future of APM technology. Part 6, the final installment of the list, covers development and DevOps.

Start with 30 Ways APM Should Evolve - Part 1

Start with 30 Ways APM Should Evolve - Part 2

Start with 30 Ways APM Should Evolve - Part 3

Start with 30 Ways APM Should Evolve - Part 4

Start with 30 Ways APM Should Evolve - Part 5

25. MICROSERVICES

Docker is going to disaggregate applications into hundreds and thousands of micro-services each of which will communicate with each other over virtual networks. APM tools need to evolve to technically step up to be able to monitor 100X or 1000X as many things and the transaction flows across those things as is the case today.
Bernd Harzog
CEO, OpsDataStore

We need to not only be able to understand the status of individual microservices, but also the state of the holistic microservice architecture itself as the complexity shifts from the internals of the application or service to the accelerating number of interdependencies. Understanding this latter perspective has been a challenge for even the most experienced of Web-scale firms.
Cameron Haight
Research VP, IT Operations, Gartner

26. API MANAGEMENT

APM providers are evolving to be one stop shops for all things application performance. Customers too are looking for solutions that fit well in their NOC or IT ecosystem. Over the years, we have learned, that any ecosystem play is impossible without a sound API strategy. As more tools enter the ecosystem, more APIs will be offered. Monitoring and managing the performance of those APIs will be critical to ensure the ecosystem harmony. As for the APM ecosystem, it's about time we start rethinking the conceptual APM framework and include API management and deep monitoring as an essential piece of APM.
Priyanka Tiwari
Product Marketing Manager, AlertSite, SmartBear

27. THE ENTIRE STACK

The introduction of RUM in the web performance world was a disruptive force. It was clear that occasional synthetic checks from a few locations around the world were wholly insufficient in understanding the behavior of web applications. I see the "RUM-trend" driving its way down stack. Synthetic checks against APIs, databases, micro services and even disks will slowly be displaced by the observation, recording and analysis of every single transaction. You will be able to profile every IOP on every spindle in your whole data center second by second – and people will wonder how we lived without before. We're close.
Theo Schlossnagle
Founder and CEO, Circonus

28. SSL DECRYPTION

With a high percentage of business applications now encrypted in SSL, decrypting SSL is imperative for effective APM. Given the high processing power required for SSL decryption that eats into the processing capacity left over for APM, organizations are best served by having a purpose-built network visibility solution offload SSL decryption from the APM tool.
Ananda Rajagopal
VP - Product Line Management, Gigamon

29. INTEGRATION WITH TESTING

One of the challenges with APM is to gap the chasm to performance testing and continuous integration. Load testing and APM need to work well together to enable the full vison of DevOps, but very few vendors have found a way to automate findings in APM to relevant tests and vice versa.
Sven Hammar
Founder and CEO, Apica

30. SUPPORT FOR CLIENT-SIDE TECHNOLOGY EVOLUTION

Going forward, the most successful APM Vendors will be those who create and sustain competitive advantage based on effective support for client-side technology evolution, for example RUM refinements to support Single Page Applications or synthetic test visual endpoints. As always, most benefit will be delivered by accessibility/usability rather than "tick the box" support.
Larry Haig
Senior Consultant, Intechnica

If you have additional ideas about the evolution of Application Performance Management, send a blog to APMdigest.

Related Links

Hot Topics

The Latest

Manufacturing Organizations Doubled AI Investment Yet Only 37% Fully Prepared to Operationalize AI

While 87% of manufacturing leaders and technical specialists report that ROI from their AIOps initiatives has met or exceeded expectations, only 37% say they are fully prepared to operationalize AI at scale, according to The Future of IT Operations in the AI Era, a report from Riverbed ...

Optimizing Decisions with Edge-First Cognitive Intelligence

Many organizations rely on cloud-first architectures to aggregate, analyze, and act on their operational data ... However, not all environments are conducive to cloud-first architectures ... There are limitations to cloud-first architectures that render them ineffective in mission-critical situations where responsiveness, cost control, and data sovereignty are non-negotiable; these limitations include ...

The New Perimeter Is the User: Why Identity Is the Real Network Edge

For years, cybersecurity was built around a simple assumption: protect the physical network and trust everything inside it. That model made sense when employees worked in offices, applications lived in data centers, and devices rarely left the building. Today's reality is fluid: people work from everywhere, applications run across multiple clouds, and AI-driven agents are beginning to act on behalf of users. But while the old perimeter dissolved, a new one quietly emerged ...

When AI Infrastructure Stops Behaving Like Infrastructure

For years, infrastructure teams have treated compute as a relatively stable input. Capacity was provisioned, costs were forecasted, and performance expectations were set based on the assumption that identical resources behaved identically. That mental model is starting to break down. AI infrastructure is no longer behaving like static cloud capacity. It is increasingly behaving like a market ...

Enterprise Resilience: Understanding the Shift from Static to Dynamic

Resilience can no longer be defined by how quickly an organization recovers from an incident or disruption. The effectiveness of any resilience strategy is dependent on its ability to anticipate change, operate under continuous stress, and adapt confidently amid uncertainty ...

Mobile Users Expect Perfection in 2026

Mobile users are less tolerant of app instability than ever before. According to a new report from Luciq, No Margin for Error: What Mobile Users Expect and What Mobile Leaders Must Deliver in 2026, even minor performance issues now result in immediate abandonment, lost purchases, and long-term brand impact ...

AI Confidence Is High. Readiness Is Not. What the Data Tells Us - and Why It Matters

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become the dominant force shaping enterprise data strategies. Boards expect progress. Executives expect returns. And data leaders are under pressure to prove that their organizations are "AI-ready" ...

Agentic AI, Realistic Expectations and the Future of IT Operations in 2026

Agentic AI is a major buzzword for 2026. Many tech companies are making bold promises about this technology, but many aren't grounded in reality, at least not yet. This coming year will likely be shaped by reality checks for IT teams, and progress will only come from a focus on strong foundations and disciplined execution ...

Trust, But Verify: Building Confidence in AI Through Human Oversight

AI systems are still prone to hallucinations and misjudgments ... To build the trust needed for adoption, AI must be paired with human-in-the-loop (HITL) oversight, or checkpoints where humans verify, guide, and decide what actions are taken. The balance between autonomy and accountability is what will allow AI to deliver on its promise without sacrificing human trust ...

Data Centers Plan to Reduce Reliance on Grid

More data center leaders are reducing their reliance on utility grids by investing in onsite power for rapidly scaling data centers, according to the Data Center Power Report from Bloom Energy ...