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Assuring User Experience is Big Data Job Number One

Gabriel Lowy

Assuring user experience should be the top priority among Big Data projects for enterprises and cloud service providers. Megatrends such as mobile, cloud and social drive the need for application awareness via better visibility and control. With survey after survey showing availability as the number one priority, spending on user experience assurance, also known as application performance management (APM), is expected to remain strong. However, only solutions that cover the entire application delivery chain from the end-user experience perspective will suffice.

This means visibility that extends from behind the corporate firewall out to the cloud, implying an end-to-end view from user devices back through the tiers of data center infrastructure. The “point of delivery” — which is where the user accesses a composite application — is the only perspective from which user experience should be addressed.

Cloud architectures — public, private or hybrid — beget complexity. Projects such as cloud computing, server and desktop virtualization and data center consolidation are undertaken for the perceived returns on investment (ROI) they can delivery. However, while one of the major benefits of virtualization was supposed to break down silos in IT, it actually created another management silo.

The majority of virtualization management tools focus on capacity planning, utilization and availability metrics. Most do not provide insights into how the user experience will be impacted if something changes in a virtualized environment. Without assuring user experience, lower costs and productivity gains become unattainable.

Another reason why user experience assurance must be a priority is the link between application performance and revenue generation. Studies have shown that slower end-user experience results in fewer page views, which in turn reduces the probability of completing the sales cycle.

The adoption of agile practices implies changes to code on a much more frequent basis. This requires more visibility into the web browser given how applications are being developed. The typical web application today has a lot of content and third-party services, components beyond the control of the organization.

For example, consider an online retail application comprising numerous functions derived from within the data center as well as external third-party services, such as a shopping cart, preference engine and ad networks. The average website connects as many as 10 hosts before ultimately being served to the end user.

While extensive third-party functions can enrich the online experience, they can also create performance risks. If any one component fails, it can degrade the performance of an application or an entire website. In addition, many third-party cloud services are opaque, providing little visibility into the overall health of the compute infrastructure.

More processing occurring closer to the end-user on the user device or on the browser itself requires better visibility inside the browser. Monitoring network traffic, database and servers does not provide visibility into how the browser affects user experience. Poor performance anywhere along the application delivery chain will negatively impact the end user experience. This includes cloud service providers, regional and local ISPs, content delivery networks, browsers and devices.

The Answer is Analytics

Transaction tracing and predictive analytics are the most important trends driving the market, and will soon be considered table stakes for any serious APM vendor.

Transaction tracing goes beyond real-time monitoring to provide a more unified view into different components of the application delivery chain.

Meanwhile, analytics is improving with new tools that can correlate thousands of metrics and identify patterns that provide early warning signs of impending trouble.

Analytics can help reduce time being spent on correlating and normalizing data from different sources. This includes information collected by different tools that monitor users, servers, mainframes and synthetic transactions. It also includes tools that are being deployed independent of IT. Deep-dive diagnostics also allows IT organizations to be more proactive by pinpointing the source of problems before calls to the help desk occur or before a visitor departs a website.

As such, the most relevant metric for any IT organization is not about infrastructure utilization. Instead, it is at what point of utilization the user experience begins to degrade. Being able to centrally store, manage and analyze this data provides a more accurate picture into user experience.

Amid a do-more-with-less budget environment and more pressure on IT to justify resource allocations, CIOs can strengthen their role in the strategic planning process by having intelligence about revenue-generating transactions, customer interactions and usage consumption patterns that drive improved business outcomes. Analytics should now be at the top of any CIO’s list. All the talk about realizing ROI on big data investments will also go for naught with inferior user experience.

Over the next few years, expect user experience assurance to become a feeder to, and a subset of, BI/analytics. In fact, it should be Big Data project number one. To ease the technology and vendor selection process, IT operations teams should define the use cases, application types, pain points and underlying technology to perform ROI analyses. For vendors, making the deployment process easier — from the adds, drops, and changes perspective — can open up new opportunities by solving the ROI equation.

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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 ...

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Assuring User Experience is Big Data Job Number One

Gabriel Lowy

Assuring user experience should be the top priority among Big Data projects for enterprises and cloud service providers. Megatrends such as mobile, cloud and social drive the need for application awareness via better visibility and control. With survey after survey showing availability as the number one priority, spending on user experience assurance, also known as application performance management (APM), is expected to remain strong. However, only solutions that cover the entire application delivery chain from the end-user experience perspective will suffice.

This means visibility that extends from behind the corporate firewall out to the cloud, implying an end-to-end view from user devices back through the tiers of data center infrastructure. The “point of delivery” — which is where the user accesses a composite application — is the only perspective from which user experience should be addressed.

Cloud architectures — public, private or hybrid — beget complexity. Projects such as cloud computing, server and desktop virtualization and data center consolidation are undertaken for the perceived returns on investment (ROI) they can delivery. However, while one of the major benefits of virtualization was supposed to break down silos in IT, it actually created another management silo.

The majority of virtualization management tools focus on capacity planning, utilization and availability metrics. Most do not provide insights into how the user experience will be impacted if something changes in a virtualized environment. Without assuring user experience, lower costs and productivity gains become unattainable.

Another reason why user experience assurance must be a priority is the link between application performance and revenue generation. Studies have shown that slower end-user experience results in fewer page views, which in turn reduces the probability of completing the sales cycle.

The adoption of agile practices implies changes to code on a much more frequent basis. This requires more visibility into the web browser given how applications are being developed. The typical web application today has a lot of content and third-party services, components beyond the control of the organization.

For example, consider an online retail application comprising numerous functions derived from within the data center as well as external third-party services, such as a shopping cart, preference engine and ad networks. The average website connects as many as 10 hosts before ultimately being served to the end user.

While extensive third-party functions can enrich the online experience, they can also create performance risks. If any one component fails, it can degrade the performance of an application or an entire website. In addition, many third-party cloud services are opaque, providing little visibility into the overall health of the compute infrastructure.

More processing occurring closer to the end-user on the user device or on the browser itself requires better visibility inside the browser. Monitoring network traffic, database and servers does not provide visibility into how the browser affects user experience. Poor performance anywhere along the application delivery chain will negatively impact the end user experience. This includes cloud service providers, regional and local ISPs, content delivery networks, browsers and devices.

The Answer is Analytics

Transaction tracing and predictive analytics are the most important trends driving the market, and will soon be considered table stakes for any serious APM vendor.

Transaction tracing goes beyond real-time monitoring to provide a more unified view into different components of the application delivery chain.

Meanwhile, analytics is improving with new tools that can correlate thousands of metrics and identify patterns that provide early warning signs of impending trouble.

Analytics can help reduce time being spent on correlating and normalizing data from different sources. This includes information collected by different tools that monitor users, servers, mainframes and synthetic transactions. It also includes tools that are being deployed independent of IT. Deep-dive diagnostics also allows IT organizations to be more proactive by pinpointing the source of problems before calls to the help desk occur or before a visitor departs a website.

As such, the most relevant metric for any IT organization is not about infrastructure utilization. Instead, it is at what point of utilization the user experience begins to degrade. Being able to centrally store, manage and analyze this data provides a more accurate picture into user experience.

Amid a do-more-with-less budget environment and more pressure on IT to justify resource allocations, CIOs can strengthen their role in the strategic planning process by having intelligence about revenue-generating transactions, customer interactions and usage consumption patterns that drive improved business outcomes. Analytics should now be at the top of any CIO’s list. All the talk about realizing ROI on big data investments will also go for naught with inferior user experience.

Over the next few years, expect user experience assurance to become a feeder to, and a subset of, BI/analytics. In fact, it should be Big Data project number one. To ease the technology and vendor selection process, IT operations teams should define the use cases, application types, pain points and underlying technology to perform ROI analyses. For vendors, making the deployment process easier — from the adds, drops, and changes perspective — can open up new opportunities by solving the ROI equation.

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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Broadcom

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 ...