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Digital Transformation Needs Intentionality

Larry Dragich

With the convergence of technology finding its way from the corporate world to our personal devices and home appliances, meeting the expectations of a quality customer experience is a formidable challenge.

Digital Transformation seems to be on everyone's radar but if there is no intentionality from the IT Executive who is sponsoring the program it becomes more of a loose correlation of technology initiatives under an IT strategy banner.

Consider some of the initiatives: Data/Analytics, Mobile Technology, Private Cloud, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, and the Internet of Things (IoT). All have their own unique role to play that is intrinsic to a Digital Transformation program. Although, when you step back and consider how to measure the success for such a program, things can get a little murky.

Digital Transformation requires more than just the latest technology, it's a mindset that iterative change is on the way and should be embraced. This also requires us to factor in the people and process parts of the equation and find ways to measure the end-user-experience (EUE).

One way to do this is to sponsor an Application Performance Monitoring (APM) initiative that can provide visibility to the business, help communicate the progress, and highlight the impacts to the organization.

Meaningful metrics can be difficult to obtain without a specific focus on business impact (transactions) and a concise way to collect them. Consider that a strong APM solution opens the door for better clarity on how each technology initiative affects the EUE, providing key metrics for a Digital Transformation program.

I recommend including all three monitoring factions within an APM strategy, Wire Data Analytics, Synthetic Transactions, and Agent Code Instrumentation.

1. Wire Data Analytics- Discover and decipher application performance data as it traverses the network.

2. Synthetic Transactions- Web robots that execute specific transactions for location-based availability and act as a barometer for measuring application performance.

3. Agent Code Instrumentation- Lightweight agents monitoring the application code as it executes from the Web and App servers. To gain visibility at the edge, script injection is often used for client render time.

Utilizing these overarching delivery mechanisms to provide input into a Machine Learning and/or AI solution has the potential to dramatically improve application delivery and performance across a variety of IT disciplines. This also lays the ground work to support a DevOps culture, providing an amplified feedback loop that is so desperately needed.

Once you develop a strategy on the best way to bring together the 3 monitoring factions, APM becomes "table stakes" on the digital transformation front because you can't improve what you don't measure.

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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 ...

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 ...

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Digital Transformation Needs Intentionality

Larry Dragich

With the convergence of technology finding its way from the corporate world to our personal devices and home appliances, meeting the expectations of a quality customer experience is a formidable challenge.

Digital Transformation seems to be on everyone's radar but if there is no intentionality from the IT Executive who is sponsoring the program it becomes more of a loose correlation of technology initiatives under an IT strategy banner.

Consider some of the initiatives: Data/Analytics, Mobile Technology, Private Cloud, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, and the Internet of Things (IoT). All have their own unique role to play that is intrinsic to a Digital Transformation program. Although, when you step back and consider how to measure the success for such a program, things can get a little murky.

Digital Transformation requires more than just the latest technology, it's a mindset that iterative change is on the way and should be embraced. This also requires us to factor in the people and process parts of the equation and find ways to measure the end-user-experience (EUE).

One way to do this is to sponsor an Application Performance Monitoring (APM) initiative that can provide visibility to the business, help communicate the progress, and highlight the impacts to the organization.

Meaningful metrics can be difficult to obtain without a specific focus on business impact (transactions) and a concise way to collect them. Consider that a strong APM solution opens the door for better clarity on how each technology initiative affects the EUE, providing key metrics for a Digital Transformation program.

I recommend including all three monitoring factions within an APM strategy, Wire Data Analytics, Synthetic Transactions, and Agent Code Instrumentation.

1. Wire Data Analytics- Discover and decipher application performance data as it traverses the network.

2. Synthetic Transactions- Web robots that execute specific transactions for location-based availability and act as a barometer for measuring application performance.

3. Agent Code Instrumentation- Lightweight agents monitoring the application code as it executes from the Web and App servers. To gain visibility at the edge, script injection is often used for client render time.

Utilizing these overarching delivery mechanisms to provide input into a Machine Learning and/or AI solution has the potential to dramatically improve application delivery and performance across a variety of IT disciplines. This also lays the ground work to support a DevOps culture, providing an amplified feedback loop that is so desperately needed.

Once you develop a strategy on the best way to bring together the 3 monitoring factions, APM becomes "table stakes" on the digital transformation front because you can't improve what you don't measure.

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 ...

Image
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 ...