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Looking Back at 2018 APM Predictions - Did They Come True? Part 2

Jonah Kowall

I would like to highlight some of the predictions made at the start of 2018, and how those have panned out, or not actually occurred. I will review some of the predictions and trends from APMdigest's 2018 APM Predictions.

Here is Part 2:

Start with Looking Back at 2018 APM Predictions - Did They Come True? Part 1

Microtrends

The use of chatbots and other connected assistants have not yielded any benefits in the IT Operations space in 2018, but there are many emerging startups in this area looking to change that over the coming years. While several companies such as ServiceNow and Microsoft made acquisitions in this market, they haven’t produced anything tangible, especially not in 2018. Time will tell if these are a passing fad or they become a cornerstone of computing.

IoT is still nascent, especially in the APM market. The predictions about its growing importance and adoption of APM for IoT are still generally immature and early stage. There are some incredible stories for those doing this, but it’s still a very small number today. Those predictions around IoT are likely too early.

Similarly, Blockchain doesn’t even go there, way too early considering how few real implementations of Blockchain are implemented in production at this point. Maybe in another five years, we can begin to make some predictions, but it will likely be longer before Blockchain performance management solutions are needed by the market.

Culture and Communication

The biggest barrier to transformation is culture and people. This has been clear from every major CIO survey conducted in the last 10 years of economic growth in this bull market. Our communications and the way we do incident response have evolved significantly. The players in this space are solving an extremely important problem, one which MAY change the culture of an organization. This trend will continue as these technologies become essential to better communication of increasingly distributed workforces.

The codification of the role of the SRE by the excellent second book from Google has helped the industry understand how to apply DevOps in an even more concrete manner. The predictions about SRE were spot on, as SRE has become the gold standard for managing and operating applications. Still early for most organizations, but now on the radar. There were several predictions about SRE for the past year. I would, however, say that the vendors who predicted DevOps and culture change by a tool were sadly far from reality. Tools don’t change cultures, but cultural changes often require tool changes.

Wrapping up a great 2018, I wish everyone a productive and creative 2019 where we can listen, learn, innovate, share, and advance our group of APM vendors and practitioners. There are many problems to solve, and new approaches being invented daily by this amazing community.

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 ...

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 ...

Looking Back at 2018 APM Predictions - Did They Come True? Part 2

Jonah Kowall

I would like to highlight some of the predictions made at the start of 2018, and how those have panned out, or not actually occurred. I will review some of the predictions and trends from APMdigest's 2018 APM Predictions.

Here is Part 2:

Start with Looking Back at 2018 APM Predictions - Did They Come True? Part 1

Microtrends

The use of chatbots and other connected assistants have not yielded any benefits in the IT Operations space in 2018, but there are many emerging startups in this area looking to change that over the coming years. While several companies such as ServiceNow and Microsoft made acquisitions in this market, they haven’t produced anything tangible, especially not in 2018. Time will tell if these are a passing fad or they become a cornerstone of computing.

IoT is still nascent, especially in the APM market. The predictions about its growing importance and adoption of APM for IoT are still generally immature and early stage. There are some incredible stories for those doing this, but it’s still a very small number today. Those predictions around IoT are likely too early.

Similarly, Blockchain doesn’t even go there, way too early considering how few real implementations of Blockchain are implemented in production at this point. Maybe in another five years, we can begin to make some predictions, but it will likely be longer before Blockchain performance management solutions are needed by the market.

Culture and Communication

The biggest barrier to transformation is culture and people. This has been clear from every major CIO survey conducted in the last 10 years of economic growth in this bull market. Our communications and the way we do incident response have evolved significantly. The players in this space are solving an extremely important problem, one which MAY change the culture of an organization. This trend will continue as these technologies become essential to better communication of increasingly distributed workforces.

The codification of the role of the SRE by the excellent second book from Google has helped the industry understand how to apply DevOps in an even more concrete manner. The predictions about SRE were spot on, as SRE has become the gold standard for managing and operating applications. Still early for most organizations, but now on the radar. There were several predictions about SRE for the past year. I would, however, say that the vendors who predicted DevOps and culture change by a tool were sadly far from reality. Tools don’t change cultures, but cultural changes often require tool changes.

Wrapping up a great 2018, I wish everyone a productive and creative 2019 where we can listen, learn, innovate, share, and advance our group of APM vendors and practitioners. There are many problems to solve, and new approaches being invented daily by this amazing community.

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 ...

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 ...