IT is full of acronyms – so why should you care about Application-Aware Network Performance Management (AANPM)? Put simply, because it can save your organization time and money; help you manage your network, applications and services more effectively; and minimize downtime.

The following are five reasons why AANPM matters in today’s enterprise networks:

1. Solve problems faster, with less finger pointing

An AANPM solution brings together all key data points from network and applications across WAN, LAN and wireless networks. You get a single dashboard showing both applications and the network infrastructure they’re running on. When there’s a problem, engineers can "see" what is going on in their network, who is using what, where they are connected and the path from "here" to "there".

Instead of different teams using different systems and debating where the problem may be – which quickly creates a blame culture – everyone sees the same information and can work together using common tools to find the solution.

2. Fix the most important problem first

An AANPM solution means you don’t need multiple tools – which provides immediate cost savings. Additionally, Gartner advises that, because poor network and application performance significantly impact infrastructure costs and productivity, organizations need to focus on the user experience and capture data that enables them to fix the “right” problem first.

For example, if two routers are performing badly – one at a remote office and one supporting a critical business application – engineers need to fix the one that has the biggest business impact (i.e. cost) first. They can only do this if they can identify the location of the problems – which AANPM helps them to do.

3. Identify improvements and make the business case for upgrades

An AANPM system enables engineers to identify where applications or servers are running slowly, so that the most critical paths can be addressed. It gives them the data to make the business case for projects such as server upgrades; confirm that changes have actually improved performance; and show the benefit of major projects such as virtualization, WAN optimization and data center consolidation. It also provides data to support capacity planning, helping engineers identify where and why more bandwidth is needed.

4. Track KPIs and device use

An AANPM solution provides very granular reporting, helping the IT team to monitor KPIs and track device performance and usage. This is particularly useful in understanding the performance of virtualized equipment and in monitoring supplier performance.

5. Explain critical dependencies to the business

An AANPM system helps IT and business executives understand the cost of running critical applications and the impact if they go offline for maintenance or due to problems. It also makes it easier for them to understand the relationships and dependencies between critical applications and the infrastructure that supports them.

ABOUT Doug Roberts

Doug Roberts is the Director of Enterprise Products for Fluke Networks, and has been with the company since its founding. He has worked as an IT professional for almost two decades in various technical lead, business development, and product innovation roles. Currently Roberts leads the product strategy team and has been instrumental in developing the next generation of network and application performance products for Fluke Networks. He is active in the IETF, IEEE PCS, and the APM Forum, with 9 patents (issued and pending) in the areas of response time measurement, big data storage and retrieval, and application efficiency measurement logic. Prior to joining Fluke Networks, Roberts worked for Sniffer University. He holds degrees in Engineering, Business, and Statistics from The Georgia Institute of Technology and Mercer University, and a myriad of both technical and industry certifications.