The APMdigest Vendor Forum was established to give vendors of Observability, Application Performance Management (APM), AIOps, Network Observability/Monitoring and related technologies an opportunity to share their views with the IT community in an objective venue. All commentary in Vendor Forum blogs is intended to be objective, vendor-neutral and non-promotional content to educate and enlighten APMdigest readers. (Sponsors of APMdigest are allowed to add a promotional sentence or two at the end, plus promotional links and hyperlinks, but blog copy must be vendor-neutral).

All vendors in Observability, APM, AIOps and related market spaces are welcome to blog on the Vendor Forum at no cost. To request a blogging account on the Vendor Forum, contact Pete Goldin, Editor and Publisher of APMdigest.

The following guidelines apply to software vendors who would like to post a blog on APMdigest. Non-vendor blogs are posted in The APM Blog. If you work for or represent a company or organization that is not considered a product vendor by APMdigest, and you want to submit a blog, click here for the Editorial Guidelines.

For sponsors of the site, APMdigest makes exceptions for some of the guidelines below. Blogs from APMdigest sponsors are also posted in the Vendor Forum, but sponsors gain certain benefits when blogging. If you work for or represent a sponsor of APMdigest, click here for the Sponsor Blog Guidelines.

Signing Up for a Vendor Forum Blogging Account

■ A request for a blogging account on the Vendor Forum must come directly from the individual whose name will be on the blogs, from that individual's corporate email address.

■ Only one representative from each vendor will be allowed to maintain a blogging account on the Vendor Forum at any particular time, if that vendor does not sponsor APMdigest. Once a company's blogger is established, that same byline must be used for all future blogs from that company. The only time the byline can be changed is if the blogger is no longer with the company, or the blogger has not posted a blog in the last 24 months.

■ APMdigest sponsors are allowed multiple blogging accounts on the Vendor Forum. This sponsor benefit is especially helpful for companies with multiple thought leaders in the industry who would like to claim authorship for their own blogs. With an APMdigest sponsorship, your CEO, CTO, CMO, technology evangelists and others can all blog. Click here to find out how you can sponsor APMdigest. Click here for the Sponsor Blog Guidelines.

■ Blogs go with the blogger. This means if a blogger leaves a company, moves to a new company and continues to blog, all blogs posted by that blogger – past and present – will reference the new company. References to the previous company will be removed from the previous blogs. Exceptions to this rule can be made for sponsors, if requested.

Rules for Blogging on the Vendor Forum

Please observe the following rules when blogging on the Vendor Forum:

■ Your completed blog should be sent to the editor, when ready for posting. Word doc is the preferred format. APMdigest will post the blog under your byline. Individual bloggers do not login and post their own blogs.

■ APMdigest does not accept any blog submissions from gmail or other anonymous email accounts. You must send the blog from your corporate email account.

■ Do not promote your own company, products, services, resources, events or partners in blogs on the Vendor Forum. Topics should be general industry interest. Copy and graphics should be non-promotional and vendor-neutral.

■ One reference to your company in the blog copy is permitted when you are discussing a survey or report conducted or commissioned by your company. A reference to your company's or partner's product is never permitted in the blog copy.

■ If your blog is about a study, survey or report conducted or commissioned by your company, focus on the results of the survey/study. Do not focus on why and how the survey/study was conducted, or the value the report will have to readers.

■ Do not use your product names or brand phrases that refer to your specific product or service in a blog. Even if your company is trying to turn the phrase into an industry term, if only your company uses this term and it basically refers to your product or service, do not include the phrase in a blog.

■ Case studies are not permitted on the Vendor Forum, even if the vendor is not mentioned by name. Do not reference your customer in a blog, or talk about or imply how your company or products helped a customer.

■ Do not mention any product brands or make negative references to a company, brand or product in any blogs on the Vendor Forum. The purpose of this rule is to prohibit vendors from posting negative blogs about their competitors. However, when the blog is about solving performance issues relating to a specific environment or infrastructure brand, exceptions to this rule can be made on a case-by-case basis.

■ A reference to open source projects is usually permitted, as long as the reference is non-promotional, and is a reference to the open source project or technology itself, and not the company that founded or owns the project. Inclusion of these references is decided by APMdigest on a case-by-case basis. Open source projects that are run by organizations that are supported across the industry can usually be mentioned or covered in a blog. OpenTelemetry would be an example of this type of open source technology that can be covered, but not in relation to a vendor's product.

■ Companies that do not sponsor APMdigest can only include a link to their company home page at the end of the blog – no product pages or any other pages. Even if the product has its own URL separate from the company page, this cannot be included in place of the company home page. The home page link will always be included in the "Related Links" section at the end of the blog, and cannot be substituted with a hyperlink in the text. The home page link cannot include any tracking code.

■ Only sponsors of APMdigest can include additional links at the end of the blog. Click here to find out how you can sponsor APMdigest.

■ APMdigest removes old outdated links, but only updates outdated links for current sponsors of the site.

■ Do not place any hyperlinks in the body copy of a blog linking to your company's or any other vendor's web pages or other promotional pages. Hyperlinks in the body copy should only be to support factual points you are making. These hyperlinks can link to a supporting report or article as long as the content is not on your website or any other vendor's website, is not sponsored or commissioned by your company or any other vendor, and does not promote your company or any other vendor in any way. Hyperlinks cannot include any tracking code. Inclusion of any hyperlinks is at the sole discretion of APMdigest.

■ When supporting a fact in your blog with a hyperlink, only link to content that is not gated. For example, do not link to gated analyst reports that require the reader to purchase the report or a subscription in order to access the report.

■ Try to keep blogs between 500-1000 words. This is more of a guideline than a rule. You can include more content if you wish, but APMdigest recommends posting shorter blogs more often. If you have written a 1000+ word blog, consider breaking it into two or more blogs. You could call them Part One and Part Two, if you like. If a blog is lengthy, APMdigest may choose to post it in multiple parts.

■ All blogs will be reviewed by APMdigest prior to publication. APMdigest reserves the right to edit any content submitted, and the publication of any blog is at the sole discretion of APMdigest. Vendor Forum blog posts are edited by APMdigest for spelling, basic grammar and punctuation. Vendor Forum blogs are also edited to ensure they meet APMdigest guidelines.

■ Blogs do not have to follow AP style. They can be casual in style. However, APMdigest expects blogs to be written to meet basic grammar standards. If a blog does not meet these standards, it will not be posted.

■ The date the blog is actually published will be decided by the editor. APMdigest may provide you with an estimated publication date prior to posting, but that date cannot be guaranteed, as unforeseen priorities may push the posting date back. APMdigest sponsors have priority when blogs are posted.

■ All Vendor Forum blogs must be original content that has not been published – and will not be published – on any other website.

■ APMdigest does not accept blogs that are AI-generated. If APMdigest determines that it is highly likely a blog is AI-generated, it will not be posted.

■ APMdigest will always send an email to the main contact(s) when a blog posts, with the URL. If you have not rec'd an email, your blog has not posted yet.

■ You can re-post your blogs from the Vendor Forum on your own blogs or websites, as long as you mention that the blog was originally posted on APMdigest, and include a link to APMdigest. However, we recommend linking to the blog on APMdigest.com rather than posting the full blog on your site, to highlight the fact that the content was published by an independent third party. Publication of your blog on a respected industry site provides strong thought leadership credibility for the author and company.

■ Please note that these guidelines are updated periodically to ensure continued alignment with APMdigest's mission.

Topics for the Vendor Forum

Click here for a list of topics covered by APMdigest

If you are unsure whether your topic fits APMdigest, run your idea by Pete Goldin.

Publication Schedule

APMdigest posts one item of primary content — blog or feature — each day, Monday through Friday. Consequently, there is often a queue of content waiting to be posted.

APMdigest does not post content on and around US holidays, including the week of July 4 and two weeks around Christmas/New Years.

APMdigest e-mails go out once or twice per month, and the current mailing includes content posted since the last mailing.