Why Today's APM Solutions Aren't Optimized for DevOps
July 21, 2014

Denis Goodwin
SmartBear

In my previous blog, Two APM Takeaways from Velocity Santa Clara 2014, I talked about fragmentation of solutions as a major trend in the APM space. Most vendors are providing a singular solution for some part of performance management, but yet, very few are able to provide a unified solution. In this post I want to extend this discussion to focus on what this means for DevOps.

I believe the lack of solution unification is an epidemic in the tech industry. Something that particularly stands out is that while more and more organizations are beginning to adopt the DevOps model by embracing continuous integration and collaboration, when it comes to the APM market serving these folks, some fundamental ideals of DevOps are thrown out the window — namely, the efficiency and collaboration aspects.

The Fragmentation of Tools is the Fragmentation of Teams

In the ever expanding vortex of value propositions and fragmented solutions that make up the APM market today, simplicity is getting lost. Everyone is so busy fighting to get or stay in the picture that they forget to take a step back to look at the big picture, and realize that all we are doing is collectively building an incomplete solution model. If it feels as though you are trying to integrate solutions that never were meant to integrate in the first place, it's because they weren't. And if the tools are disconnected, the teams that use them are much more likely to be disconnected as well. Or at least, not as connected as they could be.

When something breaks or a bug makes it into production, development and operations like to play hot potato with the blame — until everyone eventually tires and points their fingers at whichever one of their tools is most suspect for having failed them this time. However, the issue is often not the tool's fault either — the fault is shared by the assembly of tools that are collectively failing to support and encourage developers and operations to work together and collaborate.

Wait, Isn't DevOps About Efficiency?

It's natural to fix something after it breaks, but we are often not as good as we want to be at setting up prevention mechanisms to stop the issues from ever happening in the first place — perhaps if this weren't the case, APM vendors would have been building unified solutions from day one. This leads to businesses buying new tools for each part of a larger mission in order to alleviate some previous mishap and prevent it from happening again. The worst part is that by doing so you often can end up creating a much larger problem for yourself in the long term, as a result of opting for the quick fix in order to step around a small one in the short term.

Businesses are using an arsenal of tools that integrate (or don't integrate) with each other in attempt to assemble a complete APM solution. And then you have a whole other assorted toolbox for things like code review, functional testing, API testing and load testing for maintaining quality and superior user experience while continuously delivering applications. While these different solutions may be used by different functions, they are still all part of a single process. The more these silos are broken down in the future the more fluent and efficient that process will be.

Unified APM = DevOps

Perhaps the best approach is not about finding and filling the gaps with more and more tools as problems arise, and instead starting from square one with a single, unified platform for DevOps — one which fully supports collaboration between dev and ops, and enables ultimate efficiency by eliminating the need for added complexity and integrations.

The idea of eliminating the amount of time and energy spent evaluating, integrating and implementing all of these different tools makes the idea of unification worthwhile in itself, but of course this would only be the tip of the iceberg in terms of value.

In order to fully embrace the culture of DevOps and continuous integration, the tools that teams use need to support their fundamental principles and not dangle one leg over the fence. The days of patching a different piece of software onto every different part of the process are numbered.

Denis Goodwin is Director of Product Management, APM, AlertSite UXM, SmartBear Software.

Share this

Industry News

March 28, 2024

Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd. announced a collaboration with Microsoft that utilizes the Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service to enhance Check Point Infinity AI Copilot, marking a significant advancement in cyber security AI applications.

March 28, 2024

ArmorCode announced ArmorCode Risk Prioritization, providing a 3D scoring approach for managing application security risks.

March 28, 2024

AppViewX and Fortanix announced a partnership to offer cloud-delivered secure digital identity management and code signing.

March 27, 2024

WaveMaker has updated its platform in response to customer demand for more sophisticated API and code management tools.

March 27, 2024

Vercara announced the launch of UltraAPI™, a product suite that protects APIs and web applications from malicious bots and fraudulent activity while ensuring regulatory compliance.

March 27, 2024

Legit Security announced the launch of its standalone enterprise secrets scanning product, which can detect, remediate, and prevent secrets exposure across the software development pipeline.

March 26, 2024

Progress announced a strategic partnership with Veeam® Software, the #1 leader by market share in Data Protection and Ransomware Recovery, to provide customers with an enterprise-ready cyber defense solution that strengthens the security of their business-critical data.

March 26, 2024

GitGuardian released its Software Composition Analysis (SCA) module.

March 26, 2024

DataStax announced a milestone in its journey to simplify enterprise retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) for developers by integrating with Microsoft Semantic Kernel.

March 25, 2024

Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd. is collaborating with NVIDIA to enhance the security of AI cloud infrastructure. Integrating NVIDIA BlueField DPUs, which feature a broad range of purpose-built, innovative security capabilities, the new Check Point AI Cloud Protect solution will help prevent threats at both the network and host levels.

March 25, 2024

Sentry announced the release of Autofix, an AI-powered feature to debug and fix code in minutes, saving important time and resources.

March 25, 2024

Apiiro announced a product integration and partnership with Secure Code Warrior, the agile developer security training platform, to extend its ASPM technology and processes to the people layer.

March 21, 2024

Progress announced that Progress® Semaphore™, its metadata management and semantic AI platform, was named a Champion in SoftwareReviews’ 2024 Metadata Management Emotional Footprint Awards.

March 21, 2024

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation® (CNCF®) has partnered with Udemy, an online skills marketplace and learning platform.

March 21, 2024

GitLab has acquired Oxeye, the provider of a cloud-native application security and risk management solution.