Is It Time to Rethink Your Network and Application Performance Management Strategy?

According to Enterprise Management Associates’ latest biannual Network Management Megatrends report, nearly 53% of respondents are investing in network performance management tool upgrades and enhancements. As digital transformations involving software-defined networking (SDN), cloud migrations, co-location additions, and adoption of software-as-a-service (SaaS) and unified communications as a service (UCaaS) applications have increased, the complexity of the networked application environment and the task of troubleshooting end-user problems also have become more challenging. 

Digital transformations and migrations, including the ones listed above, are revealing gaps in performance management visibility. New technologies mean new transition points, or domains, for application communications. Problems can occur at any point as traffic flows pass from client edges in homes or remote offices to internet and wide area network edges – (WAN) circuits and eventually make it to their application servers in data centers, co-los, or public cloud edges. Troubleshooting issues can now involve multiple vendors and service providers, making service edge monitoring and problem identification more challenging than ever.

Tool Sprawl = Fractured Data

Over time, IT organizations have added more tools to their network and application performance management arsenal. In fact, approximately two-thirds (63%) of the Megatrend survey respondents said they had more than 11 different tools in their portfolio. Overlaps, gaps, vendor-specific solutions, and fractured data in this era of tool sprawl result in negative outcomes as IT organizations try to resolve performance-related issues. Ultimately, problem-resolution times are unnecessarily elongated as a result. Consolidation of network management tools is a solid strategy in this case.  

In many cases, silo-specific network and application performance management tools have become obsolete due to vendor consolidations or provider end-of-life decisions. This has left many NetOps organizations with tools that cannot be upgraded or expanded to support their organizations’ digital transformations without a forklift upgrade, if at all.  

Strategy Is Key As enterprises face one or more of the challenges discussed here, developing a solidified network and application performance management strategy can be the key to a smoother digital transformation.

Recently, a major international financial banking company implemented several critical IT projects, including SaaS application adoption for standard business activities and migration of key applications to AWS cloud. Simultaneously, however, one of its network performance management tools was being retired by the vendor, leaving the IT staff to reevaluate their network and application performance management strategies and needs.

Learn more about how this IT organization researched new network and application visibility alternatives for performance management to support Smart Edge Monitoring for digital transformation projects today and the future. And how it achieved tool consolidation with support for both packet and NetFlow monitoring data sources.