Today's enterprises are ruled by business-critical applications, driving the need for application performance management (APM). Creating a holistic plan for managing apps' performance can prove challenging, especially when it comes time to create the "special sauce" of reactive management and proactive management.
The need for reactive and proactive techniques when managing apps is perhaps clearest when app performance flags. When apps are not working for users, IT departments face trickle-down pressure. It starts with CIOs and soon extends to the foot soldiers of reactive management, the experts in the IT department. When app delivery fails, organizations can quickly suffer damage, both to their reputations and to company revenue.
Metzler suggests that today's business pressure is unprecedented, with companies remaining on the S&P 500 list for less than 15 years. "Businesses are struggling to survive. … If an IT organization can help, they'll be embraced; if not, they'll be ignored," Metzler said. In a growing number of companies, the role of the CIO is under attack by other c-level officers, as some companies adopt CDOs -- chief digital officers -- or allow chief marketing officers and others make IT spending decisions.
Businesses are struggling to survive. … If an IT organization can help, they'll be embraced; if not, they'll be ignored.
IT organizations face round-the-clock pressure to align with a company's business interests. Unfortunately, network administrators and the network itself are usually blamed when application performance degrades. Metzler defines two possible approaches to managing apps' performance. In one situation,when different departments within an IT organization are blamed for poor performance, they scramble and go on the defensive. The alternate "CIO approach" of managing apps that Metzler suggests in this podcast does not take the approach of blaming individuals or departments. Rather than colorful graphics put out by departments on the defensive, CIOs want action and they want the problem fixed.
In the end, IT leaders need to consider the steps in their process for managing apps in the face of growing private, public and hybrid cloud use. There is also the ever-present challenges of packet loss that must be dealt with. Creating a workable action plan for managing apps is achievable, and this podcast will help to launch the process.
Listen to this podcast to discover an expert's secrets to holistic APM planning, reactive management and proactive management.