WH IT E PA P E R

Market
Pulse

Turning APM into an

IT detective
CO M PA NI E S SE E K WAYS TO B RI DG E THE GAP BETWEEN THE
P R O M I S E O F APM AN D I TS RE ALI TY TODAY.
The interesting thing about the application performance

entire application and its infrastructure environment.

management (APM) space these days is that its no longer

only about applications. The APM capabilities that users

GOTTA GET APM RIGHT

seekand that few vendors delivertrack the entire

In the survey, Binn was far from alone in having trouble

enterprise, from the network to the data center, as well as

deciphering ITs daily mysteries. In the CIO survey from

cloud deployments, mobile and anything else that could

September 2013 of 104 IT executives, those polled rattled

impact IT operations.

off every APM functionality they could think of, saying

As enterprise technology operations have grown far

almost universally that the capability was extremely impor-

more complex in recent years, users expect APM to be an

tant and that their APM implementation wasnt delivering

IT detective, not only tracking any anomalies or problems

well enough.

universally, but also being able to figure out why the

Some quick examples: The ability to quickly and accu-

glitches are happening and mapping out a way to fix them.

Joel Binn is the IT director for the New York City Department of Sanitation, a multibillion-dollar agency with more
than 10,000 employees, all supported by an 80-person IT
group that employs more than 200 consultants. Binn is

Confidence Levels in the ability to Meet Enduser Expecations with Regard to Application
Performance also Increased in 2013.

one of the more than 100 IT executives who participated

25%

in an IDG/CIO survey* looking at APM today, and hes also

one of the 90 percent of those participants who said APM

Very confident

is both extremely important and also doesnt deliver on its

51%

In the case of applications, the toolsets do not deterSomewhat confident

the memory? The way your data is structured? Is it the

said. We need something that will holistically look at our
misleading, because the toolsets themselves are generally

50%
52%
46%

application, servers, network or infrastructure? Binn

full range of components. The tools sometimes can be

30%
35%

promises.
mine the weakest link. There is no tool that tells you: Is it

16%

21%
Not very confident

26%
17%

targeted to specific purposes (application code, network

18%

traffic, power monitoring). They are not looking at the

3%
Not confident at all

8%
1%
1%

2013
2012
2011
2010

SOURCE: IDG RESEARCH SERVICES, DECEMBER 2013

* The study created by IDG Research Services was commissioned by CA in September 2013.

Market
Pulse

TURNING APM INTO A N IT D E T E C T IVE

rately identify a problems root cause? Some 99 percent

STAFF CUTBACKS POSE APM CHALLENGES

said it was very important, while just 36 percent said it

The answers will vary from enterprise to enterprise and

actually did the job. Prioritizing application issues and

from vendor to vendor, but there is ample blame to

problems based on the business impact? Roughly 96

share. When even the best APM system works perfectly,

percent said it was very important, while barely half

it delivers analysis and points to likely causes of the

(52 percent) said they saw such prioritization actually

problem, but IT staff is still required to run down those

happening. After a problem is identified, the ability to diag-

suspects and to try to effect repairs. If a company has the

nose root cause and fix the problem? About 93 percent

APM results monitored by a fraction of a skeleton crew,

said it was very important, but less than one-third (32

the worlds best recommendations wont help much.

percent) said such repairs materialized before end users

or customers were impacted.
For several years, there has been this disconnect

People are cutting back on resources, and that [causes]

their IT [to] be spread so thinly, said Jason Meserve, the
principal product marketing manager for CA Technolo-

between the need and importance of meeting end-user

gies APM area. The people responsible for watchingand

expectations and the ability to do so. Last year, 93 percent

acting onthose APM alerts? They are probably doing 10

of survey respondents said detection of issues and

other jobs, too. Maybe theyre barely keeping their heads

problems was important, and 91 percent said root cause

above water chasing down critical red lights, so how can

analysis was important. This year, the importance realiza-

they find the time to dig into the root cause of yellow lights

tion continued its sky-high response (99 percent versus 91

that might signal lurking problems?

percent last year). Levels of confidence since 2010 have

Part of the problem could be the number of metrics that

decreased overall, although there was a slight increase

need to be parsed in order to dig into those lurking prob-

from last year to today.

lems. How many data points is the typical APM system

Its clear that there is an ongoing gap between users

handling? Quite a few, with Meserve pointing to the data

desires and what they see as the actual results from APM

sizes at several of his companys larger installations.

deployments. What is less clear is why. Are the APM suites

Some are monitoring 20,000 servers and pulling metrics

overhyped? Are they underpowered? Are users expecta-

in every 15 seconds, on everything youre monitoring,

tions unrealistically high? Or are the deployments done

he said. We have sites that are pulling in more than 100

ineffectively, with the customers inadvertently causing the

billion metric instances a day. Big enterprises are collecting

very disconnects they are complaining about?

so much data they cant keep up. They cant be personally

A continuing theme with users is the fear of losing

employee productivity due to applications crashing or

looking at all of these billions of metrics.

Much of this avalanche of data is a good thing, as

performing very slowly, which was the top most often-

todays enterprises are getting exponentially more

cited fear. In order from most worrisome to least, they also

complex, with cloud and mobile just two trends that are

fretted about how much these problems set back new

adding an order of magnitude more data. That complexity

product launches and the ability to meet changing busi-

is the price for lower costs, greater efficiency and much

ness demands. It reflects in a lack of business confidence

stronger scalability.

in IT overall, and the associated pressure for dealing with

these problems quickly escalates.
About one-third of all respondents complained that
these application problems were undermining business

That complexity also creates far more places for things

to go wrongand even more places for a glitch or some
corrupted code to hide when things go haywire and IT
needs to find a problems root cause right away.

alignment efforts, which is one concrete side effect of

confidence in IT falling. Many were worried about direct

ROI ELUDES SOME APM INVESTMENTS

damage to their company brands and/or reputation,

Given all of this, why do organizations specifically invest

while about 15 percent cited revenue decreases as their

in APM? Respondents cited quite a few reasons, with 56

big worry, followed by customers jumping ship

percent saying that they hope it will improve end-user

(11 percent).

satisfaction, and 55 percent of the opinion that critical

Market
Pulse

TURNING APM INTO A N IT D E T E C T IVE

When provided with a definition of Application Behavior Analytics, 77% of respondents

believe it would be an important component of their APM strategy, and 86% would be
more likely to consider a solution with APM.
Completely agree/somewhat agree
Application Behavior Analytics is/would be an
important component of our strategy for monitoring
application performance

Somewhat disagree/completely disagree

77%

My organization would be more likely to consider a

solution that contained Application Behavior Analytics
My organization would be likely to pay more for a
solution that contained Application Behavior Analytics

23%

86%

14%
35%

65%

SOURCE: IDG RESEARCH SERVICES, DECEMBER 2013

application performance problems impact revenue-

testing and production. A few even pointed to an improved

generating productivity efforts. About 53 percent spoke of

ability to prove that SaaS vendors and MSPs were meeting

the general demand for IT accountability, while 45 percent

service delivery commitments.

cited increasingly complex infrastructures, forcing them to

respond with increasingly more sophisticated APM suites.

Despite all of these factors, almost 60 percent said they

have no plans to deploy APM.

About 45 percent said it was pure economic pressure

APM is hardly a well-kept secret, with analyst firm IDC

(cost savings, ROI and the like), and 41 percent specified

estimating that $2.2 billion worth of APM packages were

that their APM interests were fueled by the need for more

sold in 2012, which is a 14.5 percent hike from the prior

comprehensive information about end-user experiences

year. But installing APM and getting it to deliver actionable

to support informed decision making. Some 29 percent

results are two different matters.

said it was a matter of the businesss overall demand for

launching new services.

For one thing, some companies dont adequately staff

APM systems because they want to assume that every-

When we asked respondents to nail down the single

thing will work perfectly and, therefore, theres no reason

most appealing aspect of APM, the most popular answer

to allocate teams to fix things that shouldnt have broken

was that it fueled better service quality, which in turn

in the first place.

made it easier to meet service-level agreements (SLAs).

Senior corporate management may unrealistically

The next most popular reasons were faster trouble-

have overly high expectations of system reliability. Things

shooting, fewer escalations and a reduction in finger

break. Thats a fact of life, Meserve said. The key is: How

pointing. Others spoke of the ability to better understand

quickly do you get things back up? APM doesnt actually

the end-user experience in complex, virtualized cloud

make your system better as much as it just shows you

environments. Some pointed to having to spend less time

where the problems are. Its like an X-ray. X-rays dont

and fewer resources resolving urgent issues, along with

make you better. They just help the doctor pinpoint where

increased efficiency, freeing up money/other resources

the problem is.

for other priorities, which in turn allowed departments to

innovate more.
Increased productivity was the top choice of 41 percent

The disconnect problem gets deeper. Even though

enterprises are getting so much more complicated, some
companies have yet to staff for the much more diversified

of respondents, and 34 percent said effective APM rollouts

systems. And when setting up their APM systems, compa-

improved quality throughout the application lifecycle,

nies often needlessly limit its reach.

from development to quality assurance to performance

In Meserves view, the biggest reason behind the

Market
Pulse

TURNING APM INTO A N IT D E T E C T IVE

disconnect is that companies are paying money for good

tiers, databases, load balancers, mainframes, networks,

APM suites and then limiting how much of their environ-

storage, etc. This not only sharply increases the potential

ment can be tracked. This is akin to hiring a top-end

points of failure, but it also means that far more of these

building security force but prohibiting them from handling

elements are not well understood by IT.

floors 915.
APM needs to be able to see all areas to be effec-

That not well understood part is key, as IT is typically

composed of lots of very focused specialists. They are

tivenot just watching the app server, but completely

wizards at fixing a problem once it has been identified and

end to end, Meserve said. The company has systems

its in their area of expertise. But the task of finding the

using cloud and they are still relying on mainframes. They

problem anywherewhich is what APM is designed to

need to be able to see all of that, even into the underlying

dooften falls outside the skill set of most corporate IT

network, too. The application may be running fine, but

professionals.

maybe there is a network issue. You need to be able to

see all of that so that you know where the problem is.

At the Department of Sanitation in New York, IT specialization seems to be one issue. Seems that most people
dont know how to interpret the information from these

PROBLEM RESOLUTION BREEDS RESULTS

tools correctly, Binn said. For example, we were not

How beneficial is it to find those problems and, even more

getting the performance we needed out of one of our core

critically, find them quickly? Not only are the benefits

apps. It took us about a week to identify a problem, when

hugeconsider the potential business losses from one

a specialist familiar with the tools we used could have

prolonged Web outagebut they are also quite varied.

found the issue in hours. Few people know how to use

Analyst firm EMA found that companies that had aggres-

those tools effectively, and even fewer organizations can

sively deployed and staffed APM suites were 1.4 times

afford to have such experts on staff.

more likely to reduce capital costs, 1.7 times more likely

Never before have enterprises needed sophisticated

to free up resources for strategic projects, 1.9 times more

APM help more, but if they continue to limit its access and

likely to improve service resilience, 1.4 times more likely to

understaff its operations, the result will be a self-fulfilling

increase infrastructure flexibility and agility, 1.8 times more

doomsday prediction. Fortunately, addressing these prob-

likely to expand revenue channels, and twice as likely to

lems is straightforward. With the proper APM approach

deliver business model enhancements.

that can help find problems more efficiently, with deep

In our survey, some 55 percent of respondents cited

visibility into the business service and advanced analytics,

employee productivity losses due to application downtime

IT will have a much easier time resolving real enterprise

and poor performance as key problems impacting end

headaches.

users. When asked about the result of this, 46 percent

said that they were being forced to spend too much
time resolving urgent IT issues and, as a consequence,

About CA Technologies

it sharply limited their ability to launch new services and

CA Technologies provides IT management solutions that

meet changing business demands. Even more frightening,

help customers manage and secure complex IT environ-

42 percent said this ongoing problem has impacted the

ments to support agile business services. Organizations

businesss overall confidence in IT.

leverage CA Technologies software and SaaS solutions to

EMA notes that complexity is soaring because there are

accelerate innovation, transform infrastructure and secure

so many elements of the typical enterprise environment

data and identities, from the data center to the cloud.

today, including physical servers, virtual servers, cloud

Learn more about CA Technologies at www.ca.com/apm

Learn more at WWW.CA.COM