In today's cloud computing age, one would think the IT world would ask less about why cloud but rather when and how, but the fact is many still wrestle with this fundamental shift in technology. Public clouds used to be just alternatives to in-house infrastructure hosting, but the rise of cloud apps makes the questions around the cloud more and more app-centric, such as SaaS (Software as a Service), and even Everything as a Service.
If there's a SaaS for CRM like Salesforce, a SaaS for ERP like SAP S/4HANA Cloud, and a SaaS for IT Service Management (ITSM) like ServiceNow, why not a SaaS for Application Performance Management (APM)? Well, there is! APM as a Service (APMaaS) is the fastest growing segment in the global APM market which already surpassed $5 Billion USD, and growing at 12% per year according to a study published in August 2017 “Global Application Performance Management (APM) Market 2014-2020” by Global Industry Analysts.
In a recent publication 2018 Application Performance Management Predictions, one of the predictions is APM is Mission-Critical "Application Performance Management (APM) tools help organizations to scrupulously monitor and create applications that ensure desired performance and accessibility. APM will continue to add business value for enterprises in 2018, as it will help diagnose complex issues and lead to an improvement in application performance and customer experience. APM will also play a crucial role in ensuring that applications continue to sustain and perform even in a virtual scenario that is prone to cyber-attacks and risks."
Now that we established that IT Management realized APM is critical, let's look at why APMaaS is gaining growth and traction among enterprises. We surveyed some of our large customers for the top reasons they went with a Cloud-based APM solution and here is a summary of the findings.
Top 10 Reasons
These are not in any particular order of importance:
- Immediate availability: subscribe, connect, monitor, and manage, highly available with built-in HA/DR. Accessible from anywhere with the internet.
- Elastic scalability: scalable resources on demand to meet growing business needs
- Agile services: latest solution always in use, always new and fresh functionality, regular bug fixes, and continuous deployment. New applications can be supported within days of general availability, fully configured, and deployed.
- Pay-per-use utility model: no software purchase, no maintenance, no long-term commitment using Opex instead of Capex.
- Better support: faster troubleshooting and bug fixes due to the ability to jointly see the problem online. This enhances the capability of the Enterprise Monitoring Teams
- Shared knowledge: applied to learn across tenants via best practices, community-based. Respond to global issues such as the recent Spectre and Meltdown and how they can impact application performance
- Full service: Managed 24x7. No hardware and software maintenance (OS patching, Application patching upgrade) is needed. Easy access to remote trusted advisors.
- Open platform customized for your business: no 2 customers are exactly the same, custom configuration built into service, not locked into a single rigid vendor solution. It is "open-source in terms of the non-proprietary product that can be easily customized/configured … compared to proprietary product solutions from IBM, BMC, CA, SAP Solution Manager etc", per Fortune 500 customer
- Better TCO: lower or no investments in hardware, software, and greatly reduced human resources. Cost of ownership is almost nil. Return on Investment (ROI) is very high.
- Enhanced Security: proven cloud infrastructure and frequent security scanning/updates/monitoring/compliance.
Summary
If you believe that cloud computing and SaaS solutions are continuing trends, it's time to assess the reasons why a cloud-based monitoring APMaaS should be on your radar and start the journey today to compare the solutions available.
