The application performance management (APM) tools market is growing rapidly. More and more businesses realize the importance of having a unified system for monitoring and tracking application performance. APM tools provide a wealth of information and analytics. These make it easier to diagnose and correct problems in order to provide the best possible user experience.
But with so many different platforms available, how do you know which one is right for your organization? In this blog post, we will explore the latest innovations in APM tools technology. We’ll also get insights from industry experts on what’s next for this exciting niche!
What are the top APM tools and platforms in 2022?
Software that enables the monitoring and analysis of application health and user experience are what Gartner considers APM tools. These platforms may be self-hosted or available as SaaS. APM solutions are of interest to IT operations, site reliability engineers, cloud and platform operations, application developers, and product owners within enterprise IT organizations.
Some top reviewed APM tools in 2022 include, in alphabetical order, AppDynamics, DataDog, Dynatrace and NewRelic. Each of these tools offers a slightly different set of features, pricing, and capabilities. The best tool for your organization will depend on a variety of factors. These include budget, application integrations requirements, and internal resources and expertise.
How do APM tools fit into an AIOps strategy?
APM suppliers have invested in machine learning and analytical skills. So it’s natural to consider where the gaps and overlap exist between APM tools and AIOps platforms.
APM tools are more domain-specific, but can provide valuable sources for more comprehensive AIOps platforms. AIOps is more of a comprehensive, unifying paradigm. It includes APM, network management, systems management, database administration, and cloud technologies and covers a variety of use cases and more robust, advanced automation.
APM development contributed a great deal to the genesis of meaningful AIOps capabilities. Specifically, APM pioneered dynamic capabilities for discovering and modeling application and infrastructure interdependencies, application discovery, and dependency mapping (ADDM). These have become foundational for many AIOps solutions.
Now, it is more of a piece of the overall AIOps puzzle, albeit an incredibly valuable one.
How can businesses make sure they’re getting the most out of their APM tools?
Make sure you’re not trying to do everything at once. An APM checklist presenting a phased approach to rolling out your tools works best. Even with expert help, it can be difficult to know exactly how the tool will perform in your specific environment. So take it step-by-step, and build on what works.
Identify the initial quick wins you can achieve early on. Carefully document learnings from those wins – and missteps. Dedicate time with your team to review the results of these early efforts, so you can iterate with confidence.
Develop an internal guide to APM best practices for your specific context and environment. This will help you further strengthen overall visibility into your organization’s entire IT landscape. Then you’ll be ready to move on to more advanced dashboards, use cases, reporting and automation of processes.
What impact will AI and ML have on APM in the future?
The same advancements that enabled the evolution of AIOps can also be used to advance APM with AI. Despite the growing sophistication of the technology stack, each interaction between components leaves a digital breadcrumb that records a pattern of activity.
These little bits of information are too large and complex for a person to comprehend or utilize. However, they are valuable for machine learning algorithms. AI and ML can uncover meaningful patterns in the vast ocean of operational data. The IT operations team will then be able to develop aggregated data sources for analysis and pattern recognition.
This ability to analyze operational data at scale will make APM tools more effective at maintaining optimal user experience across large organizations with complex IT footprints.
In all, the world of application performance management tools is an exciting area of IT operations, now and in the future. It can be challenging to compare and contrast the different tools in the market. However, these tools are ideally best considered in the context of a complete AIOps roadmap and initiative.
At Windward, we’ve helped many large IT organizations comb through the options available in the APM tools space to find the right-fit, best of breed solution for their current and long-term needs. We’d be happy to meet with your team to discuss your overall requirements, your specific IT landscape, and help you craft a strategic plan to reach your APM goals and objectives.
