APMdigest asked the top minds in the industry what they feel is the most important way Application Performance Management (APM) tools must evolve. The recommendations on this list provide a rare look into the long-term future of APM technology. Part 5 covers the impact of APM on the Business.

Start with 30 Ways APM Should Evolve - Part 1

Start with 30 Ways APM Should Evolve - Part 2

Start with 30 Ways APM Should Evolve - Part 3

Start with 30 Ways APM Should Evolve - Part 4

20. ALIGN IT TRANSACTIONS WITH BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

APM must evolve to be more of a solution that analyzes how the business is impacted by IT. Currently, APM solutions focus on the technical details around latency or failures in infrastructure. Rarely, are these solutions usable by the IT liaison to the business, or the business itself. The next step in APM evolution should be to map business objectives or milestones to IT transactions and provide feedback to the business on the status of these objectives – whether they are compliance, order volume or process execution related.
Charley Rich
VP Product Management and Marketing, Nastel Technologies

21. FOCUS ON BUSINESS SERVICES

One key area which APM vendors have to recognize is a current weakness that must be quickly addressed is that the compelling business driver is not just ensuring the health, availability, and performance of "applications" but the business services which they support ... IT organizations are demanding a full stack, business service-oriented solution. The first vendors that get there with a complete story (and, more importantly, a complete set of capabilities) will be favored to win the long-term APM vendor race.
Bob Johnson
CMO, Optanix

Read Bob Johnson's blog: APM Evolution: Business Service Performance

22. DRIVING BUSINESS ANALYTICS

APM will be a driver for business analytics and this is currently the only way to really evolve APM technology. Supporting new technologies is no longer a USP but merely a way to survive.
APM agents have a real advantage in the way they can enrich business analytics via intelligent instrumenting and analyzing the data that they see.
Coen Meerbeek
Online Performance Consultant and Founder of Blue Factory Internet

23. SUPPORT FOR LOB

From looking at the product reviews of APM solutions on IT Central Station, I see that APM users want their tools to better serve the needs of the Line of Business (LOB). Reviewers of APM solutions, whether they are DevOps managers, applications owners, CIOs or operations managers, express the need for their APM tools to offer value to their peers in the LOB. Their wish lists include improved analytics, proactive monitoring of business transactions, and integration with business dashboards – all features that will enable APM to better align with the business.
Russell Rothstein
Founder and CEO, IT Central Station

Click here to read the latest APM product reviews on IT Central Station

24. SUPPORT FOR EMPLOYEES

Application Performance Management tools must be designed for today's consumerization of IT to provide the ease-of-use that employees crave but without forsaking the security IT teams demand for protection and compliance. Quite simply, these tools must help employees easily get the job done, especially since today's modern enterprise faces increasing IT complexity that forces teams to do more with less, while at the same time provide IT teams secure control over what is sent in and out of their organizations. It is crucial that these tools meet the demands of modern business because any potential security issue or non-compliant transfer can end up creating a situation of non-compliance and cost the company thousands of dollars or worse.
Jeff Loeb
CMO, Ipswitch

Read 30 Ways APM Should Evolve - Part 6, covering development and DevOps.