IT managers from companies around the world are struggling with network and application performance issues as new technologies and high-bandwidth applications continue to consume network resources at an alarming rate, according to new research from Exinda and Aberdeen Group.

More than 60 percent of businesses cannot control recreational traffic or segment traffic based on application type, meaning non-strategic applications are getting the same level of priority as those that are strategic to the business, the research finds.

The research — Solving Next-Generation Application Challenges: How the Best in Class Succeed — incorporated responses from IT executives and managers at enterprises around the world and found that:

● Only 34% of organizations can control network bandwidth usage based on application type

● Only 37% of organizations currently have the ability to control recreational traffic

● Only 43% of organizations have implemented the capability to optimize and prioritize real-time performance for applications

“Many businesses are seeing tremendous growth of cloud and virtualization technologies and high-bandwidth applications, but can only be reactive to performance issues that occur as a result,” said Brendan Reid, VP of product marketing at Exinda. “Traditional approaches to dealing with network performance issues — increasing network capacity, automating performance monitoring and outsourcing strategic IT functions — are not effective in solving these issues. Without implementing solutions that give them visibility into their traffic and the ability to control performance, network managers cannot drive best-in-class results, assure application SLAs, and deliver high user satisfaction.”

According to the research, gathered as part of Aberdeen’s Control Video, Social, and Recreational Applications and Don’t Let Them Control Your Network report, best-in-class organizations see increased application reliability and higher user satisfaction, often up to three times better than the industry average.

To create a best-in-class network experience, organizations can implement improved performance practices, including:

● Controlling performance at the application level by using technologies that offer application-level bandwidth control

● Managing bandwidth by putting tools in place that manage the bandwidth impact of applications and remedy performance issues that do occur

● Understanding user application needs by doing the analysis necessary to ensure that networks can handle increasing traffic loads

● Achieving fast-acting performance relief by implementing real-time performance solutions that make it possible to address application performance issues as they happen.