Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), a leading IT and data management research and consulting firm, released its latest research report entitled, Integrating Applications Across the Cloud: An Industry Survey.

Throughout 2011, EMA extensively researched Application Performance Management (APM) solutions for Cloud services. Survey-based research focused on application architectures, among other topic areas, since choosing the "right" APM solution requires a clear understanding of the anatomy of the application to be managed.

The analysis process revealed startling statistics about the extent of Cloud integration:

- Nearly 50% of companies had deployed tiered transactions spanning public Cloud and on-premise computing environments (one form of "hybrid Cloud")

- 35% had integrated (or were in the process of integrating) multiple Software as a Service (SaaS) applications.

The findings made it clear that companies are integrating into the Cloud with increasing frequency and sophistication, hence the impetus for research on this topic. Moreover, the topic is important to the larger APM discussion because integrations have a major impact on end-to-end application performance.

“Integration is the next big challenge for businesses delivering production applications via the public Cloud. Integrations across SaaS applications, multi-tier IaaS-hosting, or on-premise to Cloud, for example, present uniquely daunting challenges,” said Julie Craig, EMA Research Director.

This new report details the integration use cases, product requirements, challenges, and stakeholders within organizations that are "integrating with the Cloud."

An EMA Radar Report, to be published in the fall of 2012, will focus on integration products and their Cloud-related capabilities.

Click here for a summary of the report