Survey Report: Performance Management in Transformational IT Environments

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT IN TRANSFORMATIONAL IT ENVIRONMENTS | 2012 SURVEY RESULTS

2012 SURVEY RESULTS

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT in Transformational IT Environments

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT IN TRANSFORMATIONAL IT ENVIRONMENTS | 2012 SURVEY RESULTS 1

INTRODUCTION

Transformational IT technologies like desktop and server virtualization and cloud computing are changing the way IT services are provisioned and delivered.

These technologies offer significant operational and cost benefits, but at the same time they make management of business services operating on new, dynamic infrastructures much more complex and challenging. As a result, performance management practices and solutions are undergoing a dramatic change as well in order to deal with these new technologies and challenges.

We invited IT operations professionals to share their experience with, and requirements for, performance management in this new environment. The resulting report aims to bring clarity to this dynamic situation, identify emerging performance management trends and best practices, and provide actionable guidance for service owners and IT operations professionals going into 2012.

Specific areas we covered in this survey include the most critical performance management challenges experienced by IT operations professionals tasked with managing transformational IT environments, the business impact of performance issues, requirements for performance management solutions in complex, transformational IT environments.

More information: www.eginnovations.com

This survey was conducted between November 1, 2011 and January 20,

2012 and elicited responses from 150 IT operations professionals in North and South

America, Europe and Asia Pacific regions.


Key Findings

IT operations professionals can’t easily find and diagnose root cause problemsThis is the #1 performance management challenge with 54% of responses. IT operations staff can’t tell where the root of the problem is when a user says performance is “slow”: Is it the Network? Server? Database? Virtual Machine? In response, a majority of 67% would like to see solutions that help them determine when a user says “it is slow” where the real cause is.

Decreased customer satisfaction This is the #1 business impact of poor IT service performance say 53% of respondents. Decreased user productivity (44%) and an increase of IT operations cost (44%) are of real concern among IT operations professionals.

IT operations is looking for proactive problem solving techniquesto common performance problems63% of respondents are looking for performance management solutions that allow them to become more proactive and find problems before they impact service levels.

The need to monitor virtual and physical machines53% of respondents are looking for solutions that can monitor both virtual and physical machines, reflecting the new dynamics and inter-dependencies introduced by virtualization layers in transformational IT environments.



PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT TOOLSfor Transformational IT Environments

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We asked IT operations professionals to share their thoughts on performance management in transformational IT environments to better understand the challenges they face with performance management today, and what changes they want to implement going forward.

Top Performance ManagementChallenges Facing IT OperationsIT environments are becoming more complex, dynamic, more interdependent, and as a result much more challenging to manage. The responses to the survey question about performance management challenges reflect this change.

The single most mentioned performance management challenge with 54% of responses is that IT administrators/IT operations staff often can’t tell where the root of the problem is when a user says performance is “slow”: Is it the Network? Server? Database? Virtual Machine?


IT environments are becoming more complex, dynamic,

more interdependent, andas a result much more

challenging to manage.


The inability to proactively identify performance issues before they affect end users (41%) and the time spent troubleshooting issues (39%) were the next biggest problems. 37% of respondents felt they lack end-to-end visibility into service performance.

Can’t tell when users say performance is “slow” wherethe problem is – Network? Server? Database? VM?

Unable to proactively identify performanceissues before they affect end users

Not able to monitor end-to-endto see service performance issues

Lot of time is spent on troubleshootingperformance issues

Other

Increased complexity driven byendpoint consumerization (BYOD)

Unable to monitor the perfromanceof applications in the cloud

Don’t have visibility intothe performance issues

Increased complexity driven byvirtualization & cloud technologies

Have a lot of performance metricsbut don’t know how to interpret

Can’t monitor the performance ofapplications in a virtualized infrastructure

16.7%

14.7%

2.7%

53.3%

40.7%

38.7%

37.3%

36.7%

30.0%

22.0%

22.0%

0% 20% 40% 60%

What are your top-3 challenges regarding managing the performance of your critical IT services?



Business Impact of Poor IT Service PerformanceIt is obvious that service delivery issues have a direct impact on business. But what are the most critical issues? 53% of respondents selected decreased customer satisfaction as their number one business impact of poor IT service performance. Decreased user productivity (44%) and an increase of IT operations cost (44%) round out the top three. Clearly, the state of performance management is causing IT organizations significant pain.

Decreased customersatisfaction 52.8%

43.8%

43.8%

36.1%

33.3%

31.9%

31.3%

29.9%

20.8%

19.4%

1.4%

Increase in costof IT operations

Decreased userproductivity

Decreased effectivenessof IT staff

Decreasedbusiness agility

Damage to brandreputation

Decline in employeesatisfaction/engagement

Inability to launchnew business services

SLA penalties paid

Other

0% 20% 40% 60%

Direct revenue loss

What are the most critical business impacts of poorIT service performance to your organization?



The Status-Quo60% of our respondents are using multiple, independent performance monitoring tools – one for the network, another for the servers, yet another for database, and one more for the virtualization tier.

However, integrated monitoring across multiple infrastructure tiers is not common yet. Only 30% of respondents are using at least one tool that provides visibility into multiple infrastructure tiers. This is in contrast to over 66% of respondents looking for solutions that provide an answer to cross-layer performance issues.

Only 30% of respondents are using tools that provide

visibility into multiple infrastructure tiers.



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Virtualization Performance Management TodayWe also asked respondents to indicate how they manage the performance of their virtualized IT infrastructures today. For monitoring virtualization, 47% of our respondents currently use tools provided by the virtualization platform vendors. 45% of respondents are using third party tools. Significantly, over 33% of respondents felt they did not have the appropriate tools for managing the virtualization tier. This problem is likely to get even more severe as the adoption of virtualization becomes more widespread.

Virtualizationvendor tools

We don’t have theright tools today

Third party tools thatmanage both virtual andphysical environment

Traditionalmonitoring tools

Third party toolsdedicated to virtualizationperformance management

Other

28.7%

47.0%

33.9% 27.0%

15.7%

1.7%

How do you manage virtualization performance today?



To better understand the most difficult areas to manage in an IT environment, we asked our survey respondents to select the top “blind spots” for managing service performance.

Monitoring of storage (41%) and servers hosted on virtual machines (39%) were the top blind spots. The number three spot is held by monitoring enterprise apps such as SAP or MS Exchange with 36%, closely followed by monitoring virtual desktops with 35%.

Focus Areas for Better Performance Management

Monitoring storage

Monitoring virtual servers

Monitoring enterprise applicationslike SAP, R3, Exchange, AD, etc.

Monitoring database servers

Other

Monitoring applications hostedin the public cloud

Monitoring virtual desktop infrastructures

Monitoring Java or .Net applications

Monitoring Citrix Xen application

7.3%

24.7%

26.0%

30.0%

35.3%

36.0%

37.3%

39.3%

41.3%

0% 10% 30% 50%20% 40%

What are your organization’s “blind spots” for managing service performance?



How to Improve Performance Management CapabilitiesWe asked our respondents to identify the one area where they see the most room for improvement in performance management capabilities today. A majority of 67% would like to see solutions that help them determine when a user says “it is slow” where the real cause is (Network? Database? Application, VMware, Citrix?).

This mirrors the single biggest challenge our respondents listed – 54% of administrators often simply cannot tell the cause of a service slowdown, leading to frustrated end users, impacted business processes, lengthy repair cycles, and misallocation of resources. 63% of respondents are looking for performance management solutions that allow them to become more proactive and find problems before they impact service levels. 53% of respondents are looking for solutions that can monitor both virtual and physical machines, reflecting the new dynamics and inter-dependencies introduced by virtualization layers.


67% would like to see solutions that help them

determine the real cause when a user says “it is slow” - is it the Network? Database?

Application, VMware, Citrix?



Solutions that can help you determine when auser says “it’s slow” where the real cause is

(Network? Database? Application? VMware? Citrix?)

Solutions that help you become more proactive andto find problems before they impact your service

Other

Solutions that help you monitor parts of the infrastructureyou don’t have control over (e.g., monitoring someone

else’s applications that your application relies on)

Solutions that can monitor both virtual and physical machines

Solutions that provide more in-depth metrics into the performanceof specific applications or infrastructure components you control

2.1%

66.4%

63.6%

52.9%

49.3%

41.4%

0% 20% 40% 80%60%

If you were looking to improve the monitoring and performance managementof your IT infrastructure, you would look for...

When drilling a bit deeper into specific capabilities required for IT service performance monitoring and management, 66% of respondents are looking for a “general physician” type of solution that enables quick triage of service issues and identification of the root cause (rather than more specialist type “deep dive” tools).



Licensing and Delivery Models for Performance Management ToolsWe asked respondents how they preferred to have performance management systems delivered to them. Only 18% are likely to consider an outsourced monitoring and management service. SaaS-based delivery models are also not popular: only 28% of respondents preferred a SaaS or cloud based delivery model. Most prefer management software installed on premise (43%), and licensed perpetually or annually (43%). The growing expectation is also that the management software will be delivered as a virtual appliance (47%), rather than software that is installed on the customer’s servers.

Virtual appliance

Licensed software installed on premise

Software installed on premise and licensed annually

Software offered from the cloud as a service

Outsourced monitoring/management service

Other

Hardware appliance

2.3%

18.8%

27.8%

30.8%

42.9%

42.9%

47.4%

0% 20% 40%30% 50%10%

I prefer performance monitoring solutions to be delivered as...



Allows me to choose whether to use agent-basedand agentless monitoring

Agentless monitoring only

Agent-based monitoring only

Other76.7%

26.3%

18.8%

3.0%

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Agent or No Agent?Respondents were also asked about their preferences for agentless vs. agent-based monitoring solutions. Our results indicate that this old “battle” is more marketing hype than reality. The vast majority (77%) of respondents want to have both options in a performance monitoring and management solution, so they can pick and choose the monitoring mode to fit the specific requirements of each monitored system and situation.

I require performance monitoring solutions that support...



TRENDS IN ADOPTIONof Transformational IT Technologies

The following provides an overview of the environments managed by our survey respondents, in terms of infrastructure, scale and mix of physical, virtual and cloud technologies. The respondents were asked about their rate of adoption of transformational IT technologies.

Scale of the Infrastructure39% of our respondents have less than 50 physical servers, whereas 28% of our respondents have over 200 physical servers in their infrastructure. This spread was in line with the profile of organizations participating in the survey.

Adoption of Virtualization38% of our respondents have over 50% of their infrastructure virtualized. Clearly, virtualization is a mainstream technology for the enterprise. While 55% of respondents indicated that they are using virtualization for servers only, another 40% are using virtualization for servers and desktops. Only 5% of respondents are using virtualization only for their desktops (i.e., not for their servers).




Adoption of Desktop Virtualization75% of respondents who are using desktop virtualization indicated that they have less than one thousand virtual desktops deployed. 5% of respondents have over 10,000 virtual desktops deployed. Clearly, many are testing the utility and ROI of virtual desktops, while a few have adopted desktop virtualization on a very large scale.

Factors Limiting the Widespread Adoption of Virtualization TechnologiesThe respondents were asked what limited the widespread adoption of virtualization technologies. The number one factor was budget (44%). System complexity and performance concerns were joint second (40%). User experience issues were yet another factor (32%) holding back more widespread adoption of virtualization technologies.

Adoption of Cloud Computing81% of respondents have less than 25% of their applications in cloud environments (public or private), while only 8% of respondents have over 75% of their applications in cloud environments. Clearly, while many organizations are looking at cloud computing technologies, cloud computing is not yet mainstream in the enterprise.


If you have virtual desktops deployed, how many desktops

do you have virtualized?

Less than 1,000

1,001 to 5,000

5,001 to 10,000

More than 10,000

78.6%

13.3%

4.1%4.1%


PROFILE OF RESPONDENTS

This survey was conducted between November 1, 2011 and January 20, 2012 and elicited responses from 150 IT operations professionals in North and South America, Europe and Asia Pacific regions.

We believe that the responses to this survey are reflective of the needs of a majority of organizations as the profile of respondents is a representative sample, including IT operations professionals working in the finance and banking sector, government, education, system integrators, service providers, and value-added resellers of virtualization and management products.

While 40% of our respondents work for enterprises with 1,000 employees or more, about 45% work for organizations with less than 100 employees. The equal spread across large and small organizations means that the results of the survey are representative of the needs of both large and small organizations.




SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

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In summary, the enterprise performance management space itself is in a state of transformation. This is a result of two major trends:

1) Increased focus on the end user experience and the business process they support, and

2) Increased complexity and dynamics introduced by transformational IT technologies.

Many traditional performance management tools and practices are not equipped to manage the additional layers of abstraction as they have not been designed to handle the new and dynamic nature of inter-dependencies that virtualization technologies introduce.

Provides 360-degree service visibility across every layer and every tier - from desktops to applications, and from network to storage

Supports virtualized environments with performance correlation across physical, virtual and cloud tiers

Delivers deep, actionable insights into the true causes of cross-domain service performance issues

Enables administrators to pre-emptively detect, diagnose, and fix root-cause issues before users are impacted


This situation drives demand for a new,

holistic approach to managing performance

across the service chain.

This situation drives demand for a new, holistic approach to managing performance across the service chain that:


eG INNOVATIONS

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I hope you enjoyed reading the 2012 edition of the IT Performance Management Report.

Srinivas RamanathanSrinivas Ramanathan | President & CEO eG Innovations, Inc.

About eG InnovationseG Innovations provides intelligent performance management solutions that dramatically accelerate the discovery, diagnosis, and resolution of service performance issues in virtual, cloud, and physical service infrastructures. Only eG Innovations offers 360-degree service visibility with virtualization-aware performance correlation across every layer and every tier - from desktops to applications, and from network to storage. This unique approach delivers deep, actionable insights into the true causes of cross-domain service performance issues and enables administrators to pre-emptively detect, diagnose, and fix root-cause issues - before end users notice.

eG Innovations’ award-winning performance management and monitoring solutions are trusted by the world’s most demanding companies to enable delightful user experiences, keep mission-critical business services at peak performance, and deliver on the ROI promise of transformational IT investments. Customers include JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, Cathay Bank, AllScripts, Honeywell, Fidelity Investments, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Samsung, Xerox, Marathon Oil, McKesson and many more.

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Survey Report: Performance Management in Transformational IT Environments