Performance Management Trends in 2015

By Srinivas Ramanathan, CEO and founder, eG Innovations

For CIOs to achieve their performance management goals and remain future ready in 2015 they will need universal insight across the enterprise and timely, correlated information that enables data-driven decision making.

Here are the trends eG Innovations is expecting will impact business in 2015:

– Enable workspace flexibility. IT executives are being challenged to adopt and integrate mobile solutions at a blinding pace but 70% of end user devices cannot pass basic compliance and security tests, so introducing foreign devices on the corporate network poses serious risks. CIOs will need to ensure availability while managing access, device and user compliance and security, having universal insight across user and device profiles, approved and blacklisted apps, databases and domains will be critical to success.

– The borderless enterprise explosion will usher in a new era of compliance and security. The gaps and interdependencies between cloud, mobility, virtual and shared infrastructures, social media platforms and SaaS will inspire a renewed focus on compliance and security the way email, malware and network security have before. APM providers will be faced with some interesting choices; either acquire or develop additional internal compliance and security expertise, partner with an existing security provider or remain focused on their existing silo niche. CIOs will be left with deciding to go all-in with a security provider, purchase silo-centric solutions that provide limited compliance and security visibility, or evaluate and choose an APM NPM solution that meets most of their needs now as APM NPM compliance and security maturity continues to grow.

– Data is the new natural resource and almost as important as air and water. Ensuring on-demand availability of data and seamless collaboration via the cloud, across virtual networks, servers and storage will require that CIOs have complete and total visibility across platforms, domains, time zones and geographies in 2015. Ensuring maximum uptime, preventing downtime and performing root-cause analysis are now IT table stakes. Whereas having universal insight across the enterprise, providing a seamless user experience, preventing slow-time and increasing productivity via the borderless enterprise are the new business goals CIOs must be aligned with and focused on.

– Ensure IT effectiveness and business alignment. CIOs must align IT initiatives with desired business outcomes for productivity, growth and profit. APM historical performance reports provide the empirical data they need to help them balance workloads, right-size the enterprise and eliminate cost overruns so capacity planning meets the business needs of today while preparing for the emerging technologies of tomorrow.

– Deliver a positive user experience through enhanced service performance. End users judge their experience relative to their ability to be productive and complete an end goal. Whether end users are employees and partners seeking to work seamlessly between the office and a mobile device as they move across domains or customers accessing a web cart, they all expect apps and databases to be available, accessible and responsive. CIOs will rely heavily on APM solutions to provide KPI for user logons, average response time, page loads, app adoption, abandonment rates and other metrics to ensure that end users are happy and productive.

– Expanded use of KPI metrics. What started with call center, helpdesk and customer service metrics is expanding rapidly. APM solutions that can be adapted to collect KPIs for industry and role specific applications are influencing the decision making of CEOs, CFOs and other executives. APM solutions will be used to measure and determine the viability of pilot programs, industrial expansion and even the purchase of competing intellectual properties.

– Improve operational efficiency. Reliance on command line interfaces and technology trees is functional but outdated. CIOs will arm and empower IT managers, admins and specialists with APM solutions that are customizable, intuitive, integrate easily with existing NOC tools and provide a unified view of the enterprise. The end goal will be to accelerate time to resolution, eliminate guesswork, reduce dependency on multiple silo-centric tools with limited visibility and mitigate the impact that natural attrition has on tribal knowledge.

– XaaS becomes the new IT stack for Hybrid Cloud. The era of everything as a service has arrived. The development of virtual cloud and mobility apps are driving IT innovation and the consolidation of intellectual properties at a blinding pace. To maintain market share and demonstrate thought leadership traditional product centric companies will accelerate efforts to bring new XaaS offerings to market. The rollout and adoption of new service offerings like vDaaS, DRaaS, IaaS, MWaaS, PaaS, and WPaaS with grow and mature in 2015 and throughout the remainder of the decade.

– Containerization remains a test and development play, for now. Game changer, disruptive and death knell are all phrases tossed about when containerization solutions are discussed as an alternative to traditional virtualization but the reality is much less dramatic. Container solutions are well suited for accelerating Linux app portability and reducing associated overhead, Google and Facebook have deployed containers very successfully but their demands for rapid deployment and scale are different from most corporate customers. Until container solutions are cross compatible, offer mature management options and enhanced security capabilities expect containers to remain a solution for Linux test and development environments while traditional VMs meet the majority of data center production demands.

2015 will be a very interesting year as CIO thought leaders seek to improve the end user experience and enhance productivity within the enterprise.