Do I Need APM?

While every IT organization provides services to its customer via online means, not all have the budget or necessity to employ them as part of their IT management strategy. How does an organization determine whether the benefit of employing APM will outweigh its cost? While the answer might not be so simple, there are some things to consider…

Challenge: How do we quantify the impact application performance has on business?

1) Itemize mission-critical application

• Calculate the average downtime of mission-critical applications and how much effect downtime has on business. If the mission critical application directly affects the bottom line of business and customers are very sensitive to downtime of services, APM solution is a must.

2) Diagram System Architecture related to mission critical application including the supporting systems. Show the importance of APM as part of Larger ITSM Strategy.

• Ex: web servers, application servers, and databases as well as any specific network components or external service providers. The more complex the web system architecture, the more necessary APM becomes. The same applies to how frequently the business requirement for your web system changes. If your mission critical applications are interfacing with many external systems or codes are in constant demand of change, use APM solution to protect your application from uncertain performance and human errors.

**Rule of thumb: For larger enterprise environments with over $50M in annual revenue, or that run more than 10 mission-critical applications, performance of enterprise applications usually directly affect the bottom line.

Based on the complexity in system architecture of enterprise web system and importance of services it provides, customer must decide whether a proactive approach to application performance management is essential then decide which application management service or sofware best meets its need.