Application Performance Management
An overview of the marketplace, a look at the trends, and a perspective of the future
by Lynn Nye, APM Advisors
Published November 2003, Posted November 2003

Abstract:

A very wise consultant once said, “We’re just reinventing the wheel.” During the late 70’s and 80’s, IBM’s System Network Architecture, went through all the same evolutions to develop a system environment we are working through today. If you were around then, it’s pretty easy to align the developments in IP systems with those that occurred some 25 years ago.

The challenge for the industry and therefore their customers is that the new protocol structures (IP and his friends) don’t lend themselves to disciplines that enable information, resolution and control. In fact they are the antithesis of the very foundation of an APM system solution. Therefore the new wheel takes quite of bit of innovation and discipline.

The APM Paper takes a good look at the reality of the industry and delivers a picture of where we are today, what trends are developing and if the ‘wheel’ is being built, what’s next. As with any industry there will be a significant amount of attrition over the next two years, which will be painful for some, but just part of the process.

Every IT organization needs to have an APM strategy as a template for what types of products they are going to buy now and how they are going to begin to instrument the infrastructure. The industry needs to be a better partner in enabling the strategy and provide the foundations for instrumenting the value of their solution.

Without a wheel, we’ll never get this ‘thing’ on the road and we really need this ‘thing’ on the road!

About the author:

APM Advisors was founded by R. "Lynn" Nye Jr., who has nearly 20 years experience in the IT industry.

Lynn has an extensive and diverse background in the computer networking industry. Recently he has returned to independent consulting, after founding and developing Centrisoft Corporation. Centrisoft is recognized as being one of the most innovative companies within the rapidly growing Application Performance Management marketplace.

Prior to Centrisoft, Lynn ran a successful consultancy (NetResults), where he provided a variety of professional services to a variety of clients, wrote over 100 industry articles and columns, as well as developed and delivered seminars throughout the US and Europe.

Earlier at Sync Research, Lynn had the opportunity to assist a company evolve from an engineering organization to a product company. Developing the product plans, industry relationships and press contacts that established the company as a serious contender in the early 90’s. Lynn was a founding member of the Frame Relay forum and toured extensively speaking on the application of Frame Relay within enterprise networks.

His most valuable experiences came from his time at First Interstate Bank, where he obtained an extensive understanding of not only IT related technologies, but the critical relationship between business and IT. During his tenure at the bank, he led teams in deploying the banks first LANs, handling the shift in networking services during the divestiture of AT&T and implementing a PoS (Point of Sale) network.

This paper is reproduced by special arrangement with our partner, APM Advisors.