User-Centric Proactive IT Management

Overview

According to Enterprise Management Associates (EMA)^[1], proactive management – the detection of application-related problems before they begin to impact users – is one area where Information Technology (IT) services have been losing ground. In addition, Forrester Research asserts that in 74% of the reported help desk cases^[2], IT first learns about performance and availability problems when the users call the Help Desk.

User-centric, proactive IT Management addresses this critical problem by empowering enterprises to attain the required service levels demanded by users, while containing the costs associated with a real-time enterprise.

User-centric Proactive IT Management Solutions

1. Application Performance Management (APM): The process and use of related IT tools to detect, diagnose, remedy and report application’s performance to ensure that it meets or exceeds end-users’ and businesses’ expectations. Depending on the solution provider, there are various approaches to track application performance, including end-user experience monitoring, user-defined transaction profiling, and application component deep-dive monitoring. Vendors using various approaches for APM include Hewlett-Packard (Business Technology Optimization software), CA Inc (Wily product), and Compuware (Gomez).^[3]

According to Aberdeen ^[4] many companies who utilize application performance management are indeed able to capture a great deal of information about application performance, but they are not able to improve usability of this data. This is because existing application performance management products are data-center focused, and they do not provide enough visibility into end user experience. End user experience is defined by the three primary components that dynamically interact to constantly impact how end users experience the IT Services they consume in real-time: real & virtual desktop performance, latency, response time and user productivity.

2. Frontline Performance Intelligence (FPI): According to Aternity, Inc,^[5] an Intel Capital portfolio company, FPI is used by Fortune 500 companies to gain the agility required to address end user issues before they impact business results. FPI is the result of the real-time aggregation, analysis, correlation of all the performance metrics that define and impact real end user experience. By transforming end user experience metrics into actionable business intelligence, the patented Frontline Performance Intelligence platform becomes a strategic business enabler.

3. End-User Centric IT Management: In early 2010, Forrester Research published an opinion piece that expanded the boundaries of end-user monitoring beyond the purview of application performance management. Forrester believes that end-user metrics "will have a greater role to play in the future IT enterprise, simply because the wealth of information that can be collected at the desktop level goes way beyond IT operations and application development and reaches into the fiscal and global management of IT." ^[6]

References