eG News

In 2014, performance management will grow in importance with emphasis on adding more intelligent and flexible tools that will enable enterprises to do more with less and lower their total cost of operating complex IT infrastructures. The key considerations in 2014 will be:

1. Domain-specific Intelligence will Grow in ImportancePerformance Management
   
   For many years, the "how" to monitor has gained credence over the "what" to monitor. Enterprises have often focused on how management products work - agent or agentless, what protocols, etc. We expect this to change in 2014. As IT organizations come under pressure to do more with less, they will seek management tools that are more intelligent, can find problems without human intervention and in a proactive manner. To address this, management tools will need to embed a greater degree of domain expertise than they have done in the past. Collecting the key metrics, setting the right thresholds, and displaying the right reports out of the box will be some of the capabilities required from performance management tools.
2. Enterprises will Prioritize Management Tool Consolidation over New Acquisitions
   
   Enterprise customers will want to invest in new tools only if they absolutely have to. In that sense, enterprises will want to look for solutions that can address several of their needs so that they do not have to acquire multiple tools and look at integration between them. The ability to cover multiple areas of management (performance, configuration, availability, etc.), to support multiple technologies (e.g., application tiers), and to operate across multiple platforms (Unix, Windows, virtual) will be important criteria that enterprises will use to assess what management tools will work for them. When procuring new tools, customers will also focus on how these tools can be integrated into their current systems and processes.
3. Flexibility will be a Key when it Comes to Performance Management
   
   Enterprise infrastructures are being changed constantly and that will continue to be the case in 2014. From a performance management perspective, enterprise will want to look for solutions that can allow them the flexibility to manage different types of environments, so they do not get locked in to a specific hypervisor, or application type, but have the flexibility to reuse their existing management system for their new environments without a lot of additional investment.
4. Management has Always been about Big Data - Now, it will be about Automation
   
   IT managers and their management tools have always had to deal with lots and lots of metrics and event storms. In 2014, the focus will shift to intelligent analysis of the collected data. There will be pressure on IT organizations to do more with less and enterprises will seek tools that can help them make efficient use of their IT operations teams. Proactive alerting, predictive reports, accurate and automated root-cause diagnosis, single click problem isolation will all be capabilities that will help enterprises lower their total cost of operating complex IT infrastructures.
5. New Technologies will Create New Opportunities
   
   Mobility, BYOD and virtual desktops will all continue to gain foothold in the enterprise. The success of these new technologies will be closely tied to the performance that users can experience when using these technologies. Performance management will therefore grow in importance in these areas, providing scope for innovation and new solutions in the areas of mobility management, VDI management and so on.
6. Enterprises will make the Shift from Silo to Collaborative Management
   
   In 2014, IT organizations will feel increased pressure from their lines of business. To meet the expectations of their lines of business, IT organizations will have to ensure that there is less finger pointing and that they are working together for the success of the business. Collaborative management will be a theme and organizations will be looking to provide a greater degree of performance visibility across their individual silo tiers to the help desk, so it is easier and faster to troubleshoot problems and identify the tier that is responsible for a problem.