Poor Application Performance Causes Significant Financial Losses

Compuware Corp announced the results of a study on application perfor­mance
conducted by Forrester Consulting and commissioned by Compuware. The study
revealed that 64 percent of respondents believe that poor application
perfor­mance results in significant financial losses for their organizations.
Despite these losses, the study also showed that IT still takes a costly and
reactive 'fire fighting' approach to application performance management (APM).

Additional highlights of the study include:

• 47 percent of respondents stated that end users complain of poor
  application performance even when monitoring tools say everything is on target
• 64 percent of the time problems are not discovered until end users call
  the service desk
• When application perfor­mance issues are uncovered, 55 percent of IT
  organizations have six or more people involved in troubleshooting, diagnosis
  and resolution of poor perfor­mance in an inefficient 'war room' setting
• 58 percent of respondents identify growing application complexity as a key
  challenge, an issue that Forrester predicts will accelerate with the
  introduction of applications based on services oriented architectures and
  virtualization technologies

These results show that traditional monitoring tools alone cannot effectively
identify performance issues and move IT organizations from reactive to proactive
resolution. Complete results of the study further detail the business and
technology problems that lead to these financial impacts, while high­lighting
recommendations for a more proactive, comprehensive approach to application
management.

In the study, Forrester Consulting stated, “IT organi­zations that do not
invest in application performance management tools that consoli­date data across
technology silos, including the multitude of applications that run in parallel,
will not be able to deliver a proactive, holistic, business-oriented service to
their customers.”

To meet these challenges, Forrester recommends a holistic approach to
application perfor­mance management including 'outside-in' service management,
which helps IT organizations understand services from the business perspective.
Forrester also recommends end-user-experience monitoring, as clients'
impressions are the most important aspect of application performance, and a move
toward proactive identification and resolution of performance problems.

“This study reflects the strong and interwoven connection between application
perfor­mance and business results. IT organizations need to start by
understanding application performance from the end-user perspective to become
proactive, to improve costly issue resolution and to avoid negative business
impact,” said Steve Tack, VP, Compuware.

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