Almost every business says that the experiences of end users and customers are a top priority. Yet few – except recognised customer experience (CX) leaders – can claim their IT operations fully and reliably support fast, always-on and user-centred interactions.
While their business models and IT architecture might vary, there’s something CX leaders all share – a comprehensive, clear understanding of how network and application performance impacts on experience. In other words, they know experience is dependent on performance – and that’s why they invest in understanding their IT architecture with the latest data science techniques and technologies.
A complex picture of performance
Due to increasing complexity, it’s harder than ever to monitor, manage and assure network and application performance. Today, an array of applications (often business-critical) and different versions need to be supported which can be a monumental task for legacy IT systems. At the same time, the speed of business means there’s little or no tolerance for availability issues and performance degradations. And migrating to cloud can result in extra work and risk to consolidate and integrate infrastructure.
Meanwhile IT teams haven’t grown in line with the compute power and scope of services they now manage. So, they’re often limited by resources – both people and in-house skillsets. Last but not least, critical systems increasingly need to be open to third party integrations. Just a few of the reasons why, performance can be difficult to pin down.
So it’s no surprise that outdated performance assurance and monitoring tools, built for on-premise architecture, struggle with cloud, distributed and dynamic architectures. Microservices, containers, virtual machines, APIs and cloud services all make monitoring networks and applications, troubleshooting problems, understanding dependencies and diagnosing causes quickly even more challenging.
Performance management: how to up your game
Given the complexity of today’s IT architectures, a robust network and application performance management solution is vital. It’s a solid foundation for meeting current business needs and staying ahead of CX expectations.
With the right tools, diagnostics and solutions – like Pulse360 Performance – you can gain a comprehensive view across your IT landscape that helps you:
- Understand the performance experienced by end users
- Pinpoint the root cause of slowdowns quickly
- Optimise the use of your IT infrastructure
- Improve overall performance in the long term.
But if your performance management isn’t there yet, how do you make progress?
Spotting the signs
Knowing your performance management blind spots will help you improve how you monitor, manage and assure performance. They’ll help you align with the wider business strategy and set your goals accordingly. Here are some of the common areas – the obvious signs that you’re lacking the tools or unable to see the bigger picture when it comes to network and application performance management:
- It takes too long to troubleshoot
- You find out about problems from users
- Some persistent problems don’t seem to have a root cause
- New IT initiatives constantly bring new problems
- Performance data isn’t giving insights that IT managers and business leaders need.
Building the business case
Every sustainable IT strategy should include a comprehensive plan for performance assurance. The business case is simple: it enables waste reduction and a smarter use of resources. That’s why monitoring and management are critical in a hybrid cloud model where parts of your IT landscape are maintained by third parties and partners – increasing the potential for duplication. The more accurate, detailed and connected your performance data insights, the more effectively you can work with your vendors. Plus, performance assurance helps you utilise what you’re paying for and only pay for what you use.
Being faster to the root cause
Many businesses are becoming customer centric. In fact, the same technologies that are transforming CX are used by the latest network and application performance management solutions. Automation and data provide the keys. Together, they enable you to meet customers’ and employees’ growing expectations, and to fix immediate performance problems. Artificial intelligence and machine learning, for example, can detect patterns and distant correlations – and use predictive modelling to guide actions. These are now vital technologies to get to the root causes of issues sooner and respond smarter – before performance impacts CX.
Responding and predicting
Performance management analytics show you how your network and applications are performing right now. Real-time, data-driven network and application management dashboards help you track service levels across key business metrics – and react fast when you need to. Besides responding to immediate problems faster, you can also prevent future development mistakes. The right performance management tools show you specific pain points and opportunities for improvement. This saves time, money and effort when it comes to supporting future business needs and forecasting performance demands.
Discover more
SIRE uses Pulse360 Performance – a virtualised performance assurance platform. It delivers end-to-end network, application and service performance visibility that help you meet your CX goals, today and tomorrow. Together, the solution combines data, analytics and machine learning to identify, predict and prevent customer-impacting issues.
Find out more about Pulse360 Performance and sign up for your free 60-day licence today:
https://sire.co.uk/services/pulse360/performance/