A featured article of CIO magazine’s February issue- APM is a must not an option.

A featured article of CIO magazine’s February issue!

APM is a must not an option.

APM becomes an indispensable IT infrastructure to achieve consumer satisfaction.

In the past, most companies considered application performance management (APM) as a database performance management (DBMS). However, people gradually ask the needs of APM which monitors WAS (Web Application Server) and even response time of end user PC not just want to monitor DB. Therefore, the APM market has evolved dramatically. Currently, APM industry started to cover ERP area and it will gradually grow as it becomes an essential infrastructure of IT industry.

Reported by Ho-chon, Ahn hc_an@ciokorea.com

1. Why APM? 2. Market trend of APM 3. User’s feedback and case study

1. Why APM?

Reduce the Time of Error Determination and Recovery

The terminology of APM (Application Performance Management) is well-known to people 3-4 years ago. As IT environment of enterprise business has changed into J2EE /web services, people started to have an attention to APM which has close relationship with consumer satisfaction. As a result, APM business has grown dramatically. Today’s business environment is e-business oriented so IT infrastructure is getting complicated. That’s why companies tend to invest a lot of money and human resources in IT infrastructure in order to optimize IT infra and consistently maintain services. Despite of those efforts, companies do not manage the infrastructure effectively because increasing data and system complexity trigger delayed service response time and performance problem. It is difficult to detect the root cause of performance problem because the problem occurs usually in internal side of complicate application under multi-layered environment with WS, WAS, DBMS, and so on. To reduce the time of application problem determination and recovery is closely related with company’s competitiveness. Therefore, the importance of APM is highly emphasized in mission-critical industry.

Market Segmentation of APM

APM market has evolved usually focusing on DB and WAS but now, it even covers end-user service, consulting and other system part such as ERP. If such areas are included in APM market, the market size of APM will be reached at 1 billion dollars. Then, why experts segment APM market into multi-level?

Director of KWISE, APM solution provider, Jin-mock, Kim explained about market background. He said “After mid 90s, APM tool has developed in DB monitoring area and the solution focused on end-user response time monitoring in the early of 2000. Recently, J2EE monitoring solution has emerged. After system level solution has provided, APM tool also provided upon different level. System level has evolved from 2 levels of DB and end user service into 3 levels (including WAS). According to such trend, various solution for each level appeared in the market and APM tool was also developed for each level. Naturally, APM solution has divided based on the time of launching and monitoring target.
2. Market Trend of APM
Rapid Progress of Korean Vendors
Tree years ago, a leader of APM business was foreign vendor such as Wily and Symantec. They also emphasized the importance of APM. A vice director of HP Korea, Sang-mi, Ahn said “Mercury and BMC announced CMDB and BSM strategy and tried to find out application problem and error in service level. Most system error usually occurs in application so people notice the needs of APM. Most popular APM solution was Wily Introscope in home and abroad until the early of 2000. Along Wily, Symantec and compuware also supplied APM solution. However, market trend of APM has rapidly changed in 2005. JenniferSoft established in 2005 surpasses foreign vendors and other Korean domestic vendors such as Tmaxsoft, Baseware, IPMS, etc jumped into the APM business. In terms of EUS (End User Service) monitoring solution, foreign IT developing company, Compuware and Korean company, Baseware are competing fiercely. However, many Korean companies overtakes foreign global companies in WAS and DBMS area.

Competitiveness in Low Price and Customizing Service

Then, why Korean S/W vendors occupy Korean APM industry? It is because of IT environment and price competitiveness. At first, domestic company acquires cutting-edge technology in J2EE (WAS) industry. As internet service has widely spread in Korea, many Java developers educated. Another factor is that Java language is developed latest so Korean Java developers can improve their technology. Comparing to H/W, DB and Network, there was enough ime to develop the technology. In WAS industry, Korean developers continuously study the technology so Korean vendors can have competitive edge. They also provide high-level of customizing service to customers unlike foreign companies. Low price policy is another competitiveness of Korean APM solution. In case of DBMA, foreign solution has already lost price competitiveness. When we classify APM functions in DB into two categories, they are error monitoring for prevention and performance tuning. In terms of performance tuning, the quality of foreign solution is high. However, Korean solution is more powerful in terms of monitoring function.

Spreading into Non-banking Sector

The largest APM solution provider is JenniferSoft in Korea. It was established in 2005 and has overtaken Wily in a very short period of time and finally became the leader of APM industry. CEO of JenniferSoft, Won-young, Lee said “Currently, it’s very difficult to find out foreign APM solution in Korean market. From last year, major SI companies suggest APM solution when they hand on RFP and such market trend will be continued.” He added “Consumers prefers point solution which satisfies their needs. APM solution should have powerful monitoring function and easy to use for working level group, usually engineers. If the solution has only too many functions, user would not use it. To vitalize APM industry more, vendors should develop simple and point solution. APM solution is disseminating throughout banking area, government and university. In the potential sector is manufacturing area which has a lot of big corporations instead of communication industry. Mr. Lee also said “Non-banking sector is also potential market to us. Now, APM is considered as an one of the most essential infrastructure in IT industry.” He thinks current APM market is booming.

Pursuing Unique Value

Like above-mentioned, the success factor of Korean solution is customizing service and price competitiveness. And foreign solution doesn’t provide intuitive graphic dashboard and give heavy load on the system. Of course, it is difficult to install. However, foreign vendors point out different and unique value. Vice director of HP, Sang-mi, Ahn said “We think APM market is niche market. It is good sign domestic Korean vendors are growing in the niche market. However, HP focuses on another level of value.” She also said “APM is a small part of IT business and we need to focus on larger scale of business value. And needs of APM is increasing. However, performance problem should be solved with a broad point of view, not just focusing on simple cause.” Therefore, he emphasized BSM (Business Service Management) concept. BSM covers business service, application and business mapping part not just infra and application management. She pointed out “When we hand on RFP, engineers complain it is very difficult to integrate and evaluate the performance result because there are so many solutions per each task. Therefore, we will focus on the strategy throughout all levels of enterprise business.

(figure ? Performance management suggested by HP.ppt)

Competition is getting fierce

Compuware’s Vantage and Baseware’s SoundBPM will compete in EUS industry and JenniferSoft’s Jennifer and Tmaxsoft’s Sysmaster will lead the WAS industry in the APM market of 2008. In addition, KWISE’s Pharos is also targeting WAS market. In DBMS market, Ex-em Maxgage, IPMS’s DB Wind will compete. APM is evolving as an end-to end solution covering DB, WAS and even ERP solution. Jin-mock, Kim, director of KWISE said “APM solution helps to improve application quality and it is considered as a must not an option I web-based IT environment.” And “To provide seamless service to customer, companies will have to adopt APM solution.”

3. User Feedback/ Case Study

[Industry : Manufacure] [Solution : KWISE’s Paros] [Applying part : EUS, WAS]

“A manufacturer” was using Symantec’s i3 and KWISE’s Paros at the same time. However, as internal needs for real-time monitoring increasing, the company adopted Paros to achiever system stability An engineer of “A” manufacturer said “The existing solution didn’t provide enough real-time monitoring function but analyzes problem through historical data. However, Paros enables to monitor the data in real-time. We adopted Paros 4 months ago and during the period, many performance problems have monitored. There are several company sites in our company and Paros monitors such numerous sites through integrate dashboard. Therefore we saved working hours effectively.” He added “Paros has competitiveness in terms of price and function as well as technical support and consulting service.”

[Industry : Finance] [Solution : JenniferSoft’s Jennifer] [Applying Part : WAS]

“B” financial company adopted Jennifer two years ago. An engineer said “JVM in WAS considered as a kind of black box in the airplane. We used ineffective way to monitor log or port. Due to such difficulties, we adopted ‘Jennifer”. He added “When we had a BMT, there were many solutions having various functions, but they give heavy load on our system.” Currently, “B” financial company uses Jennifer’s PLC (Peak Load Control) function very effectively. PLC function monitors bad response time due to the performance problem in application and sudden increase number of applications. An officer of the company emphasized that Jennifer prevents WAS system down by crating a separated load monitoring dashboard. He said “If we didn’t adopt Jennifer, it would be very difficult to find out the root cause of the problem. We achieved system stability than system improvement.” He added “We separated our server based on each task, but can detect problem intuitively because Jennifer provides an integrate dashboard. Even my CIO, not an engineer monitors and analyzes performance problem due to Jennifer’s readability.