IT Monitoring Tool Gaps are Impacting the Business A survey of IT Professionals and Executives June 2018 1
Executive Summary This research finds that large enterprise customers and employees endure a substantial number of application outages and performance issues every year. An overwhelming number of those surveyed indicated that an application performance slowdown is just as business impacting as a full outage. IT pros shared that infrastructure issues cause nearly half of all application problems. Despite having numerous IT monitoring tools, half of those surveyed indicated their tools don t provide complete visibility for triage or daily management. This finding leads to IT pros reporting they too often operate in a reactive manner, resulting in 3 out 4 companies failing to consistently identify root cause within 24-hours. Only 1 out 10 companies can consistently meet their MTTR SLA. This lack of visibility and proactive performance capacity load testing contributed to a lack confidence by those surveyed that their current infrastructure could meet performance requirements over the next two years. Although this research indicates IT pros do not have access to proper tools, nearly all shared they feel they are being held personally responsible for application issues and outages. 2
Key Findings Companies Suffer Frequent Business Impact 86% of users experience 2 or more outages and significant performance slowdowns per year 61% of users suffer 4 or more outages or slowdowns each year Poor Tools Drive Slow Resolution 59% of application outages and performance problems are related to infrastructure 54% of all companies lack full application & infrastructure visibility 42% of companies operate primarily in reactive mode when managing infrastructure Only 11% of companies continuously meet their MTTR SLAs DevOps Gaps 62% lack confidence that current infrastructure can meet projected 2-year performance needs 3
DETAILED FINDINGS 4
86% of Users Experience 2 or More Outages Every Year 40% 38% 35% Approximately, how often do your users experience application outages? 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 11% 17% 11% 20% 5% 3% 0% Once per year 2 3 times per year 4 5 times per year 6 10 times per year More than 10 times per year Never 5
68% State that Application Performance Issues are as Business-Impacting as an Outage From a users perspective, is an application performance issue as business-impacting as an outage? No, performance issues are not as business-impacting as outages 32% Yes, performance issues and outages are equally businessimpacting 68% 6
61% of Users Suffer 4 or More Significant Application Performance Slowdowns Each Year 35% 30% 30% Approximately, how often do your users experience significant application performance issues (slowdowns)? 25% 20% 15% 10% 12% 25% 20% 11% 5% 2% 0% Once per year 2 3 times/year 4 5 times/year 6 10 times/year More than 10 times/year Never 7
Largest Enterprises Have Significantly More Application Outages and Slowdowns 10 or More Outages per Year 12% 10 or More Performance Issues per Year 88% 67% 33% 5,000 10,000 More than 10,000 8
79% of Application Outages and Issues Affect Customers Employees 86% When application outages or performance issues occur, who is affected? Customers Partners Suppliers 35% 51% 79% All of the above 25% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% 9
59% of Application Outages and Problems are Related to Infrastructure In your opinion, which of the following is the most common cause of application outages and performance slowdowns? Application related 34% Environmental 7% Infrastructure related 47% Unexpected workload shifts 12% 10
Nearly Half of Infrastructure Outages are Related to Storage Network issue (LAN/WAN) 71% Over the past two years, which of the following have caused infrastructure-related outages or slowdowns at your company? Server issues (server hardware, VM, hypervisor) Storage or I/O-issues Storage network-related issues (NAS/SAN) Datacenter wide power failures Other 6% 24% 42% 46% 66% We have not experienced an infrastructure related outages or slowdowns 3% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 11
71% Use More Than 5 IT Infrastructure Monitoring Tools 40% 37% 35% Approximately, how many IT infrastructure monitoring tools are in use today at your company? 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 29% 19% 7% 8% 0% Less than 5 5-10 11-20 21 and 50 More than 50 12
54% of All Companies Lack Full Application & Infrastructure Visibility Minimal application and infrastructure visibility 3% At your company, how comprehensive are the tools used by operations teams for issue resolution? Full application and infrastructure visibility 46% Limited application and infrastructure visibility 51% 13
42% of Companies Operate Primarily in Reactive Mode when Managing Infrastructure In general, do your company s infrastructure performance management tools provide alerts to proactively resolve issues before they affect users? No, we mostly react once issues occur 42% Yes, we are notified of potential issues 58% 14
75% Cannot Consistently Provide Rapid Application Issue Identification Rarely 2% When users experience application outages or slowdowns, how often is IT able to identify the root cause of the problem within 24 hours? Always 25% Some of the time 16% Most of the time 57% 15
Only 11% of Companies Continuously Meet Their MTTR SLAs Always 11% Rarely 3% Never 1% How often are the operations teams able to meet SLAs for mean time to resolution (MTTR)? Some of the time 16% Most of the time 69% 16
38% State Infrastructure Issues are the Most Challenging to Resolve In your opinion, which of the following issues do you feel are the most difficult to resolve? I/O issues (VM or application to storage) 17% Network issues (LAN/WAN) 21% Application-related issues 32% All are equally difficult to resolve 30% 17
35% Have Zero Visibility into the Impact of Changing Application Workloads Do your company s performance management tools enable the team to understand the impact of changing workload patterns within shared infrastructure environments which supports multiple applications? No, we have no visibility into the impact of changing workloads 35% Yes, we have visibility into the impact of changing workloads 65% *Participants with shared infrastructure 18
62% Lack Confidence That Current Infrastructure Can Meet Projected 2-Year Performance Needs Over the next 2 years, how confident are you that your company s current infrastructure will meet application performance requirements? 38% 46% 13% 3% High confidence Moderate confidence Low confidence No confidence 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 19
IT Pros Indicate Cloud and On-Prem Have Similar Risk for Outages and Slowdowns When considering potential outages or slowdowns, are you more worried about public cloud infrastructure or your internal IT infrastructure? Public cloud infrastructure 30% Both, they are the same 31% Internal infrastructure 39% 20
49% Utilize a Collaborative Team Approach to Assess Application Performance Requirements Who provides the application workload performance requirements for new infrastructure? Engineering or operations 16% Vendor or integrator 7% We don't establish performance requirements for new hardware 5% Engineering, operations and application teams working together 49% Application team 23% 21
51% Fail to Test or Simulate Application Growth for Performance Capacity Planning Analyzed application workload behavior or patterns 62% Which of the following tasks have been performed as part of your company s infrastructure capacity planning? Analyzed infrastructure utilization trends Simulated and tested projected application growth Utilized vendor or integrator provided sizing information 49% 47% 56% We don't perform capacity planning 6% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 22
63% of IT Pros Often Held Personally Responsible for Outages and Slowdowns Never 10% Always 9% How often do you feel that you are personally being held responsible for outages and slowdowns? Rarely 27% Some of the time 30% Most of the time 24% 23
65% Concerned About Infrastructure Team Continuing to Provide Value With an increasing number of applications being deployed in public clouds, are there concerns about the perceived value of the internal IT infrastructure team to the business? No 35% Yes 65% 24
METHODOLOGY AND PARTICIPANTS 25
Goals and Methodology Research Goal Methodology The primary research goal was to understand the current state of application performance issues and outages, and their causes, for large enterprises. Research also focused on IT tools used to monitor and remediate application issues. IT professionals and executives worldwide were invited to participate in a survey on application performance, IT tools and issue resolution. The survey was administered electronically and participants were offered a token compensation for their participation. Participants A total of 401 participants having direct IT responsibilities completed the global survey. Participants represented each of the five continents 26
Companies Represented Location Industry United States or Canada 82% Technology Financial Services 17% 28% Europe 10% Healthcare Manufacturing 8% 13% Retail 7% Asia 3% Telecommunications 5% Energy and Utilities 5% Middle East or Africa 2% Services Food and Beverage 4% 4% Mexico, Central America, or South America 2% Transportation Pharmaceutical Hospitality and Entertainment 2% 2% 1% Australia or New Zealand 1% Media and Advertising Other 1% 4% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 27
Companies Represented Company Size 5,000 10,000 27% More than 10,000 73% 28
Individuals Represented IT Responsibilities Role IT Infrastructure (architecture, engineering, operations) Applications (delivery, operations, management) 42% 57% Operations admin or other individual contributor 9% Application owner 5% Architect / Engineer / Technology strategist 39% IT Executive (applications, infrastructure, storage) 38% Executive 19% Storage (architecture, engineering, operations) 29% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% Mid-level management 28% 29
For more information About Dimensional Research Dimensional Research provides practical marketing research to help technology companies make smarter business decisions. Our researchers are experts in technology and understand how corporate IT organizations operate. Our qualitative research services deliver a clear understanding of customer and market dynamics. For more information, visit www.dimensionalresearch.com. About Virtual Instruments Virtual Instruments is the leader in application-centric infrastructure performance management. It provides comprehensive IT infrastructure performance monitoring and analytics for enterprise data centers. The company s solutions give IT teams deep workload visibility and actionable insights into their end-to-end systems across the hybrid data center. Virtual Instruments empowers companies to maximize the performance, availability and utilization of their production IT infrastructure. For more information, visit www.virtualinstruments.com. 30
APPENDIX 31