INTELLIGENT CLOUD
Businesses are not only storing
information in the cloud as well as on local
systems, creating what are known as hybrid
environments, but they are also enabling
local and remote employees to access
that data from an increasing number of
connected devices, including smartphones,
laptops and tablets.
As a result, monitoring the performance
of all the applications and systems that
run across hybrid networks has become
more and more difficult, costly and timeconsuming for IT. Users expect anytime,
anywhere access to applications, and expect
performance levels to remain high. When
this is not so, users feel frustrated and
confused. Worse still, most IT managers
frequently feel in the dark about why their
enterprise applications are running slowly.
Executives can then add to the problem
by trying to work around it. It is increasingly
common for employees to use unsupported
applications when corporate applications
run slowly or stop working altogether, thus
adding to infrastructure complexity with
more shadow IT.
Better visibility by IT staff into application
performance can help close the application
performance gap, resulting in improved
productivity, customer service, product
quality, employee engagement and revenue.
For this, IT needs end-to-end, real-time
visibility across the entire network and all the
applications running on it.
Organisations should follow these four
steps before migrating their applications to
the cloud:
#1 Understand performance constraints
Network and application performance
monitoring solutions enable IT to quickly
identify and address any potential
performance limitations.
#2 Optimise network constraints
Determine how to overcome potential
bottlenecks such as distance, latency, loss
and disconnections. These often are the
largest performance constraint in today’s
cloud-centric global economy.
#3 Identify inefficiencies
Not all applications are of equal importance,
and therefore, not all require IT to allocate
equal amounts of bandwidth. IT should
determine whether it’s over-provisioning
and wasting bandwidth to non-critical
applications.
applications are performing, whether they
are on-premise or in the cloud can ensure
that IT stays on top of network blockages.
#4 Implement performance dashboard
Implementing a real-time performance
dashboard with advanced analytics enables
IT to quickly detect and remedy issues.
As organisations migrate their on-premise
applications to the cloud, and as user’s
expectations for optimal performance
continue to grow, closing the application
performance gap is taking centre stage.
However, if IT cannot stay in control
and move quickly to resolve application
performance issues, the gap will remain
open. Providing a clear view of how all
Taj ElKhayat is Regional Vice President, Middle
East and Africa at Riverbed Technology
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