Many performance management tools today are not providing the necessary visibility into networks. Companies feel the pressure to adopt new technologies quickly, which leads to the disheartening realization that current performance management tools are not ideal for these state-of-the-art technologies. According to a study conducted by Dynatrace, the number of technology solutions for one transaction rose from 22 to 35 in five years. The same study found that “76 percent of CIOs are worried that IT complexity will make it impossible to manage performance effectively.”
Performance management is a critical process for enterprises to monitor their network and applications for any issues that might derail their services’ performance. Performance management tools provide network administrators with visibility into any performance roadblocks that negatively affect the end user’s experience. Standard tools to identify roadblocks include application performance management (APM), network performance management (NPM), and unified performance management (UPM).
Source: Dynatrace
Dynatrace Monitoring Solution: AI, Automation, Full Stack
Dynatrace’s monitoring tools address the growing complexity by collecting data in three ways: full stack, high fidelity, and in context. Full stack plays a central role in the company’s performance management strategy. The point of a full stack is to condense the number of performance management tools needed to monitor an entire network. A full stack solution is a UPM approach that includes visibility into end-user experiences, infrastructure, and log files.
Dynatrace’s approach to data visibility also includes implementing artificial intelligence into its performance management tools. The incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI) into its products started recently. In June 2017, the company launched its first monitoring solution using AI. The company’s first full stack, completely automated, and AI-driven solution was targeted at monitoring Cloud Foundry. According to Alois Reitbauer, the chief technical strategist at Dynatrace, the key is the BOSH add-ons, notably “when combined with the AI capabilities within Dynatrace, this allows organizations to obtain deep insights into microservice performance and service interactions.” The AI-powered virtual assistant for the cloud monitoring product is named davis.
Dynatrace doesn’t solely rely on AI and full stack to address performance management challenges. Rich Bentley, the company’s senior director of product marketing, states that it’s essential to combine AI with automation to have complete end-to-end visibility. Deploying its single agent, OneAgent, it automatically discovers the network environment from end-to-end.