In order to manage application performance, you need the help of lots of different types of vendors. These vendors fall into two major categories, the performance management system vendors, and the application delivery system vendors. Performance management system vendors provide understanding about performance so you can manage it better, and application delivery system vendors apply technology to actually accelerate and/or control application performance to directly improve the end user experience.

Performance management systems look into the labyrinth of servers, networks, and/or desktop machines to see how well it functions and determine how to make it function better. Application delivery systems change, pull, push, convert, protect and perform amazing feats to make applications perform better on existing servers and networks, and to make bad applications behave.

Here is our starter lineup of the vendors that fall into the performance management system and application delivery system camps. Note that lines of distinction are not always clear because some vendors fall into both camps, but we find that despite some overlap most vendors fall predominately into one camp or the other.

Performance Management Systems
AdventNet
AlertSite
Apparent Networks
Auditec
BEA
BMC Software
Brix Networks
CA
Centrisoft
Compuware
Coradiant
Digital Fuel Technology
Dot-Com Monitor
Empirix
Fluke Networks
Gomez
HP/Mercury
Hypersoft
IBM/Tivoli
Indicative Software
InfoVista
Ipswitch
Itheon Networks
Keynote Systems
Knoa Software
Macro 4
Managed Objects
NetIQ
NetQoS
NetScout
Nimsoft
Oblicore
OPNET Technologies
OpTier
Quest Software
ScienceLogic
SeaNet Technologies
Symphoniq
TeaLeaf
Viola Networks
Webmetrics
WebSitePulse
WildPackets
Xa Systems
Xangati

Application Delivery Systems
Akamai
AT&T
Blue Coat Systems
BT
CacheLogic
Certeon
Cisco Systems
Citrix Systems
Coyote Point
EdgeCast
Exinda
Expand Networks
F5 Networks
Internap
Ipanema Technologies
Juniper Networks
Limelight
Masergy
Mirror Image
Orange
Packeteer
Radware
Riverbed
Silverpeak
Stampede
Strangeloop
Stratacache
Vanco
Verizon
Zeus Technology

Let us know if you think we are missing an important vendor that should be added to our lists.

We will be providing thought pieces about application performance with input from these two vendor types. We will include their views, insights, case studies, and other information of potential interest to our readers. Note that we will not focus on "the latest boxes or software features" because that is covered by Ann Bednarz in her weekly newsletter.