Data from NetForecast's recently-completed APM best practices benchmarking survey definitively show that good APM processes deliver results. In fact, enterprises with best practices benchmark scores above six (on a 10-point scale with 10 being best) report 75 percent better results in three key performance areas than their counterparts with scores under five.
NetForecast has applied its best practices benchmarking methodology to more than 1000 enterprises over three years. We use insights from the data to improve the survey and discover new findings over time. In the most recent survey, 364 IT managers answered questions that enable us to rate how well the enterprise performs the four basic best practices of understanding, measuring, and communicating about application performance, as well as linking application performance to the business. We then asked direct questions about critical performance results.
As you can see in the following chart, the benchmark score results fall along a classic bell-shaped distribution curve. Forty percent of respondents fall into the low-scoring group, 40 percent into the high-scoring group, and 20 percent in the middle of the range. We chose to compare outcomes between the low and high groups to highlight any differences related to good APM process.
Compared to the bottom-scoring group, enterprises in the top-scoring group (see chart below):
- experience 75 percent fewer critical application problems,
- are 75 percent more likely to learn about performance problems proactively from their IT departments rather than reactively by users calling the help desk, and
- typically spend 4 hours to resolve application performance problems, compared to 16 hours for their low-scoring counterparts.