Application and Network Performance Management in the Virtualization Age

Overview Even though the dot-com bubble and its collapse are now history, there is still no question that the information technology and networking markets love slogans or buzzwords, and "virtualization" is clearly one of the hottest. It's also clear that the focus on the slogan and expected value of virtualization may be distracting users from the implications, particularly the implications of virtualization on application and network performance management, monitoring, and service assurance.

Networking has always been about a kind of virtualization. A phone conversation is a virtual form of a physical meeting, and web pages virtualize addresses to URLs and remote servers to local storage. Networks are extenders, ways of breaking distance barriers between users and resources. This has happened in voice communications, and is now happening in video and data services. Each new networked application creates a new network dependency, a new set of interactions between workers or people that are hugely impacted by network failure. That is why each new networked application has to be addressed with an expanded strategy for monitoring the network to ensure the application is available at required service levels.