Why Digital Experience Monitoring is Key in the Era of Cloud and SaaS

Welcome to the fast mode's 2021 dem survey

If you are a player in any of these segments: Network Performance Monitoring (NPM), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (ITIM), Application Performance Monitoring (APM), End User Experience Monitoring (EUEM) and Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM), we welcome you to participate in this survey and receive:

1. A free copy of the The Fast Mode DEM 2021 report which is expected to be published in Jan 2021

2. Complimentary brand mention and link-back to your solution website on The Fast Mode

3. Invitation to be featured on our 'Digital Experience – Telcos’ Next Gamechanger' editorial segment

All participation is free and we look forward to your responses. For more information, email tara.neal@thefastmode.com or just get started by filling the questionnaire below.

Name Organization Position Which of the following categories of monitoring tools do you have specific offerings for?

Network Performance Monitoring (NPM)

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (ITIM)

Application Performance Monitoring (APM)

End User Experience Monitoring (EUEM)

Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM)

Factors driving Cloud adoption

Please rate the impact of these factors in pushing Cloud adoption among enterprises:

least
impactful

most
impactful

1. Shifting of enterprise operational focus to end-product/end-service

2. Reduction in enterprise IT infrastructure overheads

3. Availability of fully-featured cloud offerings

4. Responsive, reliable and secure services from cloud providers

5. Scalability with support for virtualization and cloud native deployments

Factors driving move to SaaS

Please rate the impact of these factors in pushing enterprises’ decision to embrace SaaS:

least
impactful

most
impactful

1. Repositioning of enterprises as digital companies with focus on user experience

2. Reduction in enterprise IT overheads

3. Availability of niche applications for every business need

4. Superior application performance and performance management capabilities

5. Ease of deployment and scalability with account-based subscriptions

Growing breadth for IT monitoring

Following the adoption of Cloud and SaaS applications, usage of external applications, infrastructure, networks and devices is expected to grow many folds.
Based on the market you serve, what is the percentage of enterprises who have experienced the following:

Usage of external IT resources over the last 2 years

% of
enterprises

1. Number of SaaS applications accessed grew by 10 fold or more

2. Usage of third-party cloud computing resources grew by 10 fold or more

3. Number of external user endpoints grew by 10 fold or more (own laptops, smartphones etc)

Traditional IT monitoring limitations

What is your take on traditional IT monitoring?

not a
limitation

significant
limitation

1. Focused only on enterprise’s own IT assets

2. In-silo monitoring, focusing on either the network, infrastructure or application layer

3. Reliance on passive internal telemetry with no external benchmarking or active monitoring

4. IT-health focused as opposed to end user experience

5. Hardware dependent, e.g. requiring physical probes/monitoring appliances

Why DEM?

Enterprises with significant Cloud and SaaS adoption are moving to Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM), focusing on user experience metrics. Rate the following attributes by their influence on the adoption of DEM.

least
impactful

most
impactful

1. DEM metrics align more closely to an enterprise’s bottom line

2. DEM reflects the collective outcomes of all IT resources and services (internal and external) used by the enterprise

3. DEM includes the performance of all digital touch-points e.g. websites, mobile apps, social media, digital kiosks, etc

4. DEM reflects the total use of IT resources and services by including all user groups comprising humans, digital agents and machines (IoT-type)

Growing significance of Synthetic Transaction Monitoring (STM)

Within DEM, STM is expected to play a bigger role as it performs active monitoring of thousands of SaaS applications.

% of all user
experience monitoring

What percentage of all user experience monitoring (in the next 3 years) is expected to take place via STM (as opposed to other methods such as Real User Monitoring (RUM) and screen recording)?

Evolution of end user experience metrics

What weightages would you assign to each of the following metrics to create a final user experience score? Drag the boxes horizontally to change the weightages.

Webpage performance metricsfor example, page load times, webpage responsiveness, SSL latency, redirect latency, DNS resolution time, etc

Application transaction metricsfor example, time taken and completion rates for account creation, account log-in, checkouts, profile updates and information retrieval

Engagement and conversion metricsfor example, response rates on call-to-actions (clicks on ‘read more’ and ‘download now’ buttons and ad banners), time spent onsite and spend per visit

Others – please mention

Supporting enterprise multi-channel strategy

Should user experience metrics be expanded to measure experience relating to user interactions on the following digital channels?

Enterprise customer/stakeholder facing channels

YES

1. Enterprise customer service/self-service apps

2. Enterprise social media channels

3. Enterprise website chat tools/online helpdesks

4. Enterprise digital kiosks/interactive panels in physical stores

5. Enterprise online advertisements/contextual offers

Market potential for DEM

1. How many DEM deployments have you undertaken in the last 3 years?

2. How many new DEM deployments do you foresee implementing in the next 3 years?

3. (Answer only if you provide other IT monitoring tools apart from DEM) What percentage of your existing clients have already deployed DEM?

10.

DEM deployment models

Based on your DEM deployments to date, please state the share of each of the following models of deployment. Drag the boxes horizontally to change their share.

On-premise

In the cloud

‘as-a-Service’

11.

Extended DEM capabilities

Choose ALL the components/attributes that you currently offer or plan to offer in your DEM offering:

Monitored Components

1. Diagnosis and automated remediation for endpoints

2. Pro-active alerting

3. Continuous baselining of applications for KPI and SLA monitoring

4. Global coverage

5. Visibility into how third party services (for example APIs and content services) are impacting user experience

6. Customer journey optimization

7. Support for monitoring in virtualized IT environments

8. Support for monitoring in cloud native IT environments

12.

Outcomes of DEM

How has DEM enhanced your enterprise clients’ business goals? Choose ALL that apply.

Observed outcomes

1. Higher digital engagement (across web/mobile)

2. Higher conversion rates

3. Lower number of customer service calls/help-desk tickets

4. Lower volume of diagnostic and trouble-shooting activities

5. Faster resolution of issues

6. Optimization of IT and network resources

7. Increased user satisfaction

8. Improved readiness for a digital first organization

13.

Challenges of integrating DEM into existing monitoring mechanisms

When it comes to integrating DEM with existing monitoring tools, what percentage of your enterprise clients face the following issues?

Challenges

% of enterpise
clients

1. Lack of understanding of DEM

2. Lack of interoperability

3. Duplication of existing monitoring capabilities

4. Duplication of existing monitoring infrastructure (e.g. probes)

5. Lack of support for deployment in virtualized and cloud-native environments for one or more of the tools

14.

Challenges for DEM vendors in scaling up STM monitoring

Rank the following in terms of their COST and COMPLEXITY implications in instrumenting Synthetic Transaction Monitoring (STM) monitoring for SaaS applications globally: (1: Most costly, most complex)

Rapid increase in the number of enterprise SaaS applications

Expanding number of public cloud offerings

Growing number of network connections on fixed and mobile

Increasing types of end devices (personal laptops, smartphones, IoT/M2M endpoints)

Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) provides real-time identification and classification of IP traffic via content and metadata extraction. It provides application awareness, which enables users to identify application traffic and also establish end user experience metrics such as time to first byte and page load times while identifying users, devices and last mile connectivity for each type of application. DPI is also key in monitoring network performance with real-time identification of bandwidth, speeds, latency, jitter and security threats.

15.

Supporting STM with latest SaaS insights

DEM vendors require latest global, regional and local insights on the usage of SaaS applications so that they can identify the right applications to be added to their STM monitoring portfolio.

No
enhancement

Significant
enhancement

What level of enhancement can DPI’s capability of processing unlimited traffic flows and identifying latest applications on an IP network bring to this task?

16.

Supporting RUM and STM with granular classification of IP traffic

Before instrumenting Real User Monitoring (RUM) and STM for enterprises, DEM vendors require latest insights on enterprise content and application usage trends.

No
enhancement

Significant
enhancement

How does DPI’s ability to deliver granular level traffic intelligence across enterprise IP networks (WAN, LAN, data center networks and VPNs) enhance this task?

17.

Real-time analytics for RUM

Analysis of DPI data enables end user experience metrics (such as application page load times, time to first byte of applications) to be established in real-time across every identifiable application.

No
enhancement

Significant
enhancement

How will this enhance DEM’s existing capability in reporting end user experience metrics for DEM’ RUM?

18.

Network intelligence and diagnostics for encrypted traffic

With the growth in SaaS application traffic and with the rise in cybersecurity threats on today’s network, will traffic awareness on ENCRYPTED IP traffic enhance DEM’s monitoring and diagnostics capability?

a. No, I don’t think so

b. Yes, it will be a good-to-have capability for today’s DEM tools

c. Yes, it is an important capability for today’s DEM tools

d. Absolutely, it is a critical capability for today’s DEM tools

19.

DPI form factor and monitoring scalability

DPI comes in a light-weight, software-based form-factor and can be integrated as a component within networking solutions to deliver real-time application-level intelligence across any IP network.

yes

Do you agree that this quality can significantly contribute to the rapid expansion of DEM global monitoring networks?

20.

Incorporation of DPI capabilities in present DEM tools

Is DPI incorporated in your current suite of monitoring tools?

a. Yes, it is

b. Not yet, but we are in the midst of incorporating it

c. No, but we are interested to explore further

d. No, we have other technologies for packet-level visibility and application awareness