EMA Radar™ for Application-Aware
Network Performance Management
Q3 2010 Summary
By Jim Frey, Research Director
Enterprise Management Associates (EMA)
July 2010

IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING

IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING

Table of Contents
Executive Summary..............................................................................................................................................1
Introduction and Methodology..........................................................................................................................1
Application Awareness in Network Performance Management..................................................................3
Criteria.....................................................................................................................................................................4
Cost Efficiency.......................................................................................................................................................5
Deployment & Administration ...................................................................................................................5
Cost Advantage...............................................................................................................................................7
Product Strength...................................................................................................................................................7
Architecture & Integration ..........................................................................................................................7
Functionality .........................................................................................................................................................9
Vendor Strength.................................................................................................................................................. 11
EMA Radar Map for Application Aware Network Performance Management.................................... 12
General Findings................................................................................................................................................ 13
ANPM and MSPs............................................................................................................................................... 13
Distribution of Results...................................................................................................................................... 14
Value Leaders...................................................................................................................................................... 14
Strong Value........................................................................................................................................................ 14
Specific Value...................................................................................................................................................... 17
Other Solutions Providers of Interest........................................................................................................... 17
Exceptional Characteristics.............................................................................................................................. 17

EMA Radar™ for Application-Aware Network Performance Management Q3 2010 Summary©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING

Executive Summary

Monitoring network performance is an essential practice in today’s IT operations environments, as ameans of assuring the network’s critical role in supporting the served organization is being adequately
fulfilled – not just in terms of availability, but also in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. As IP
networks themselves become increasingly stable and reliable, operational focus has turned to developing a better, more discrete understanding of how the services and applications crossing the network
are performing, and the level of quality which IT end users, customers, and partners are experiencing inaccessing and utilizing them. This Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) Radar™ Report reviews
18 (eighteen) providers of Application-Aware Network Performance Management (ANPM) solutions
and compares their ability to deliver basic and advanced application awareness across a range network
and application technologies.

Introduction and Methodology

In the development of this Radar Report, EMA engaged eighteen top providers of ANPM solutions
in a detailed analysis of the scope and capabilities of their offerings. The solution providers represent arich cross-section of the IT management tools landscape, ranging from small to very large, from pure
software to appliance-only, and from point products to extensive multi-component/multi-function
suites. ANPM solution providers covered in the report are: Apparent Networks, ASG, CA Technologies,
Compuware, Dorado Software, ExtraHop Networks, Visual Network Systems, InfoVista, Lancope,ManageEngine, NetScout Systems, Network Instruments, OPNET Technologies, Plixer International,
Quest Software, SevOne, SolarWinds, and WildPackets.
An extensive questionnaire was developed and presented to solution providers for their input, covering
details regarding architecture, integration, functionality, deployment, administration, cost, and vendor
strength. EMA supplemented responses with dialog, product demonstrations, and reviews to ensurethat each solution was represented fully, honestly, and fairly. EMA also interviewed over twenty
end-user customers of the solutions being reviewed – in some cases more than one per solution
provider – in order to validate vendor claims. The degree to which customers were readily provided
and available for dialog was one of the many indicators used for validating ANPM solutions.
Finally, and importantly, EMA leveraged ongoing industry dialogs and extensive existing knowledge of
the ANPM solution space to evaluate, consider, and validate each vendor’s strengths and limitations ina manner that is focused on providing balanced, consistent insights across all vendors and solutions.
EMA has produced a report specially targeted at presenting and explaining Radar Reports in general:
How to Use the EMA Radar Report, EMA, April 2010. The goal is to use a combined approach forquantitatively and qualitatively evaluating providers of solutions in a particular IT management
functional area and presenting their relative differences in a clear, graphical format. Also included isa detailed discussion of individual criteria and how each participating solution provider rated versus
those criteria.

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IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
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Figure 1: The EMA Radar is optimized to show how vendor solutions cluster in terms of two primary axes: Vendor Strength (architecture,
integration, functionality) and Cost Efficiency (ease of administration, deployment, support & services, costs advantage)

Quoting from How to Use the EMA Radar Report, “No analysis of this type can tell you which vendor
is best for you. The data collected for an EMA Radar Report can certainly be used to make that determination, but it must be applied to the specifics of your current environment, level of maturity, andgoals and priorities. Since the authors of any given Radar Report do not have your unique specifics,
the Radar Report can only be a starting place and a guideline. It can inform you of the market andshort-cut your process to developing a short list.”
Functionality

Functionality

Architecture &Integration

Deployment &Administration

Vendor Strength

Cost Advantage

Strong Product – Higher Price

Deployment &Administration

Architecture &Integration

Cost Advantage

Vendor Strength

Specialized Product – Low Cost

Figure 2: Radars for each vendor solution are included in the full report and show a fiveaxis contrast between the average profile and the vendor in question.

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IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
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Application Awareness in Network Performance
Management

Network management is considered by many to be a well-developed, mature discipline, with roots
extending back to the first computing networks. Network performance management is a relatively
newer phenomenon, though it too has been around for a considerable period of time. The latest comerto the game is application awareness built into and on top of network performance management. As
IT operations teams make the transition from tactical firefighting to strategic, proactive assurance, oneof the most important unifying and enabling angles has been widespread awareness of the need tounderstand IT user experience. And what IT users experience is not the network – they experience theapplications and services that the network delivers. Consequently, building awareness of applications
and services and how they are traversing the network has arguably become one of the most important
focal points for expanding network operations practices today.
Starting with the advent of RMON over 20 years ago, early network management technologists recognized that application and service information is available from the network perspective, if you know
where and how to look for it. And while RMON itself is no longer a primary nor broadly usedfoundation, the idea of putting the health and operation of the network in context with the payloads
being delivered has become an indispensable aspect of responsible management practices.
Today’s application-aware network performance management (ANPM) solutions are many and varied,some of them are delivered by independent software vendors, some of the technology is contributedby network equipment vendors, and some of the solutions are part of large software vendors’ offeringsof multipart integrated management suites. The techniques being used to deliver application awarenessare similarly varied, though essentially clustered around four key mechanisms:
1.	Packet inspection – This technique is perhaps the most comprehensive, and delivers application visibility by looking into packet headers as well as deeper packet contents in order torecognize and monitor application and service use by user, allow detailed application transaction analysis, support detailed and definitive troubleshooting, and enable reconstructive/
forensic study. Packet inspection can deliver visibility up and down the stack, across network
and application layers and can be used to calculate response times and latencies – the heart ofend-user experience measurement.
2.	Flow records – These are transaction records issued by network infrastructure elements, andprovide information regarding who is using the network, what applications and services arebeing used, and how well those applications or services have been delivered. The most typicalindustry example of flow records is NetFlow from Cisco, but there are many other essentially similar variants, such as JFlow, NetStream, cflow, IPFIX (an industry standard) and thestatistically sampled sFlow. Flow records provide extensive traffic intelligence, but cannot be
used alone for detailed application analysis, determination of response times, or recognitionof errors.
3.	Passive and Synthetic agents – Passive agents are software elements installed on either end
client systems or servers which observe and report traffic statistics including response times.
Synthetic agents generate test traffic in a variety of patterns to assess both availability andperformance of specific applications or services and characterize various aspects of a simulatedtransaction or user experience. IP SLA (a Cisco device feature) is commonly used as a type ofsynthetic agent, which can take a range of test measurements between Cisco infrastructuredevices and end-test targets.

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4.	Log file analysis – Valuable application-oriented activity records can be found in syslog andsimilar data files which capture activities and events from various viewpoints within the
network-connected infrastructure. Log files are not typically considered a primary source of
ANPM metrics; however, they can provide an importantly complementary set of data points
for monitoring and troubleshooting when used in conjunction with one or more of the otherthree types.
ANPM solutions utilize one or more of these data source types by collecting application-aware performance data and delivering the following major categories of functionality:
1. Application discovery, recognition, and monitoring – this is the primary area that differentiates ANPM from simpler NPM solutions – the ability to discern individual applications andservices from broader measures of traffic volume and utilization.
2. Troubleshooting and analysis – most ANPM solutions are purchased and deployed for the
purposes of delivering troubleshooting and deep, often “expert” analysis capabilities to accelerate incident response times and restoration of services.
3. Capacity planning – detailed insights into how the network is being used and what (and who)is driving traffic growth are available from ANPM solutions and are fast becoming essential
information for best practices in network engineering and planning
4. Collaborative reports and dashboards – the ANPM field of vision is where the businessmeets technology and represents a means for understanding how well the applications andservices upon which the organization depends are performing. But none of that value canbe fully realized without effective methods for sharing insights and intelligence, both acrossdomain silos within IT as well as with served constituencies such as end users, customers, andpartners.
In order to be included in this EMA Radar Report, ANPM solution providers needed to offer all fourof the major functionality categories listed above and must have direct support within their own (internally-developed) products for at least one of the three primary ANPM data source types – packets,
flow records, or agents.

Criteria

In all EMA Radar Reports, EMA evaluates solutions based on five key areas: Deployment andAdministration, Cost Advantage, Architecture and Integration, Functionality and Vendor Strength. The last
category, perhaps the only one that’s not self-explanatory, is focused on the market and industry
presence, vision, and financial stability of the vendor. In each of the evaluation areas, EMA createda “superset” of capabilities spanning the known solutions in the marketplace, added questions about
new and emerging areas (e.g., virtualization and cloud), and balanced the result with standard comparators used across all EMA Radar Report projects. The evaluation model used for this ANPM Radar
Report is presented as Figure 3. Following are details on the evaluation areas and the specific scopeand rating priorities used within each.

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IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
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SUB-CATEGORIES
Ease of Deployment

PROFILE SCORES

Support & Services

Deployment & Admin

EMA RADAR SCORES

Ease of Administration

Deployment Cost Efficiency
Licensing Model
Price

Cost Advantage

KPI SCORESQUESTIONNAIRES

Maintenance Costs
Architecture
Architecture & Integration
Integration & Interoperability
Product Strength

Features
Ease of Use

Functionality

Partnerships/Channel
Vision and Strategy
Financial Strength

Vendor Strength

Vendor Strength

Market Credibility

Figure 3. Assessment model for Application-Aware Network Performance Management

Cost Efficiency

The first set of measures conducted within the EMA Radar Report framework and one of the two
major axes of the Radar distribution diagram is Cost Efficiency, which consists of two major sections– Deployment & Administration and Cost Advantage. Each of these, and how they have been applied
for assessing ANPM solutions, is described below.

Deployment & Administration
Deploying and administering an ANPM solution is the point of embarkation for the ANPM journey.
In this category, we assessed several important areas:• Ease of Deployment – This includes a number of measures meant to indicate how easy or difficult
it is to put a particular ANPM solution into the production environment and begin to draw value
from it for operational monitoring purposes. As such, this section addressed three areas:◦ Implementation Cost – Specific questions assessed time to receive initial reports, time to achievecomplete functionality, and the percentage of the solution cost which is typically required for
professional deployment services. Also included in this part of the assessment were questions
regarding product deployments models – software vs. hardware vs. virtual appliances (or other)for ANPM central servers as well as for distributed ANPM instrumentation/collectors, plus
how complete, or “out of the box” the solution is as delivered by the ANPM supplier. Highest
ratings were given for rapid deployment and low or zero need for professional services, as well
as for those offering flexibility and multiple options in product deployment models.

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EMA Radar™ for Application-Aware Network Performance Management Q3 2010 Summary©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING◦ Staff Training – In this section, the breadth of training options as well as the length of time
expected for administrators to reach basic and advanced proficiency were determined, as wellas whether or not the ANPM technology provider offered formal certification programs. Topmarks were given to those with broad training options, short learning curves, and existingcertification opportunities.
◦ Disruption Minimization – Many ANPM solutions can be deployed without any disruption to
the managed environment, but others will require downtime for software installation, network
tapping, or other deployment steps. Some require scheduled network downtime, or a maintenancewindow in production operations. This measure assesses the impact each ANPM solution has on
the monitored network during deployment, with preference given to those with lesser impact.
• Support and Services – An important part of any management solution is the facilities madeavailable by the technology supplier to support initial rollout as well as ongoing production use.
In this section, we evaluated several specific areas of interest for supporting and servicing ANPM
solutions:◦ Customer Support – This area investigated the variety of customer support offerings, guaranteed
response times for highest support levels, methods for reporting product issues, and diagnostic
information gathered at the point of failure. Also of interest was the presence of organizeduser community groups, which can act as a powerful supplemental resource to technology
users. Highest ratings in this category were given to those with broad support offerings, fast
responsiveness, and a well-developed and well-organized user community.
◦ Professional Services – Within the range of ANPM offerings included in this study, some requiresignificant professional services to fully deploy, while others require virtually none. In thiscategory, we gave the highest rankings to solutions that could be deployed with minimal efforts
or cost.
◦ Code Fixes – Every system goes through patches, minor upgrades, and major upgrades asfunctionality is added and problems are fixed. Generally, these are all good changes, but there is abalance to be struck here – too much change creates chaos and stability risks in the management
tools. In this section, we asked about the frequency of minor and major incremental software
updates, and gave the highest rankings to solutions that were updated regularly, but not overly
frequently.
• Ease of Administration – Once an ANPM solution has been deployed, focus turns towards
ongoing configuration and administration, to ensure that the system remains fully functional andthat the maximum value can be realized. In this section, we investigated several categories that
helped to illuminate each ANPM solution’s administration facilities:◦ Ease of Admin – Here, the intent was to assess how much time was required by operations staff
to keep the ANPM solution up and running, with preferential ranking granted to those requiring
the lightest touch.
◦ Update Process – When it comes time to apply a patch or upgrade to an ANPM solution, twoquestions are predominant. What will be the impact to my continuity of monitoring? And how
can large numbers of distributed instrumentation devices be updated efficiently? Highest scoresin this section were given to solutions that had a means to transparently apply updates without
interrupting coverage and to those that included (where applicable) features for en masse updatesof remote instrumentation.

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EMA Radar™ for Application-Aware Network Performance Management Q3 2010 Summary©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING◦ Testing/Migration Facility – While not universally the case, many IT shops require pre-deployment
shake-downs of new or upgraded technologies (including management tools) before rollingthem out into the production environment. Our interest here was to determine whether or not
ANPM solution providers gave discounts for test labs and short-term migration project use of
their products. Highest scores were given to those who charged lesser licensing fees (or none atall) for such uses.
◦ Automation of Management – Increasingly, managed environments are becoming more complex, as
are the tools that are used to manage them. EMA is a strong advocate for automation whenever
and wherever possible within management tools, technologies, and practices as a means to extend
human operator resources, keep up with highly dynamic IT infrastructures, and reduce error
introduction rates. As it applies to ANPM, we asked if solutions included features and capabilities
such as self-configuration, automatic adjustments to changing managed environment conditions,
autopopulation/autodiscovery, and wizards and templates for configuring data source devices(such as a GUI front end as an alternative to command-line configuration to setup up NetFlow
or IP SLA). The more automated features, the higher the ANPM solution was rated.

Cost Advantage
All management tools carry costs of one type or another. The most obvious and commonly recognized
are the licensing costs associated with the tools themselves. But importantly, there are other aspects of
total cost of ownership (TCO) for ANPM tools that are also relevant, particularly the cost of maintenance (support and upgrades) for the technology. And it must be noted that solutions that carry a highlicensing cost may still provide a compelling return on investment by favorably assuring operations.
For this portion of our analysis, EMA focused on the typical licensing costs for an initial deployment,
what types of licensing models are offered, maintenance fees for the highest levels of support services,and whether or not ANPM technologies providers offered creative delivery mechanisms such as SaaS
(software as a service) or via MSPs (managed service providers). These latter two approaches haveshown the greatest traction within smaller shops, but even large organizations are finding them advantageous as a means to support regional facilities and/or supplement core network operations staff
during off hours.
Highest marks in this section were given to those providers offering lower-cost entry points, lower
maintenance fees, and SaaS or MSP delivery models. The only preferences assigned to licensing model(i.e., processor-based, appliance-based, agent-based, usage-based) was to those ANPM providers whooffered multiple options over a single (and hence less flexible) approach.

Product Strength

The second major axis of evaluation within the EMA Radar Report framework is that of Product
Strength. This category is comprised of two focus areas – Architecture & Integration and Functionality.
Details on how these areas have been addressed specifically for ANPM are provided below.

Architecture & Integration
The first of the two major product strength categories is Architecture & Integration portion, and ismeant to gauge the underlying enabling technology base upon which the bulk of ANPM functionality is delivered. Following are the areas of analysis used in this research report for evaluating thealternatives and methods for architecting an ANPM solution:

EMA Radar™ for Application-Aware Network Performance Management Q3 2010 Summary©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING• Design – As mentioned earlier, there are several basic approaches to monitoring application
performance from the network perspective. One of the key measures in this study was
ascertaining each solution’s scope and inclusion of the various types of ANPM data sources.
Beyond monitoring, management solutions can also provide similar levels of visibility while also
including active control functions. An ANPM solution may be broad or narrow in this regard, andmay be designed to be more or less real-time. It may also go beyond application-specific metrics
to collect other collateral and supportive data. Top scores in the category were given to thosesolutions that included true real-time capabilities, those solutions that included an ability to takeor invoke closed-loop corrective actions, for breadth of ANPM data sources supported (packet
inspection, NetFlow/xFlow, agents, IP SLA and log files), and for integral support of additional
supplemental/complementary data sources.
• Scalability – The basic need for any ANPM solution to support collection and storage oflarge volumes of performance metrics goes without saying; however, solution scope in termsof throughput capacity as well as distributed coverage are important points for consideration.
In terms of scalability, top scores were given to those systems capable of both high volume
processing of ANPM data as well as architectural support for very large scale, distributed
monitoring deployments.
• Breadth of Environments and Applications Supported – While some managed environments
are well standardized and are thus relatively “simple,” most have a mix of networking technologies
in play. The same can typically be said regarding the number and type of applications that arepresent and are expected to be visible via an ANPM solution. In general, the broader the better,so that barriers to coverage and visibility are minimized. It is also important to recognize that
there exists a mainstream of network and application technologies that must, at minimum, besupported. Weightings in these categories were tilted towards support for mainstream network
and application types but also for diversity and breadth, along with the ability to accommodate
custom/non-published application types.
• Integration and Interoperability – While some ANPM solutions will come tightly integrated intoa multifunction, multi-capacity suite of management tools, most will not live in a homogeneousenvironment. Consequently, it is very important that ANPM solutions be able to integrate andinteroperate with products and technologies from other vendors that fulfill other complementaryfunctions. Of particular interest within this research were integrations between ANPM solutions
and event/fault management systems (most commonly those that are on the big screens in a
Network Operation Center), service management systems (most commonly help desk applications
but also service operations or BSM dashboards), and CMDB/CMS solutions (present either aspart of an ITSM/ITIL initiative or in conjunction with a higher level BSM solution). Also ofinterest was whether or not open APIs are available for integration with any other IT or non-IT
applications and functions. Highest ratings in this category were granted to those solutions that
had proven (certified, fielded, supported) integrations within each of the three complementaryfunctional areas as well as ample API options for custom integration.

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Functionality

Functional completeness and scope is the second major angle of analysis applied in this research indetermining relative product strength. Following are the primary Functionality criteria that were usedas part of this research and analysis:• Application Discovery/Recognition – If a network performance management solution is tobe application aware, one of the most important aspects of that solution is the way in which it
identifies those applications. Further, to the more general assessment of application types supported(as discussed above within the architecture and integration section), this inquiry focused more
specifically on the mechanisms for identifying applications and for how new, unknown application
flows are presented to a system operator. Important for rating well in this category was a range ofchoices and options, so that the many different, subtle and unique identifiers of various types ofapplications can be accommodated.
• Metrics and Measurement – Performance management systems generally gather a wide range
and large volume of performance metrics. Presented in this category were those considered mostimportant for characterizing application activity from the network perspective, including volume,
response times, errors, and quality by application/user/server. Also included was a special
question about support for VoIP quality measurements, since there are specific and discrete
metrics that are applied to voice traffic, such as MOS and R-Factor. Since the focus of thisresearch is application awareness, traditional device-centric health measures were not included.
As with many other categories, scoring in this area was based on the breadth of metrics andmeasurements supported.
• Capacity Planning – One of the primary uses of application-aware data is reality-based planning,whereby capacity monitoring and changes to network capacity can become informed decisions
made in the full context of understanding how the network resources are being used. In particular,
recognizing the influence of individual or groups of applications and the contributions they makeis paramount for reducing both infrastructure cost as well as operational risk. In this measure, we
looked for support of long-range trending reports, including trend extrapolation as well as theability to conduct “what-if ” analysis based on current performance conditions.
• Alerting/Alarming – When things go wrong, and performance problems are recognized, it isessential that operations personnel be notified of the situation as quickly as possible. It is also
important not to set off lights and sirens too often – today’s interconnected and interdependent
IT infrastructures generate enough event and alert chatter even before performance monitoringalarms are added into the mix. Basic performance alerts and alarms need to recognize short-termand long-term patterns, as well as include as much information as possible to assist subsequent
investigation and diagnosis. Additionally, a growing number of ANPM solutions are including
behavioral modeling to recognize unusual patterns of observed activity, either in the volume oftransactions/flows/sessions or the in the total traffic bit volumes. Some ANPM systems are alsoable to identify special/unique performance issue scenarios, such as microbursting in multicast
traffic – a transient, sub-second phenomenon that requires true real-time, packet-based monitoring
technologies. Scoring here tilted in favor of those solutions that provide the broadest set of alerting
and alarming supports.
• Troubleshooting – Whether reacting to a performance problem reported by the help deskor proactively investigating a growing issue that has not yet been recognized by the end-usercommunity, rapid and efficient troubleshooting is perhaps one of the most important objectives of
network management and operations. For ANPM solutions, combining various types/sources of

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data, accelerating workflows, and intuitively presenting data best facilitate troubleshooting. Further,troubleshooting is most effective if analysis can include current and historical data, including
forensic reconstruction, and there are special analysis features included for discrete applicationlayer technologies such as Rich Internet Applications, multicast, industry-specific application orcontrol protocols, VoIP/video, WLAN, or custom/in-house developed applications. Highest
rankings in the category were granted for efficiency features, support for forensic/reconstructive
analysis, and the presence of special analysis capabilities.
• Security and User Management – Since an ANPM solution will have visibility into detailed
user activity as well as potentially proprietary or private information, it must provide some formof access controls. And while most ANPM solutions are not deployed for the purpose of security
management per se, ANPM solutions are often able to recognize potential security events. Somesolutions have been designed or optimized for this parallel purpose while others have not. Scoringin this category was prioritized towards solutions that offer strong credentialing, discrete controls
to data and functions, and those systems designed to play either a complementary or direct role insecurity operations.
• Analytics/Advanced Analysis – The leading edge of management technologies apply
automated, intelligent analysis to the data collected by monitoring systems. Such capabilities candeliver better early recognition of performance problems, support for complex infrastructures,
and/or accommodation of recent technology innovations such as virtualized computing andcloud services. This research included an assessment of the degree to which each ANPM
provider has developed and included a range of advanced functions, from dynamic thresholding
and baseline shift/drift recognition to data mining, and route analytics. Also of interest was
specific support for correlating ANPM data in the service of monitoring intra-datacenter n-tierarchitectures, shared/balanced network links, outsourced/cloud services, and mixed physical/
virtual computing environments.
• Active controls – Beyond monitoring and analysis, some ANPM solutions will deliver the ability
to take direct actions in response to existing or pending/potential performance problems. The
extent of active controls can be quite broad, ranging from intrinsic direct capabilities to scripting
to triggering actions within other management tools. This is an emerging area of functionality
for most ANPM solution providers, unless they provide ANPM functionality as an adjunct toa core optimization value (as in the case of many WAN optimization controller vendors) or ifthey have change and configuration management capabilities elsewhere in their management tools
product lines. Highest scores here were given if direct controls were available; however, none ofthe participants enjoyed this capability and thus the most common responses related either toother products offered by the vendor, integration with third-party control systems, or simple script
launching capabilities.
• Ease of Use – The final area of assessment that contributes to the overall Product Strength scoreis Ease of Use, which encompasses the ability of the ANPM solution to be used directly as ameans for collaboration between the various groups with IT and with IT’s service constituencies.
Along these lines, we looked for the ability to group ANPM monitoring and reporting in various
ways, such as by business/organization construct, geography, address range, application type,or technology type. We also looked for integrated support for business/service prioritization,
application dependency recognition/mapping, and understanding of logical and/or physicaltopologies. Next, we assessed each ANPM solution’s support for a broad mix of visualization
and reporting functions, such as consoles, portlets/mash-ups, and scheduled and ad-hoc reports.

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Finally, we asked whether or not each ANPM solution had the means to specifically support
consoles, portals, and/or reports for a broad range of discrete roles, spanning IT (network,
systems, applications, storage, service desk, service management, etc.) as well as non-IT (executive,
financial, Line of Business) functions. As with so many of the other areas of this study, thehighest scores were granted to solutions which supported the broadest range of options andoptimizations, as well as the ability for operators to tune the system to their specific needs without
the direct involvement of the ANPM solution provider.

Vendor Strength

The third and final major axis of analysis and comparison within the EMA Radar Report frameworkis that of Vendor Strength. This section is a combination of measures that are meant to gauge
not only the financial viability of an ANPM solution provider, but also the quality of their vision,
strategy, go-to-market, and market voice. As such, following are specific categories used to assess
vendor strength and how they have been applied to ANPM solutions:• Vision – The purpose of testing vision in the ANPM sector is to understand each solution
provider’s viewpoint of who they are, what value they provide, and where they fit into the broader
ecosystem of management tools and practices. First, an understanding of the role that ANPM plays
and the value that ANPM solutions can and should deliver in terms of IT operational efficiency
and operator effectiveness was assessed. Next, each provider’s understanding and appreciation of
integrated IT service management (ITSM) and the broader move of IT towards service-oriented
operational models was gauged. Finally, specific attention was paid to how each supplier articulated
their relationship and role in supporting and empowering their customers.
• Strategy – While vision is tuned towards a broad understanding of role and purpose, strategy
is meant to assess how each provider plans to achieve their vision. Consequently, this measure
was specifically attuned to functional roadmaps and plans to evolve ANPM technology and totalsolution scope/capability over time.
• Financial Strength – An important aspect of selecting an ANPM solution provider is tounderstand their viability as well as their ability and commitment to ongoing development of theiroffering. Key measures used in this category included organizational size and revenues (specific to
ANPM as well as overall), access to capital, profitability, and investment rate in R&D.
• Partnerships/Channel – While ANPM solution providers must develop and deliver key technology
as a basis of their approaches, an important complementary element to their effectiveness andpresence takes the form of business alliances. Strength of partnerships was evaluated by measures
such as number/breadth/depth of technology alliances and breadth of channel relationships.
More is generally (though not always) better in both cases, and credit was given based on the lengthof time partnerships were active in the field.
• Market Credibility – Beyond simple presence and visibility in the marketplace, which is more ofa measure of marketing budget than anything else, the ability of an ANPM solution provider toachieve and maintain credibility is important when assessing their overall strength. In evaluating
credibility, EMA examined a number of measures, including how focused the provider is on the
ANPM space, whether or not it is an exclusive focus or a supplemental position supporting an
adjacent core competence, how often they compete directly with other ANPM solutions providers,
and which other credible industry voices are backing them up.

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IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTINGEMA Radar Map for Application Aware Network
Performance Management

The ANPM Radar Bubble chart shown in Figure 4 shows how the 18 solutions studied in this reportranked in comparison to each other, in terms of Cost Efficiency (x axis) and Product Strength (y axis).
The size of the “bubble” indicates relative measures of Vendor Strength.

Figure 4. Application-aware Network Performance Management Radar

As can be seen in Figure 4, the vast majority of solutions reviewed in this report have clustered in the“Strong Value” band. The lack of results in the lower left “Limited Value” category reflects that the
EMA Radar process itself, and the rigor of the survey and dialogue, has resulted in significant “selfselection.” This means that solution providers not focused on the ANPM space or who don’t consider
themselves competitive declined to participate. One example of this is WAN optimization vendors– several of whom offer ANPM-like functionality, such as user and application activity reporting andeven troubleshooting/diagnostics, but exactly none of whom chose to participate in this study. Those
who did participate can thus be considered the “ANPM elite” – those providers who have invested
significant development into delivering complete solutions that deliver substantial value to network
operations and engineering practitioners.

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General Findings

As expected, more fully featured solutions and those designed for meeting the scaling requirements oflarge enterprises and service providers tend to be more expensive. Customization also plays a role here
– the more flexible a solution is, and the more individual products that have to be installed in orderto reach full ANPM functionality, the more services are typically required, and hence the greater the
deployment costs, time span, and complexity.
Similar cost/deployment variances exist based on the types of ANPM data sources employed. Packetbased solutions require establishing access to packet streams by one of many methods, versus thosethat rely more heavily on soft sources such as NetFlow. Many solutions are delivered as appliances,often easing deployment by avoiding the need to procure computing platforms. An increasing numberof vendors allow parts of their solution to be deployed on or as virtual machines (VMs) or accessedfrom the cloud as SaaS offerings, both of which can also lower ongoing administrative overhead,
although they do introduce additional elements of risk to performance and availability. Solutions that
focus on passive monitoring agents (there are very few in this study) can also exact a relatively higher
price both in deployment as well as ongoing administration than appliance and collector approaches.
Within this study, EMA found a wide range of options and many creative approaches to leveraging theadvantages while reducing the disadvantages of each of these approaches.
Also worthy of note is the diversity of the solutions covered here. While not all of the “big four” highend platform providers are represented, the ones that didn’t participate self-selected out because they
do not all have strong ANPM stories – some choosing to partner and others choosing not to make it astrategic priority. What is perhaps most impressive is the number of suppliers who did participate, andparticipated well, and who can make a real difference in the face of the rapidly changing and (often)
far-flung infrastructures. This speaks to the demand that exists for ANPM solutions, both in termsof better capabilities within ANPM products (answered by expansion, integration, enhancement, andacquisitions) as well as at price points that fit the budgets of smaller organizations that need the sametypes of visibility and control that ANPM has been delivering to large enterprises for years.

ANPM and MSPs

As this study progressed, it became apparent that almost every one (all but one, in fact) of the ANPM
solution provider contributors has had their products deployed by MSPs, or Management Services
Providers. MSPs by this definition are organizations that offer remote, third-party management of
infrastructure, sometimes as part of a broader IT outsourcing strategy, and other times simply as offhours support or better cost/quality than is available via direct employees. MSP support was assessedprimarily as a question in conjunction with product licensing, to determine if enterprises could in fact
gain access to ANPM visibility through a services organization, on a subscription basis, rather thanbuying the products outright. And it does seem that indeed this is a fairly common option – elevenof the eighteen participants indicated that their entire ANPM solution was available via MSPs. A few
have specifically targeted MSPs with specific product packaging and go-to-market, such as Quest’s
PacketTrap MSP product, and Apparent Network’s PathView and AppCritical. CA Technologies also
addresses this sector, albeit primarily via their Nimsoft division, which was not studied here.
But there is another flavor of MSP that is worth recognizing – Managed Service Providers. These are
CSPs who offer Managed Services, more commonly known within the enterprise community as WAN
services, which include SLAs and increasingly feature direct customer-specific, on-demand views andreports with application awareness and performance metrics. In order to make this work, ANPM

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systems typically must be deployed as a discrete solution installation for each customer, or be designed
as a shared system with rigorous partitioning and controls (known as multitenant support) to prevent
data mixing or improper access. Prime examples of this type of MSP deployment are Visual Network
Systems, Compuware and InfoVista, the latter prominently featuring their Vista360 customer portal.

Distribution of Results

The results shown in Figure 4 illustrate a wide distribution of product strengths versus cost efficiencies;
however, there are two clusters of note. First, several solutions are positioned in the upper-middle,
sharing similarly high levels of product strength along with medium-high cost efficiencies – thisgroup is mostly comprised of enterprise-class, packet-centric solutions. Second, there is another,looser grouping that has higher cost efficiencies but low-medium product strengths – this group ismostly comprised of solutions that have added ANPM (typically NetFlow and IP SLA) to a broader
network performance management platform and/or have been focused on delivering solutions to
mid-tier organizations.

Value Leaders

ANPM value leaders are comprised of only two providers who have assembled the best combinationsof product strength and cost efficiency
CA Technologies – Long an ANPM provider via elements within the eHealth product line, CA
Technologies make substantial strides into this sector via integration of product technologies received
by means of acquiring NetQoS in late 2009. This move substantially improved the completeness ofCA’s ANPM solution, which covers all four ANPM data source types. Combined with its ability tointegrate into CA’s formidable infrastructure service assurance and service management offerings, CA
Technologies ranked highest overall in terms of relative product strength.
OPNET Technologies – By means of steady expansion through internal product development aswell as selective technology acquisitions, OPNET has pulled together its strengths in network andapplication monitoring to deliver one of the strongest product suites for ANPM reviewed in thisreport. Combined with a strong customer support model and flexible, efficient implementation options(including a small but growing number of managed services customers where OPNET deploys andoperates their own solution), OPNET was able to move to higher levels of cost efficiency and thus
into the value leader category.

Strong Value

The majority of the solutions reviewed in this study fall into the strong value category, most withstrong rankings in both product strength and cost efficiency. Solutions are listed below in order of theirproduct strength ratings, beginning with the highest.
Compuware – Perhaps best known for end-to-end application performance management, Compuware
has assembled a well-stocked set of ANPM capabilities within its Vantage solution that leverages all
four ANPM data source types and complements them with a broad set of options for monitoring user
experience, including response times from inside and outside the firewall. The result is that Compuware
Vantage ranked second-strongest overall in terms of relative product strength, and just barely falls
outside of the EMA Value Leader category.

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NetScout Systems – Clearly the overall market share leader in ANPM, NetScout Systems’ nGenius
Service Assurance Solution is the standard against which all other ANPM solutions are judged. Longa provider of deep and detailed application awareness via packet-based instrumentation, NetScout hascontinued to expand its solution, including recent releases of instrumentation for virtualized environments (nGenius Virtual Agent) and remote facilities (nGenius Integrated Agent), as well as next-gen
service dashboards (nGenius Service Delivery Manager). NetScout ranked as one of the top solutionsin terms of product strength while also rating well in terms of cost efficiency, ultimately falling justbarely outside of the value leader category.
Network Instruments – While everyone was looking the other way, Network Instruments, longknown for their popular Observer Console, has added enterprise-class reporting, NetFlow, and IP
SLA support to their existing strengths in packet-based capture, storage, and analysis. The Network
Instruments GigaStor has been a perennial leader in terms of streaming packet-capture capacity, but
the broader solution achieved a top five ranking in relative product strength, and coupled with relatively
high cost efficiency, also landed just outside of the value leader category.
InfoVista – Most know InfoVista for the strength of their VistaInsight infrastructure performancesolutions, especially those designed for the communications service provider sector. But with a recent
acquisition of packet-inspection technologies, now available as 5View Applications and 5View NetFlow,
the release of a leading-edge, award-winning Web 2.0 collaborative dashboard in Vista360, as well as
long-standing and continued success in the enterprise sector, InfoVista is a worthy provider of ANPM
solutions. The InfoVista solution ranked high in terms of relative product strength and above averagein relative cost efficiency.
Visual Network Systems – The newest organization represented in this study, Visual Network
Systems, offers the Visual Performance Management (VPM) system, which was formerly part of the
Fluke Networks portfolio. The solution delivers a combination of packet-based monitoring and strong
NetFlow credentials. Further fueled by recently-added deep application analysis capabilities via the
Application Performance Appliance, the VPM solution ranked well above average in terms of productstrength while also exhibiting high-medium cost efficiency.
Lancope – The StealthWatch solution from Lancope was built from the beginning with applicationawareness in mind. Originally launched as a security monitoring solution based on collecting NetFlow
records, the solution has been expanded to leverage the same data sources for dual purposes – security
and network performance management – with great success for large scale performance data generation, collection, analysis, and presentation. With their recent introduction of packet-based monitoring
and continued expansion of a formidable set of advanced analytics features, the solution achieved ahigh product strength ranking while also offering high cost efficiency.
ASG – As one of the strongest BSM solution providers in this study, ASG’s BSP (Business Service
Portfolio) solution spans all IT domains with elegance. As part of that broader solution, ASG has
assembled a remarkably strong lineup of ANPM tools and capabilities, particularly in the areas of Web
application discovery, recognition, and analysis. The ASG solution is one of the few in this study thatfully supports all four ANPM data source types, and finished well up the rankings in terms of overall
product strength.
SevOne – Another relatively new entrant, SevOne offers the Performance Appliance Solution (PAS),
which is loaded with ANPM capabilities. The system is built on a unique, peer-to-peer architecturethat delivers best in class scale for flow record collection (as well as SNMP polling) plus lightning-fastviewing and reporting enterprise-wide. The solution also boasts one of the most open approaches togathering and incorporating third party data sources of any reviewed in this study. Based on scalability
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and simplicity of deploying the appliance-based PAS, SevOne ranked high in the cost efficiency
category and high-medium in terms of product strength.
ExtraHop – Designed by founders with a strong technology heritage in application-layer switching,
ExtraHop has constructed one of the easiest-to-deploy packet-based ANPM offerings – one that
equally serves the specific needs of both network and application operations support teams fromthe same platform. The solution ranked particularly well for advanced analysis as well as its ability tosupport multiple roles in the organization.
SolarWinds – If there was a market momentum recognition in this EMA Radar Report, it would
go to SolarWinds, one of the fastest-growing management tools companies in recent history. The
SolarWinds Orion suite of products was originally launched to address network infrastructure performance management for medium-large organizations, and has been extended with ANPM capabilities
based on NetFlow, IP SLA, active agents, and log file analysis, resulting in a high-medium productstrength rating. The solution is also very affordable, and with acknowledgement of the strength of theircustomer community and support program ranked near the top in cost efficiency, narrowly missing out
on Value Leader credentials.
WildPackets – The number one focus of WildPackets and the packet-based OmniPeek solution istroubleshooting, but the solution also supports flow record data sources as well as a solid enterpriseclass reporting platform in WatchPoint. The company has also been directly in the mix of pushing theleading edge of packet recorder technology, recently announcing the industry’s first certified 10+ Gb
platform, WildPackets TimeLine. Overall, the solution scored well in terms of product strength andscored the highest cost efficiency rating among packet-centric solutions.
Quest Software – In June 2010, Quest Software announced the release of Foglight NMS, a network
and application performance product with ANPM features, which first reached the market in 2008
as PacketTrap Perspective. Focused on extreme deployment simplicity and decorated with high-end
advanced features, Foglight NMS is also priced very aggressively, resulting in one of the highest overall
cost efficiency ratings in this study. As an integral part of Quest’s broader application performance
management portfolio, this solution is one that is likely to see additional expansion in the near future.
Plixer International - The future of NetFlow is bright, in no small part due to the full-time focus of
Plixer and its Scrutinizer solution. Plixer originally set out to build a NetFlow solution that could bring
application awareness to the masses, improving visibility for network teams of all sizes, but along theway they have gone further than anyone else in terms of their sophistication of leveraging NetFlow for
all it can be and do. As a relative newcomer, Plixer is still building its feature set, but has already landedin the medium product strength category while boasting a well-above-average cost efficiency.
ManageEngine – As a part of ManageEngine’s OpManager solution, ANPM functionality is tightly
integrated into a multi-function, multi-domain solution. Ideal for small to mid-sized organizations, butalso capable of supporting larger environments, the ManageEngine solution is built primarily aroundcollection and analysis of flow records with supplemental support for Cisco IP SLA, log files, andpacket-based monitoring specific of VoIP. A Web-focused subset of the solution is also available via aremotely hosted SaaS offering site, 24x7.com.
Apparent Networks – Something of an outlier in this study, Apparent Networks delivers applicationsensitive path monitoring and analysis, primarily as a means for recognizing network-layer issues andunderstanding how they affect application delivery. Their recent move to a cloud-based SaaS delivery
model for the PathView product offering, coupled with a highly innovative, new on-site instrumentation
package, has resulted in a very highly cost-efficient solution with some interesting future potential for
product growth.
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Specific Value

Solutions in this category typically exhibit strong results in one of the two dimensions, product strength
or cost efficiency, or moderate scores in both. These solutions are typically best fit for use within
specific managed environments or in certain defined operational scenarios.
Dorado Software – Dorado’s Redcell solution is a multi-function, multi-domain integrated approachcentered on Redcell OpCenter, which can be extended to include tightly integrated ANPM functionality via Redcell Traffic Flow Analyzer and Redcell Advanced Monitor modules. These modules bring
NetFlow and IP SLA measurements into the system, where they can be leveraged together with abroad range of other management data for integrated reporting, presentation, workflows, and evenautomated corrective actions. In terms of ANPM-specific capabilities, the solution ranked as medium
in overall product strength, ahead of many other NetFlow-centric solutions. From a cost efficiency
perspective, the solution also ranked in the medium category, and ended up high in the Specific Value
category. EMA believes that Dorado’s ANPM capabilities are worthy of serious consideration when an
investment is being made or has been made in the full Redcell solution.

Other Solutions Providers of Interest

While eighteen of the most well-known providers of ANPM solutions were covered in this report,
there are other management product vendors who offer some or even substantial degrees of ANPM
functionality. Some of those vendors were invited to contribute to this research and declined (including
three of the big four management software vendors), others started the process and did not complete
it (including Ipswitch and Entuity), and still others simply did not respond to the invitation (such as
Niksun, Riverbed/Cascade, and BlueCoat). What most all of those non-participants have in common
is a primary focus other than ANPM, and the ANPM functionality they make available is meant toaugment a broader or adjacent offering rather than compete as a standalone solution. In the author’s
opinion, the only significant ANPM player not represented here who is focused primarily on thisfunctional area is Niksun. The rest of the participants herein should be considered a sufficient representative cross-section to act as a basis for building an ANPM short list.

Exceptional Characteristics

There are several participants in this research report that are worthy of special recognition for
specific areas of strength and/or unique areas of innovation. Following are the award winners for the
Application Aware Network Performance Management 2010 Radar Report:
Best Integrated Service Assurance Strategy – CA Technologies
By fitting their ANPM products, most notably those added to the portfolio
by virtue of the acquisition of NetQoS, into a broader integrated portfolio ofservice management solutions, CA Technologies is best positioned to delivertrue service visibility and assurance. In particular, CA’s core service modelingand open interfaces for integrating entity, relationship, and status data into acommon service assurance dashboard is head and shoulders beyond others
covered in this research report.

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Best Joint Security/Network Management Solution – Lancope
StealthWatch
Many ANPM solutions over the years have had their roots in the technologically adjacent network security monitoring market, but few have beensuccessful in the long term in straddling the two spaces. Lancope is a clear
exception to this rule, and validates the premise that multiple operational
objectives can be achieved by leveraging the power of ANPM data, particularly when coupled with strong role-specific analytics.
Best Use of Cloud Delivery – Apparent Networks PathView
With an innovative new microAppliance for remote ANPM instrumentation
and a purely cloud-hosted central management platform, Apparent Networks
has fully embraced the cloud model of product delivery. Apparent’s PathView
solution is ideal for smaller organizations, particular those who are deploying
VoIP or UC, that want access to enterprise-class tools such as detailed pathanalysis and troubleshooting, but have limited budgets and human resources
to throw around. The solution also scales up to larger shops quite gracefully,
in part due to the elasticity of the cloud product delivery model.
Most Innovative Architecture – SevOne Performance Appliance Solution
One of the major challenges facing any ANPM solution is scalability for datacollection, data analysis, and data presentation/reporting. SevOne employs a
distributed, peer-to-peer approach to address this challenge, and the results are
impressive. At the time of this writing, the SevOne Performance Appliance
Solution represents the highest capacity solution available for NetFlow/xFlow. But just as important are SevOne’s high capacity, highly parallelized
SNMP polling engine, and the solution’s ability to generate reports against
massive data stores at Google-esque speeds.
Best Joint Application Performance/Network Solution – ExtraHop
Networks
In most IT shops of any size, the network and application support teams are
separated by a gulf of mistrust and alternative/competing priorities. And yet,both teams commonly rely on detailed packet-level transaction and session
analysis to characterize and troubleshoot performance issues, often buying
separate tools (NPM versus APM) that share a lot of common technology.
With a heritage in application-aware switching, ExtraHop was founded tobridge the gap between the application and network teams. The ExtraHop
solution focuses on detailed application-aware visibility and analysis and is sorich in this regard that as often as not, the solution is purchased by the application support team rather than the network team. The result is a solutionthat serves both audiences very well, with the ultimate benefit of greater
efficiency and collaboration across the silos.

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Best BSM Platform Integration – ASG
A significant strategic objective in a growing number of IT organizations is theimplementation and achievement of effective Business Service Management(BSM). While this strategy almost always originates outside of and reaches
far beyond the networking team, ASG has recognized that ANPM data canbe extremely useful in bringing business service, process, and user experience
performance intelligence to BSM. Consequently, ASG’s ANPM solution, while
highly capable in its own right, shines most brightly as a tightly integrated
supporting component underpinning ASG’s broader BSM solutions.
Market Driver Award – NetScout Systems
Without NetScout Systems, the ANPM sector might never have been born.
NetScout was an early pioneer in the RMON sector and stands today as thelargest independent network management vendor based on the strengthof their packet-based application flow monitoring solutions, which are
now deep into their third decade of heritage. Having acquired the Sniffer
brand when they acquired Network General in 2007, NetScout’s suite ofsolutions is the standard against which all others are judged in some way or
another. In fact, many of the other ANPM solutions were created directly
or indirectly (whether or not their providers will openly admit it) to ride
NetScout’s wake and emulate their success. Finally, this award is not given
solely in recognition of NetScout’s historical role – NetScout continues tobe a market leader for ANPM solutions in terms of capacity, capability, andmost recently, service awareness.
ANPM for the Masses Award – Plixer
Of all the participating ANPM vendors, none is more intensely focused on
the deep technical details (and potential) of NetFlow than Plixer. In fact,
Plixer has staked its entire strategy around delivering the very best NetFlow
ANPM solution, bar none. And along the way, Plixer has built their Scrutinizer
solution to be fast-deploying, easy to use, and with a low entry price – a recipe
for success for medium-sized IT shops where resources are few yet the needs
are great. And if you are a pop fan, you’ll love their techno-geek rap videos.
Cost Efficiency Bonus Award – SolarWinds
SolarWinds offers a well-featured, modular ANPM product suite that isamong the best in terms of cost-effectiveness, ease of use, and speed of
deployment. But one element that truly sets SolarWinds apart from other
ANPM vendors is the tremendous value available to their customers by virtueof “thwack,” their customer community user group. SolarWinds not only
supports this organization, it actively promotes the development and sharingof product extensions among the nearly 50,000 thwack members, in effectturning them into a huge, extended research and support body at no extra
cost to SolarWinds customers.

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About Enterprise Management Associates, Inc.
Founded in 1996, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) is a leading industry analyst firm that specializes in going “beyond the surface” to provide deep
insight across the full spectrum of IT management technologies. EMA analysts leverage a unique combination of practical experience, insight into industry
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This report in whole or in part may not be duplicated, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or retransmitted without prior written permission ofEnterprise Management Associates, Inc. All opinions and estimates herein constitute our judgement as of this date and are subject to change without notice.
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