Survey reveals importance of application performance management when moving to the cloud

cost reduction and productivity continue to lead multinational requirements toward APM

Demand for application performance management is growing when moving applications to the cloud, according to a recent survey conducted by Orange Business. The survey assessed application performance management (APM) plans and attitudes among decision makers from 500 multinational corporations (MNC) in 12 European countries1 across various industry sectors including financial services, health care, manufacturing, retail and transportation.  

Key areas were surveyed to better understand plans for consolidation and virtualization; which applications would be cloud-enabled; attitudes toward using WAN optimization or APM solutions and service level agreements (SLAs) requirements.

The majority of MNC respondents indicate that Web conferencing, video conferencing and Microsoft applications are the most likely applications to be virtualized or cloud-enabled. Only 95 of the 500 companies plan to virtualize their call center applications and even fewer plan to virtualize customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning, human resources, or other applications. The selection of applications for the cloud is based on those that are used “off-the-shelf” versus those that are typically customized for unique business use.

The study shows most companies, 67.6 percent, plan to consolidate data centers and servers within the next two years, further validating that consolidation continues to be driven by cost reduction and centralization.

European multinationals’ use of WAN optimization or an application delivery performance solution is mixed. Though 54.4 percent already have a solution in place, 45.6 percent indicate that they still do not currently use WAN optimization or an application delivery performance solution. With new access technologies and bandwidth costs varying by region, performance can be achieved without any solution. However, economic challenges continue to compel bandwidth savings and cost reduction as key drivers for MNCs knowing that bandwidth will not resolve application-specific protocol issues and guarantee end-user experience.

When asked about service level agreements (SLAs), 69.1 percent expect to have application-level SLAs such as application availability, while 55.9 percent expect managed network services SLAs such as round trip delay, packet loss and jitter.
 
Jean Critcher, Solution Director at Orange Business, said:  “As this study shows, WAN optimization and APM continue to be important to MNCs and most especially when they are moving to the cloud. As a continuance to achieve the fastest means to cost reduction, these solutions become more justified. Our customers who use WAN optimization and APM solutions from Orange benefit from double-digit savings to TCO and improvements to productivity while seeing ROI within a year.”

The complete survey results are available online in a report titled “Application Performance Management:  maintaining performance, productivity and getting ready for the cloud.”

About Orange Business
Orange Business, the France Telecom Orange branch dedicated to B2B services, is a leading global integrator of communications solutions for multinational corporations. With the world’s largest, seamless network for voice and data, Orange Business reaches 220 countries and territories with local support in 166. Offering a comprehensive package of communication services covering cloud computing, enterprise mobility, M2M, security, unified communications, videoconferencing, and broadband, Orange Business delivers a best-in-class customer experience across a global landscape. Thousands of enterprise customers and 1.4 million users rely on an Orange Business international platform for communicating and conducting business. Orange Business is a four-time winner of Best Global Operator at the World Communication Awards. Learn more at www.orange-business.com

About Orange
Orange is the key brand of France Telecom, one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators. With more than 131 million customers, the Orange brand covers internet, television and mobile services in the majority of countries where the Group operates. At the end of 2009, France Telecom had sales of 44.8 billion euros (33.7 billion euros for the first nine months of 2010). At Sept. 30, 2010, the Group had a total customer base of 203 million customers in 32 countries. These include 144.5 million mobile customers and 13.3 million broadband Internet (ADSL, FTTH) customers worldwide. Orange is one of the main European operators for mobile and broadband Internet services and, under the brand Orange Business, is one of the world leaders in providing telecommunication services to multinational companies.

With its industrial project, "conquests 2015", Orange is simultaneously addressing its employees, customers and shareholders, as well as the society in which the company operates, through a concrete set of action plans. These commitments are expressed through a new vision of human resources for employees; through the deployment of a network infrastructure upon which the Group will build its future growth; through the Group's ambition to offer a superior customer experience thanks in particular to improved quality of service; and through the acceleration of international development

France Telecom (NYSE:FTE) is listed on Euronext Paris (compartment A) and on the New York Stock Exchange.

For more information (on the Internet and on your mobile): www.orange.com, www.orange-business.com, www.orange-innovation.tv

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