Benefits of Virtualization Could Diminish if Application Performance Management Is an Afterthought

Best-in-Class Organizations Are 3 Times More Likely to Have the Ability to Assess Interdependencies Between Virtual and Physical Systems


BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - February 3, 2009) - In a new benchmark research report by Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE: HHS), "Virtual Vigilance: Managing Application Performance in Virtual Environments," it was revealed that organizations conducting server, desktop, and storage virtualization projects are experiencing 18% reductions in infrastructure cost and 15% savings in utility cost. The report also found that organizations that are trying to improve the performance of business-critical applications in physical environments are more likely to experience performance improvements as compared to their peers that are looking to achieve the same goals -- only in virtualized environments. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?spid=30410182&cid=5571.

"Even though organizations could experience significant cost savings from conducting virtualization projects, these benefits could diminish if they don't have capabilities in place for effective management of application performance. One of the key challenges for these organizations is that the effective management of application performance in virtualized environments requires a set of capabilities and functionalities that were not required when these organizations were looking to achieve same performance goals in physical environments. Understanding what these capabilities are is making the difference between success and failure of virtualization projects as measured from business prospective," said Bojan Simic, research analyst, Aberdeen.

Aberdeen surveyed 137 end-user organizations and found that lack of visibility into entire transaction flow and inability to anticipate performance issues while conducting virtualization projects are the top obstacles for achieving the optimal level of application performance in virtualized environments. The report also found that while the majority of organizations surveyed reported that virtualization projects caused issues with the quality of end-user experience, visibility into application performance and bandwidth utilization, Best-in-Class organizations experienced significant improvements in the performance of business-critical applications after conducting virtualization projects.

Aberdeen's analysis of the Best-in-Class reveals 10 capabilities that are making a significant impact on application performance in virtualized environments as measured by some of the key performance indicators. Some of these capabilities are: ability to assess interdependencies between virtual and physical systems, formal communication channels between systems and application management team, tools for automated discovery of servers and applications in virtualized environments, tools for accelerating virtual desktop user traffic and tools for predicting application performance in virtualized environments.

A complimentary copy of this report is made available due in part by the following underwriters: BlueStripe Software and Shunra Software. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?spid=30410182&cid=5571.

For additional access to complimentary Information Technology Research, please visit http://research.aberdeen.com/index.php/-information-technology.

About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company

Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to Aberdeen™ for insights that drive decisions.

As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement - Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit Aberdeen http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 723-7890, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to http://www.harte-hanks.com.

© 2009 Aberdeen Group, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
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Contact Information: Media Contact: Bojan Simic Aberdeen Harte-Hanks (617) 854-5281 bojan.simic@aberdeen.com