APM User Groups

A good sign that any technology industry is thriving is the online presence of various user groups with similar interests. Application Performance Management (APM) is one such field where we can see a lot of user groups. In this article, we will look at various APM related user groups on LinkedIn and their dynamics.

The following are the main groups within LinkedIn:

1. Application Performance Management (1166 members)
2. Application Performance Monitoring (3278)
3. Application Performance Engineering (606)
4. Application Performance Lifecycle (653)
5. WAN Optimization Professionals (4222)
6. Network and Application Performance (3361)
7. Performance (1396)
8. Application Performance Monitoring for Microsoft (134)
9. Cloud Performance (481)
10. Web and Mobile (674)


This list is not intended to be exhaustive but to cover the main ground of APM activities.

Group #3 is focused on pre-deployment engineering of applications whereas Group #2 focuses on operational day-to-day monitoring of performance; Group # 1 is inclusive of both these aspects. Group #4 takes a life cycle perspective of applications and can be considered is superset of Groups #1, 2, and 3. The subject demarcation is not that sharp among the groups with quite a bit of overlap. There is also a very high level of membership overlaps.

Since WAN Optimization is so closely tied to Group #5 is an important one to follow. Groups # 6 and 7 are a bit more focused on the network infrastructure. There also seems to be a trend of emerging groups focused on specific applications or type of applications - for e.g., Group #8 focuses on Microsoft applications such as SharePoint.

Each group has activities such as discussions, promotions, jobs, etc. within. Some groups are open and some groups you have to subscribe to. Some group activities are driven very much by some popular vendors - example #1 by Compuware Corporation and #3 by Shunra.

For an APM professional, the main value in browsing through these groups' activities is the interactive technical/business discussions and be aware of the current issues. But the groups run by the vendors seem to abuse the groups by constantly promoting their internal marketing information - product announcements, blogs, seminar announcements, etc. This leaves less scope for healthy discussions. It is a pity that postings by many APM professionals don't get enough attention.

The numbers within the parenthesis indicate the number of members within each group. The Group #5 and Group #2 seem to be very popular. This is not surprising because of the large equipment and software sales in these areas.

It is a bit surprising that there is a low membership in the Cloud Performance (Group #10). It is easy for one to jump into conclusion that the companies migrating to Cloud are focused on cost and security issues with performance being an afterthought.

Apsera Tech has years of experience in WAN optimization, networking and application performance management. Apsera Tech's APM consulting services have helped Fortune 1000 companies in diverse industries in planning/resolving critical business application performance issues like slow application response time, WAN optimization and WAN acceleration. For more details, please visit our website at www.apseratech.com.