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IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
Executive Summary
If you’re in the business of delivering Software as a Service (SaaS), or if you’re looking to adopt
SaaS capabilities, effective Web performance monitoring can mean the difference between success and
failure. Indeed, Web performance monitoring should become a shared concern between both SaaS
providers and their customers in order to better assess, optimize and plan for more efficient service
delivery.
This ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES® (EMA™) report explains how and why enter-
prise IT organizations are adopting SaaS related services. What do they expect? How do they struggle
with their own internal application services? What metrics and management software attributes are
most effective in providing a shared approach to Web performance monitoring and why? What do IT
Operations and end customers experience when problems occur, and what is the business impact when
critical application transactions are either unavailable or degraded in performance?
This report also highlights Keynote Systems’ versatile capabilities for global monitoring across Web
and Web 2.0 applications. EMA explains why Keynote is an excellent resource for SaaS providers and
their customers in terms of both monitoring critical metrics for capturing user experience, as well as in
terms of publishing and sharing service performance information to support a wide variety of roles.
EMA research has shown that just getting good performance monitoring data isn’t enough for SaaS
deployments. Sharing information meaningfully across various constituencies is equally important.
The report leverages EMA research data from three research reports done from late 2008 to early
2010: The Responsible Cloud, January 2010; End-to-End Application Management Issues and Trends, 2010,
January 2010; The Search for the Elusive ROI: Tracking Down Value in a Jungle of Enterprise Management
Products, August 2009; Quality of Experience – the Ultimate Collaboration: How Real Deployments Are Succeeding
and Why, December 2008, as well as unique ROI research in application performance. It also draws
from ongoing consulting work with both enterprises and service providers to help establish effective
service management strategies.
The Move to SaaS: A Customer Perspective
Software-as-a-Service is certainly not new. Some of the initial attention to the SaaS model goes back
at least ten years with the first flourish around MSPs, which in their earliest incarnations were often, in
reality, “management software provided as a managed service.” However SaaS has taken on new life
with macro-economic pressures to economize, on the one hand, and diversify application resources,
on the other. Cloud computing, which promises a more on-demand version of SaaS has also created a
lot of attention to Software-as-a-Service. Indeed, EMA research shows that SaaS makes up the lion’s
share of Cloud computing priorities.
For instance, more than two-thirds of the 159 global respondents
with committed plans for Cloud computing had targeted SaaS
for production (The Responsible Cloud, EMA 2010). The definition
of SaaS in Cloud context was: “a fully functional, pre-built application
environment delivered by the Cloud provider.” Both Infrastructure-as-
a-Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS), the other two
most dominant forms of Cloud services, come in significantly
SaaS has taken on new life
with macro-economic pressures
to economize, on the one
hand, and diversify application
resources, on the other.
Why Web Performance Monitoring Is More Than a Competitive Advantage for SaaS Providers
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
Page 1
IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
behind SaaS in a virtual tie for second place at slightly more than 40%. And because of its efficiencies
in cost and other benefits, the uptake of SaaS globally is likely to double within two years! For instance,
as shown rather dramatically in Figure 1, a striking 80% of respondents with SaaS deployments have
shown measurable cost advantages.
80%
6%
14%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
Yes
No
Don’t know
0%
Figure 1: A Striking 80% of respondents with SaaS deployments have shown measurable cost advantages (The Responsible Cloud)
Interestingly enough, in other EMA research, (End-to-End Application Performance Management) respon-
dents felt that SaaS is cheaper and easier to get budget for than new in-house supported applications, but
that from a customer satisfaction perspective, SaaS was not as good a value proposition as in-house
supported apps.
Performance is Key to SaaS
But as you can see in Figure 2, the drivers for moving to SaaS along with other Cloud Services are
varied. While Figure 2 highlights only respondents with committed SaaS deployments, the priorities
are qualitatively almost identical with those adopting Cloud Services in general. As you can see,
reduction in operational and, in third place capital expenses, are not surprisingly among the top
priorities. This sequence is, by the way, flipped when it comes to actually realized benefits. Most
relevant, however, and for some in the industry a bit surprising, are the high marks given to improving
service quality. This is one of the many factors that underscores the criticality of good performance
for Web-based SaaS services. Service quality isn’t an afterthought, at least not among our enterprise
and mid-tier respondents. It’s a prime requirement.
Reduce the operational costs of IT management
Improve IT service quality
Reduce the capital costs of IT management
Increase flexibility and agility
Reduce complexity of IT management
Enable disaster recovery/business continuity
Improve security or risk management outcomes
Free up resources for strategic projects
Improve regulatory compliance
Expand revenue channels by reselling Cloud
services
Other (Please specify)
0%
52%
46%
42%
36%
30%
27%
22%
21%
11%
10%
1%
20%
40%
60%
Figure 2: While costs savings tend to dominate SaaS adoption priorities, improving service quality is only six percentage points
behind “reducing operational costs” and four percentage points ahead of “reducing capital costs.” In other words, strong application
performance isn’t an afterthought for SaaS deployments, it’s at the very core of their value. (The Responsible Cloud)
Why Web Performance Monitoring Is More Than a Competitive Advantage for SaaS Providers
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
Page 2
IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
SaaS Deployments Face Real Challenges
But SaaS adoptions are not seamless by any means. In Figure 3, the number one obstacle involves pro-
cess and politics—the challenges of managing for performance, security, change, compliance and other
disciplines across multiple organizations. How, for instance, should performance and other information
be shared? Who’s responsible for problem remediation? Change validation? Security administration?
And so on. And how can the IT organization be sure that they’re getting a true partner to support them
in their Web application requirements versus the traditional service provider that makes a contract with
so many escape options that within a few months IT is ready to throw them out for rigidity?
Human/political issues (no management support,
difficulty with provider, unclear responsibilities,…
Difficulty or cost of implementation, migration, or
integration
Degraded or uncertain regulatory compliance
posture
Lack of flexibility and agility (e.g. fixed offerings,
vendor lock-in, no API standards, etc.)
Inadequate tools or processes for effective IT
management
Increased operational costs of IT management
Degraded security and/or risk outcomes
Poor service quality (more downtime, slow
response, missed SLAs, etc.)
Increased capital costs of IT management
None of the above
Limited or non-existent backup, disaster recovery,
or business continuity
0%
10%
43%
35%
29%
28%
27%
25%
22%
19%
17%
16%
14%
20%
30%
40%
50%
Figure 3: Problems with SaaS and other Cloud service providers begin with political issues of remediation and
collaboration. Security and performance issues lead on technically specific concerns. But strong performance
management capabilities that include sharing information based on role and relevance can help to address
most of the key SaaS challenges including the politics of communication. (The Responsible Cloud)
How Performance Management Resonates Across Virtually All SaaS Challenges
Performance management can shed light on security and other risk factors relevant to regulatory and
compliance issues, and of course having good service management that’s flexible and extensible can
easily help to address inadequate management tool issues as well as serve to reduce the negative impact
of operational costs. And while no management technology can take away vendor rigidity or lack of
responsiveness, strong performance management shared between provider and customer can become
a bridge for improved dialog and ultimately, a better, more flexible partnership.
So it’s not surprising then, that in Figure 4 you can see the importance that SaaS adopters place on
performance and availability monitoring. Indeed, 24% of the respondents wouldn’t even consider a
SaaS provider that had experienced a major performance or availability issue!
Why Web Performance Monitoring Is More Than a Competitive Advantage for SaaS Providers
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
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