EMA Report: Understanding the Value of Application-Aware Network Operations

Network operations teams can no longer ignore the application layer. Application experience can make or break a digital enterprise, and today most enterprises are digital. To deliver optimal performance, network operations tools must be application-aware. However, application-awareness in the network and security tool layer is expensive and difficult to scale. Enterprises can mitigate these challenges with a network visibility architecture that includes application-aware network packet brokers (NPBs).

EMA recommends that today’s network operations teams modernize their approach with full application visibility. EMA research has found that network teams are increasingly focused on directly addressing security risk reduction, service quality, end-user experience, and application performance. All of these new network operations benchmarks will require deeper application-level visibility. For instance, a network team focused on service quality will want to take a top-down approach to performance management. They need to stop starting at the network layer and trying to correlate it with end-user complaints. Instead, they need to start at the application layer and dive into the network data for answers. Application insight should tell them were to look and what network data can reveal about real problems, threats, and risks to the business.