AppDynamics provide an application performance monitoring platform, using tools to monitor application transactions and store this data in the cloud for analysis. By utilising the AppDynamics API within the program, performance metrics can be gathered for various transactions the application makes (Application Performance Monitoring), with potentially the ability to break this down by the location where the application is running (End-User Monitoring), allowing determination of different performance to be attributable (possibly) to the differing network conditions in each location. In addition, there is a capability for Infrastructure Visibility.
This information is collected and provides what AppDynamics call AppIQ, presented using a dashboard within the now traditional web portal. This allows for both base-line comparison, diagnostics, and even business metric reporting (based on the number of transactions that occur).
There might be a few folks that are slightly upset by the cancellation of AppDynamics previously expected IPO, but what will Cisco gain by purchasing the capabilities AppDynamics offers?
Firstly, Cisco will gain a foothold in a new marketplace, different from it’s traditional infrastructure base. The software first environment matches Cisco’s drive to move away from hardware to subscription based services.
Secondly, it will gain an feed for it’s SDN environment, able to utilise the performance metrics accessible from the AppDynamics environment to tweak the underlying network environment.
Thirdly, it can add to it’s existing “portfolio” of application performance monitoring, and as with the WebEx acquisition in 2007, aid with the “completeness of vision” metric used by analysts to determine where a company might be positioned within particular quadrants.
Fourthly, it can use it’s name alongside the market perception to further shift the balance against the other competitors within this space, such as New Relic and Thousand Eyes. This could potentially increase the marketshare of AppDynamics even further (as people may be unwilling to bet against such a heavy-weight player)
And similarly, AppDynamics gains access to Cisco’s account sales force, gaining entry to other customers, increasing the penetration of it’s potential market place. It also gains backing for further product development, allowing it to move ahead of the competition in this space.
As a user of AppDynamics, what do you have to look out for?
Any acquisition will result in some stalling of the product development, as the new management switches priorities and moves things forward or backward in the roadmaps. If you were waiting for a specific feature, be prepared to wait a little longer, and on the odd rare occasion, be surprised when it arrives a little earlier.
Normally, similar product sets will suffer more where product lines might be integrated or terminated, as well as support teams being integrated leading to a drop in support quality for a period. However, as AppDynamics is currently so different from other Cisco portfolio products that this is unlikely to happen to the same extent (unlike what happened with the Cisco acquisition of the IBM router business in 1999, or Riverbed’s acquisition of Expand in 2012).
