A few macro-trends have magnified the challenge of satisfying the business. First, peoples’ expectations have been raised and their tolerance for delay reduced as they’ve developed heavier reliance on IT. This probably doesn’t need much explanation. Second, most modern applications are far more complicated and data-intensive than earlier generations. They rely on diverse data sources, fast transaction processing, and real-time information. Third, the IT infrastructure itself has become much more complex. Abstractions in storage, servers, networking, and cloud make for improvements in choice and functionality, but also increase opacity and dependencies. Not least, as noted, the number of workers reliant on applications has greatly increased, so that any problem is felt more broadly across organisations. These factors make perceived and objective service-level “success” elusive for the IT department.
The performance of enterprise applications will have a direct impact on business activities and outcomes. The quality of the delivery of applications will depend on how smoothly the underlying data infrastructure operates.
