New Study Finds 82% of European Organisations Suffer Application Performance Problems

LONDON, May 23, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

IT decision makers suffering from a lack of visibility into network performance and business critical applications

Corporate networks across Europe are experiencing significant performance problems due to blind spots around the applications being run across them, research conducted by Ipanema Technologies and Easynet has discovered.

The study, 'Killer Apps 2012', found that performance problems are highly prevalent across networks, with 74% citing enterprise critical applications such as line of business (26%), ERP or CRM (26%) and video-based applications (22%) being those most at risk. In addition, the results unearthed a worrying trend on how such problems are discovered, with user complaints the second most common source of monitoring issues across networks.

The highlights of the pan-European findings include:

A lack of visibility when it comes to networked applications:

• Nearly one in three respondents do not know the number of apps running on their corporate network
• 69% do not have visibility of the bandwidth requirements each network application requires
• 55% of respondents rely on the 'final line of defence', namely user complaints, as their primary performance metric

Application performance issues are on the rise across Europe

• 82% of respondents report speed and responsiveness problems in the past 12 months
• 43% of companies highlighted that these issues are becoming 'more frequent'
• Enterprise, line of business, voice and collaboration applications were cited by 65% of respondents as being the most likely to suffer performance problems

In many organisations the network is 'over provisioned' suggesting inefficient application of bandwidth

• 72% of respondents said the network is only used to its full data transmission capacity occasionally or very infrequently
• The vast majority of companies (86%) report increasing bandwidth requirements

Justin Fielder, CTO at Easynet commented: "This study should trigger alarm bells for IT managers, and highlights the importance of a true understanding of the performance of applications on an enterprise network. However, the answer is not to be found in a panacea product - businesses need to combine professional counsel and in-depth analytics to establish a robust, long-term approach not just to today's problems, but to those forecast for tomorrow."

Thierry Grenot, CTO at Ipanema Technologies added: "Enterprises need to be more agile in order to reach the business outcomes they expect from strategic IT transformations, such as cloud computing and Unified Communications deployments. The report findings strongly suggest that businesses could benefit from understanding their networks more thoroughly in order to target bandwidth to those applications the business relies on, reducing investment in unnecessary capacity."

He continued: "Right now there is a 'perfect storm' emerging as companies face an explosion of bandwidth requirements from less critical applications, coupled with the need to reduce expenditure. Today's CIOs require a rock solid yet flexible network which is alignedto the priorities of the organisation. That necessitates a more sophisticated approach to networking which includes high levels of visibility and control in order to solve the delivery challenges posed by the complexity of cloud applications."

The full results of the study have been announced and discussed on 23 May when both Justin Fielder, CTO at Easynet and Thierry Grenot, CTO at Ipanema hosted a live media video conference. To request local market data relating to the survey please contact nward@kwitko.com.

About the research

The 'Killer Apps 2012' report is been compiled based upon online field research conducted this year with 550 unique respondents consisting of CIOs (25%), IT Directors (25%), IT Managers (25%) or Network Managers (25%). Respondents are employed within large businesses across Europe (40% with turnover in excess of £500m, 20% with a turnover between £500m - £100m) Responses were drawn from the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium and the Benelux region.

The breakdown of response numbers is:

• UK - 210
• France - 100
• Spain - 41
• Italy - 71
• Benelux - 129

About Ipanema Technologies

Ipanema provides enterprises with a direct connection between application performance and their business requirements. With Ipanema Technologies, enterprises automatically understand which applications use the network and deliver guaranteed performance to each user. Enterprises can support their strategic IT transformations (like cloud computing and Unified Communications) and control Internet growth while reducing their IT expenses. Ipanema's customers range from mid-sized companies to enterprises with 1,000s of sites. For Enterprises, Ipanema is available as a Product through an international network of Certified Channel Partners, and as a Service through Managed Service Providers and Telecom Operators' Managed Services. For SMBs, Ipanema is available as a Service through Ipanema's AppsWork Authorized Partners network. For more information, visit:  http://www.ipanematech.com

About Easynet Global Services

Easynet Global Services is a network, hosting and cloud integration business. It has customers, employees and offices in every continent, and combines global reach with local expertise, providing a personalised experience wherever its customers are in the world.

Customers include EDF, Sage, FOX, Yakult, Transport for London, Bridgestone, Q Park and Campofrio.

Together with the management team, Easynet is owned by LDC (Lloyds TSB Development Capital). LDC is the leading mid-market private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group.

For more information visit http://www.easynet.com

Follow us on Twitter: @easynet. Connect with us on Linked In: Easynet Global Services

Press Contact:

To request a full Powerpoint overview of the findings, or to arrange an interview please contact:

kwittken + company
Nick Ward
+44(0)20-7401-8001  
nward@kwitco.com