Digital Experience Monitoring: A Comprehensive Guide

Published on: 2023 October 11

The most important factor influencing customer behavior in today's digital world is a seamless user experience, and DEM (Digital Experience Monitoring) enables an enterprise to optimize all of its online components, from digital marketing to web security and beyond, by using real user monitoring to pinpoint performance issues and streamline procedures.

Organizations are exploring DEM, an emerging technology, as a means of streamlining user performance issues and applying a single approach to obtain insight into many networking tools. And here in this article, there are the following topics that you may think of or wonder about Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM):

• What is digital experience monitoring?
• What is the difference between real user monitoring and digital experience monitoring?
• Why is digital experience monitoring important?
• How does digital experience monitoring work?
• What are the benefits of digital experience monitoring?
• What are the challenges in digital experience monitoring?
• How Digital Experience Monitoring Complements Security
• Digital Experience Monitoring vs. Network Monitoring
• What are the types of digital experience monitoring tools?
• What to look for in a DEM solution
• What are the digital experience monitoring use cases?

What is Digital Experience Monitoring?

Digital experience monitoring (DEM) is an IT management tool that tracks the health of every system between users and apps to measure performance and assist IT and IT operations teams in troubleshooting.

By using digital experience monitoring (DEM), it is able to identify service performance issues across the delivery chain, view application performance issues from the perspective of the user experience, accelerate root cause identification and resolution, and enhance digital transactions and customer journeys.

A performance analysis discipline called digital experience monitoring (DEM) promotes the improvement of a digital agent's operational experience and behavior when interacting with an organization's application and service portfolio. These users, whether human or digital, include both internal and external users. This field aims to study and simulate user behavior as a series of encounters that take the shape of a customer journey.

With the use of DEM, businesses can monitor the experiences of their end customers minute by minute and swiftly detect and fix problems. DEM is applied to internal end users like office workers and remote workers, as well as external end users like clients.

What are the Features of Digital Experience Monitoring?

The primary features of DEM tools are as follows:

• Monitoring, comparing, and measuring each end user's digital experiences both actively and inactively inside your company
• Monitoring SaaS, cloud, and private applications operating on end-user devices and using the HTTP, ICMP, or UDP protocols
• Gathering real-time data on the health of end-user devices, such as the CPU, memory use, network IO, disk IO, and Wi-Fi signal strength.
• Visualization of the network path from the endpoint to the application, hop by hop
• Using remote troubleshooting to identify and fix end-user IT problems

What is the Difference Between Real User Monitoring and Digital Experience Monitoring?

All service providers who want to stay ahead of their rivals, boost client retention, and boost productivity should put the needs of their consumers first. Real-user monitoring (RUM) can give businesses crucial inputs for measuring satisfaction.

Real-User Monitoring (RUM) is the process of analyzing data from the application's actual users to learn more about how well a solution is working.

RUM monitors crucial metrics, including page load speed, DNS response time, and the time it takes for certain items to load. Software development teams can detect issues that compromise user experience and user happiness using the insights produced by this user data.

RUM collects data from actual user sessions rather than what is referred to as "synthetic" monitoring. Actually, synthetic monitoring is thought of as the antithesis of RUM. Synthetic monitoring is defined as surveillance based on transactions not created by actual users. When a service is pinged to obtain information on service availability and response time, this is an excellent example of synthetic monitoring.

Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) is the collective term for RUM and synthetic performance monitoring.

The term "Digital Experience Monitoring" (DEM) encompasses more than just real-user monitoring. From the earliest to the last step in which the user interacts with the application, DEM essentially spans the entire user journey and seeks to learn more about the user experience across the entire process. DEM is a more involved and extensive procedure that uses a number of user experience monitoring and management tools due to its endpoint-centric design and ground-up approach.

Both DEM and RUM systems can offer special perceptions of many facets of customer happiness and experience. As a result, they work better together as complements than as substitutes.

The focus of real-user monitoring (RUM) is more constrained than that of digital experience monitoring (DEM). To highlight any interruptions and delays, RUM draws attention to the metrics related to the real user sessions.

Different devices, applications, networks, and other resources linked to user experience and satisfaction are covered within the broader field of DEM. Actually, there are two different ways to evaluate the performance of websites: DEM and RUM. While the latter employs information acquired from actual user visits, the former monitors the activities of simulated visitors.

There are some significant variations between DEM and RUM, even though both provide distinctive insights into various facets of the user experience. The four distinctions between DEM and RUM are listed below:

1. Focus: The focus of DEM and RUM is one of their main distinctions. RUM has a specific objective and is more focused on spotting delays and interruptions with actual user sessions. DEM, on the other hand, records user experience across apps, devices, and networks and has a wider focus.

   RUM, for instance, keeps track of how users interact with various platforms and the tutorial video. DEM, in contrast, analyzes user experience from a comprehensive angle that includes both the platform's digital components and its actual physical surroundings. Along with the platform, DEM keeps an eye on the computer and network that users use to access the platform.

   While RUM only focuses on gathering data from actual users, DEM makes sure that every digital asset is operating flawlessly.

2. Data Gathering: RUM makes use of actual users to record performance data in real time, while DEM uses synthetic agents to replicate user interactions on the website or app.

   For instance, using DEM, developers can find page load problems by creating fictitious traffic that acts as expected. RUM, on the other hand, records actual user behavior on the website and paints a fuller picture of potential issues.

3. Action: DEM takes initiative. It can identify possible problems before they have an impact on end customers, enabling quick resolution. RUM, on the other hand, is reactive and only offers visibility into any ongoing issues that affect the user experience after they have already happened.

   While RUM relies on actual user activity to assess performance levels, DEM often uses scripted scenarios to evaluate a user's trip through a website or app.

   One major advantage of DEM is how quickly results are returned; this enables speedy triage and resolution of page-loading problems. RUM, on the other hand, often requires more time to interpret because it depends on actual customer behavior.

   RUM specializes in delivering deeper insights into user experience and engagement, while DEM excels at proactively identifying unexpected code faults or slowdowns without waiting for customers to complain.

4. Usage: While RUM is frequently used to optimize current customer journeys and increase satisfaction, DEM is typically used to guide proactive development decisions.

   DEM's automated analysis requires little human input, much like sales CRM software and automation technologies minimize repetitive manual activities so that salespeople may concentrate more on closing sales. Therefore, DEM makes it simple for engineers to evaluate the health of a site using preset thresholds.

   RUM, on the other hand, has greater flexibility but typically requires manual assessment to fully comprehend its results. Before an application is launched in production, DEM enables teams to verify whether it satisfies the specified service standards, especially for new applications. RUM, however, is unable to offer this degree of visibility prior to launch.

Why is Digital Experience Monitoring Important?

The various moving pieces involved in managing a corporation are more interconnected than ever before as a result of the far-reaching consequences of digitalization. As long as all of the business operations involved on the backend are running smoothly and effectively, the end consequence of this synergy is a convenient and cohesive customer journey.

The fragmentation that takes place behind the scenes as a result of this intricately interwoven network of services, however, is an unintended consequence. A single, centralized team managing IT operations is less likely to do so on a regular basis. Instead, numerous teams - each of which operates independently of the others and uses its own method of communication and technical jargon - manage the work associated with specialized components like digital marketing, cybersecurity, web management, application development, and social business. All of these cogs should ideally operate without resistance to combine the functions of a well-tuned machine.

DEM is a real-time monitoring tool that makes your enterprise's "machine" run more efficiently by identifying any vulnerabilities that lead to outages, downtime, or user experience disruptions, like slow page loads, and determining the root cause of problems while recommending fixes.

DEM is necessary for organizations to obtain visibility into their customers' or workers' digital experiences. Without this visibility, businesses run the risk of missing important vulnerabilities, having trouble pinpointing the source of problems when they occur, and being ill-prepared to deal with urgent situations.

Organizations can swiftly identify, mitigate, and fix possible problems with a real-time and accurate digital experience monitoring strategy.

In this way, digital experience monitoring offers in-depth knowledge of the end-user experience by proactively tracking performance and identifying problems in the local network, on a user's device, with your ISP, in your data center, or with SaaS programs (such as Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, etc.).

How Does Digital Experience Monitoring Work?

DEM software enables the use of past and anticipated data about network issues, performance slowdowns, and application failures that affect how customers and employees interact with a company's digital properties and products. These software programs keep an eye on a number of things, including website traffic, user activity, and application performance.

Organizations can use this data to analyze areas where their goods or services may be underperforming or where usability concerns may be affecting worker collaboration or productivity. Organizations may then enhance product development and streamline corporate operations thanks to this data-driven process.

A DEM solution often consists of sensors or agents that are put close to or on end-user devices and continuously track network, application, and device performance through the use of simulated tests or by tracking users' online movements. The evaluated data is displayed on a dashboard located in the cloud that notifies IT teams of problems with the network, apps, or devices.

In order to natively provide the relevant metrics, DEM solutions that are provided as a part of a SASE framework may make use of pre-existing agents, connectors, or in-line traffic brokering via the cloud.

What are the Benefits of Digital Experience Monitoring?

In the digital age, being able to forecast the future and adapt quickly is crucial. Customers only know how they feel when engaging with the various aspects of your business, from mobile apps to web applications to social pages, and they expect quality and consistency at every level. They are unaware of the difficulties involved in keeping the various cogs operating smoothly on the backend. An experience monitoring strategy's measurements enable organizations to spot and address problems that could have a negative effect on customer satisfaction and, as a result, the company's reputation. In addition, regardless of size or industry, digital experience monitoring has a lot to offer every firm. Some advantages of digital experience monitoring are as follows:

• Enhanced agility and collaboration: DEM provides enhanced visibility to desktop, security, network, and helpdesk operations teams, allowing them to provide better user experiences as well as more efficient triage and resolution in line with today's digital transformation efforts.
• Enhanced productivity: It's important to recognize and comprehend both user behavior and the user experience in order to empower people to remain productive. You may cut down on downtime and outages by deploying the appropriate experience monitoring tools along with a successful DEM strategy.
• Reduced complexity and expense: By providing IT personnel with a single window through which to view digital interactions, you may lessen your reliance on pricey, complicated point monitoring systems that only serve to confuse.
• Operational simplification: When visibility is improved throughout the entire ecosystem, IT operations are made simpler. Issues may be fixed much more rapidly, and your ITOps staff is free to concentrate on other productive duties with the aid of efficient DEM technology.
• Enhanced customer satisfaction: DEM solutions can be used to ensure excellent customer experiences in addition to monitoring your network and end users. You can outperform your rivals if you know how your clients are interacting with your website.

What are the Challenges in Digital Experience Monitoring?

The complexity of digital ecosystems, the variety of devices and platforms, and the requirement for sophisticated monitoring technologies make it difficult to implement a digital experience monitoring (DEM) plan. The requirement to ensure data accuracy, privacy, and compliance further increases complexity. It is essential to have a well-designed architecture, solid data management procedures, and a dedication to staying current with changing technology and user expectations in order to overcome these obstacles. Organizations can successfully adopt a DEM strategy that maximizes the performance, availability, and user experience of their digital services by giving priority to these issues.

Several use cases for DEM already exist on the market, ranging from proactive application monitoring to troubleshooting. Enterprises are nevertheless unable to execute DEM initiatives due to a number of issues. Some difficulties of digital experience monitoring are listed as follows:

• Diverse technology and an increase in digital touchpoints: For DevOps, the wide range of user technology creates logistical snares. Along with the difference between iOS and Android, there are many different operating systems and upgrades. Inconsistencies in user behavior, such as utilizing a web application versus a mobile app, are present, along with a wide range of hardware restrictions, multiple devices, operating systems, and connection types, from Wi-Fi to cellular data.

  Therefore, a business provides clients with a variety of digital touchpoints. Businesses provide customers with websites, live chats, webpages, and other digital touchpoints. Any of the digital touchpoints available to customers can be used to engage with the brand. A business cannot emphasize a single touchpoint and claim to offer a superior digital experience. Businesses must provide clients with greater digital interactions across a variety of digital touchpoints.

  The number of digital touchpoints for customers has expanded over the last few years. Numerous digital client touchpoints may exist for one company. Maintaining service availability has consequently become difficult. Businesses must keep track of their customers' digital experiences across all potential digital touchpoints. The growing number of digital touchpoints is too much for traditional DEM methods to handle.

• DEM drafting processes: Businesses need a suitable workflow for tracking the digital experience. Additionally, it ought to contain client comments, suggestions, and more. The majority of businesses lack an effective workflow for tracking the digital experience. They solely use a DEM platform to produce sophisticated metrics.

  The first step in an effective DEM workflow is gathering customer feedback. Customers can give a service a star rating, for instance, out of five. IT teams can give the client the necessary help when the satisfaction rate is low. IT professionals must act promptly to begin the recovery phase after a customer notices a hiccup or functionality error. To keep the service available, they must identify the incident's underlying cause and make the necessary repairs immediately.

  Organizations without a suitable DEM procedure may experience a variety of problems. IT staff might not know where to begin when a customer reports an error. The incident/error's MTTA (mean time to acknowledge) lengthens as a result. Not to mention that clients are persistently waiting for a better digital experience.

• Enhancing employee satisfaction: Enterprises place an excessive amount of weight on the digital consumer experience, neglecting their staff in the process. A firm must provide a better digital client experience. However, since workers make up a company's core, they must have faith in technology. Why would you provide your employees with antiquated software and technology?

  With out-of-date technology, you cannot expect staff to deliver their best effort. To increase service accessibility, they require cutting-edge technologies with superior digital experiences. However, during the past few years, there has been a growth in the number of enterprise devices. The time when an organization just had a few devices connected to its IT infrastructure is long gone.

  Another problem for businesses is the recent increase in the culture of remote work. They must continuously gather feedback from remote workers. Regardless of whether a person is working from a home office or a satellite location, the organization needs to be aware of how they use technology. Performance information from remote endpoints cannot be collected using conventional DEM methods. As a result, remote workers might not have a better online experience on corporate applications, virtual machines, and other platforms.

  The satisfaction rate will grow when an organization offers employees a better digital experience. Employees will view technology as their ally and work more effectively as a result.

• Proactive observation: After a mistake has ruined the digital experience for clients and staff, what good is it to restore it? The majority of businesses rely on reactive monitoring of the digital experience. Prior to impairing the digital experience for staff or customers, it is important to take the initiative and address typical problems. With outmoded equipment, businesses cannot become proactive in resolving mistakes, though. For instance, advanced data analysis, event correlation, and root cause analysis are needed for proactive application monitoring.

  Enterprises have a chance to be proactive when they continuously collect performance data. To identify any outliers, the gathered data must be immediately evaluated. The analysis of the outliers is then used to pinpoint a performance problem. For instance, an application might behave differently than usual. It implies that the application may experience a bug shortly. Customers and staff won't find the error because IT professionals can swiftly fix it. Customers and staff may not even be aware of an IT incident or error with proactive application monitoring.

• Separating out the ideas from the noise: Experiences will be tracked by a DEM platform across many touchpoints and media. The produced telemetry data will be extremely large. A DEM platform could produce alarms on a regular basis. Not all alerts indicate a problem with the digital client experience. Businesses struggle to separate insights from the noise that DEM platforms produce. When actual problems are impeding the reliability of services, IT staff cannot afford to waste time recognizing false alarms.

How Digital Experience Monitoring Complements Security

Many firms now use Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) solutions to help identify issues with technological performance and match application performance with business objectives.

Many businesses have noticed a rise in the number of remote work locations that their IT department must handle as a result of the move toward work-from-anywhere. Users look for consistent, high-quality experiences at all times, no matter where they are. Users expect their technology to work, and they don't care what goes on in the background as long as they can consistently and reliably access the resources they need. To ensure a consistent user experience wherever they are, IT must have greater visibility when users work remotely.

The old method of setting up monitoring tools in a data center is no longer appropriate owing to digitalization and the widespread usage of the cloud, which is another issue. As branch and distant users receive programs directly from their endpoints, IT professionals frequently deal with uneven visibility and control, which limits their capacity to provide user assistance and address user issues. Thus, many firms have turned to Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) technology to help in recognizing technological performance issues and lining up application performance with business goals.

Additionally, balancing a seamless digital experience with security enforcement is a continuous issue as many firms move their network and security architectures to the cloud, such as through SASE. Users frequently find ways to get around security enforcement when it negatively affects the user experience by increasing latency, causing streaming interruptions, or making programs inaccessible. This frequently entails using unauthorized software or sending private data to individual devices. Employees will use remote connectivity when it is smooth, simple to use, and enhances the overall digital experience. By keeping users on authorized devices and services that the business can control, remote connectivity improves an organization's overall security posture. By tackling both problems with a single solution, SASE systems with native DEM capabilities close the gap between network and security teams.

Digital Experience Monitoring vs. Network Monitoring

Slow connections, network disruptions, and the inability to connect to a server or printer may reduce your employees' productivity. These succinct examples highlight the significance of having a high-performing and secure network to manage your operations, offer a better digital experience, and satisfy business key performance indicators (KPIs).

Tools for analyzing network performance have existed for as long as networks themselves. When you owned and managed everything, including the endpoints, network, and applications operating on your own on-premises hardware in your data center, they were enough.

Network performance could be predicted and performance problems could be resolved using technologies that depended on SNMP, NetFlow, network-based PCAPs, or DSCP markings. However, due to the fact that today's hybrid workforces move on and off the network and that more and more apps and services are moving to the cloud, these domain-centric monitoring solutions may not offer visibility into all the problems that may affect the end-user experience.

As a result, rather than being identified and resolved before users become aware of a problem, the majority of issues are found through helpdesk complaints from users.

What are the Types of Digital Experience Monitoring Tools?

DEM technologies let businesses improve their digital offerings by giving them insights into how users interact with apps, services, and networks. There are many programs available, each with distinctive features and DEM capabilities created to meet certain requirements for digital monitoring. Here are a few of the most popular types of digital experience monitoring tools:

1. Synthetic Monitoring Tools: Synthetic monitoring, also known as synthetic transaction monitoring (STM), tests the user experience on a website, app, etc. by simulating user traffic.

   In order to proactively assess the performance and availability of applications, websites, and APIs, synthetic monitoring solutions imitate user interactions with these resources. These technologies can discover possible problems and bottlenecks before they have an impact on actual users by producing synthetic transactions. In addition to benchmarking and comparing performance across various geographies, devices, or network circumstances, synthetic monitoring techniques are useful for spotting potential issues in the application environment.

2. Real User Monitoring Tools: Real user monitoring technologies gather information on how users actually interact with applications and services, giving them insights into how actual users perceive the online world. RUM tools track user behavior and collect performance information, such as page load times, transaction times, and user interactions, using JavaScript-based monitoring or browser plugins. These tools are crucial for pinpointing problem areas and enhancing the end-user experience based on actual data. End User Experience Monitoring (EUEM) is another name for this group of digital experience monitoring tools.

3. End-User Experience Monitoring (EUEM): End user experience monitoring (EUEM) examines the efficacy of a user's end-to-end workflow across multiple devices, networks, databases, and applications in an effort to boost business productivity. End user experience monitoring tools are an evolution of conventional network monitoring, which typically measures network-centric metrics and gathers network data. These tools measure and analyze diverse metrics across the entire user journey.

4. Endpoint Monitoring Tools: Endpoint monitoring software focuses on user devices like desktops, laptops, and mobile phones in terms of performance and availability. These programs collect information on system performance, such as CPU and memory utilization, storage space, and network connectivity, in order to spot any problems that can have an effect on end-user satisfaction. Organizations can make sure that their devices are correctly configured and optimized for the best possible digital experiences by using endpoint monitoring technologies.

5. Application Performance Monitoring (APM) Tools: Application Performance Monitoring (APM) tools, which track and evaluate software application performance concerns, offer in-depth insights into the functionality and health of apps and the infrastructure that supports them. APM tools gather and analyze information on application performance, including response times, error rates, and resource usage, in order to help find and fix problems that could negatively affect the end-user experience. APM systems can provide a thorough perspective of the digital experience by connecting with other DEM technologies, allowing businesses to optimize their apps and infrastructure.

6. Network Performance Monitoring and Diagnostic (NPMD ) Tools: NPMD tools analyze data on network traffic, latency, packet loss, and other important performance indicators, with an emphasis on the performance and health of networks. By offering insights into the network environment, NPMD solutions can assist companies in identifying and resolving network-related issues that may affect the end-user experience. To provide a holistic view of the digital experience, NPMD tools are frequently used in conjunction with other DEM techniques like synthetic monitoring and RUM.

7. DevOps Tracking: To assist in improved software development, DevOps monitoring comprises health checks and performance tracking across the DevOps life cycle.

What should I look for in a DEM solution?

It's essential to take into account your specific requirements, set of resources, and objectives when choosing the appropriate digital experience monitoring solutions for your business. Businesses may efficiently monitor, evaluate, and optimize their digital environments by selecting the right combination of DEM technologies, which will result in better end-user experiences, higher levels of customer satisfaction, and better financial outcomes.

The breadth and depth of data that any digital experience monitoring tool reveals is its most significant feature. However, it's crucial to keep IT goals in mind while contrasting platforms and searching for the features and functionalities that will best serve businesses and their staff. There are the following high priorities when selecting a DEM solution:

• Current visibility and past patterns
• Health grading based on end-user experience
• Scalability and a cloud-first strategy
• Data protection
• Robotics and AIOps
• Self-help and activities
• Facilitating qualitative input in surveys
• Data gathering in the periphery

Additionally, from a broader standpoint, digital experience monitoring software should track performance and user engagement data over time, identify mistakes and anomalies in the data it receives, and detect them. The ability to categorize data by application component, region, business unit, or any other particular categories should be available.

With enough data, DEM software should be able to forecast how the web application will behave, such as whether usage will grow on particular days or whether sales will fall or rise as a result of the program's functionality.

Screenshots and click-throughs of crucial procedures are another type of data DEMs could use for UI/UX development and troubleshooting. These click-throughs ought to show the end user's most frequent travel routes and draw attention to any problematic routes that might compromise the user experience. Screenshots and click-throughs of crucial procedures are another type of data DEMs could use for UI/UX development and troubleshooting. These click-throughs ought to show the end user's most frequent travel routes and draw attention to any problematic routes that might compromise the user experience. DEM software's ultimate purpose is to boost employee or sales productivity by assisting infrastructure and operations teams in enhancing the user experience within a program or website. Being able to do this in large part involves seeing web application issues before your users do. To do this, DEM software should have strong reporting and alerting features that notify the appropriate teams, frequently infrastructure and operations teams, of application difficulties. Alerts shouldn't be so loud that they lose all meaning. To get to the source of the issue, it must be actionable from within the application.

What are the Digital Experience Monitoring Use Cases?

DEM and synthetic monitoring technologies can be used to lower expenses, increase visibility into network and application performance, and address a variety of issues with application and network architecture. Major use cases of digital experience monitoring (DEM) are given below:

• Visibility of The Entire Experience: A comprehensive monitoring solution is built on the foundation of enterprise network and user experience visibility. IT resolves performance and latency issues that affect the end-user experience after gaining crucial insights into their environment. Access to certain network metrics in real-time, such as TTFB, response time, connect time, login time, lookup time, bandwidth, etc., can provide information on the uptime and accessibility of popular corporate apps like Microsoft 365. Additionally, IT paints a comprehensive picture to reveal all the blind spots using real user metrics (Wi-Fi strength, CPU and memory consumption, navigation time, experience score, etc.). Particularly when it comes to services that IT teams do not own or control, such Software-as-a-Service applications (SaaS), traditional monitoring tools are constrained in their ability to bring all the underlying network components and analytics into a single pane of glass.

  With a DEM solution, IT can monitor networks for total end-to-end visibility and reap greater benefits. Network architects and operators can identify bottlenecks and significantly enhance the end-user experience by dissecting the entire service delivery chain into its component parts.

• Active Diagnostic Methods: Downtime is expensive. The typical cost of an IT outage, according to Gartner, ranges from $5,600 per minute to $300,000 per hour. A diagnostic tool develops a proactive system that finds SaaS or Internet issues before end users complain, which is advantageous for all parties. The network will function at its best for the delivery of applications across hybrid, on-premise, physical, virtualized, and software-defined network environments if this procedure is institutionalized throughout IT. There is minimal control and visibility over the health and operation of the enterprise software (CRM, HR, accounting, operations, etc.) that firms are purchasing to support remote workers. IT needs monitoring dashboards that can track and precisely identify network issues in order to have a deterministic real-time view of the app and network path performance.

  When used on-premises or in the cloud, a DEM tool that combines synthetic and real user monitoring (RUM) provides proactive insights into the health performance of any SaaS program. Root cause analysis is accelerated and made more effective by using crowd-sourced analytics by first disclosing the problem to all users or a select group of users. The program can then isolate the source (ISP, gateway, proxy, CDN, DNS, local network, etc.) after that has occurred. Early outage detection assists IT in anticipating problems and automates incident management in an ITSM. Furthermore, real-time updates on ongoing remediation activities are provided to employees and external stakeholders.

• Make Device Refresh Optimized: Since many employees work from home, IT must continue to focus on device refresh optimization and give remote workers more capability. The majority of IT organizations give their staff members brand-new laptops with lots of features. However, after a few years of use, older equipment such as mobile phones, desktop computers, laptops, and other tangible assets can malfunction, or the underlying software and hardware of the program become out of date. The productivity of knowledge workers may suffer as a result. Additionally, the impact on the bottom line increases with company size.

  A DEM tool creates endpoint telemetry data to identify people who urgently require PC replacement and OS upgrades because every job demand is distinct, individual workloads vary, and work habits are not the same.

• Migrations of Cloud Apps: To supply services from the Internet, cloud migration entails shifting data workloads and business applications to a cloud computing environment. Businesses can benefit from increased flexibility, scalability, and security, as well as lower maintenance costs, by moving their applications to the cloud. According to a recent IDG poll of more than 500 IT professionals, 94% of businesses now employ cloud services, and the cloud accounts for one-third of all IT spending. But moving to the cloud has its difficulties. How, for instance, does IT increase application performance and obtain visibility into the end-user experience?

  A cutting-edge DEM solution that establishes baselines for network and application performance before, during, and after the migration holds the key to the solution. Response time, Time to First Byte (TTFB), latency, SSL Negotiate timing, login time, and connect time are typical baseline measurements.

  If the app performance exceeds the benchmark values during any of the three migration phases, that indicates a successful migration. Traditional APM or DevOps solutions are unreliable for modern, hybrid, and complicated cloud-native systems because they primarily instrument backend code. During the migration process, DEM offers improved visibility and allows metric gathering using synthetics and actual user monitoring coverage. IT makes sure that all modifications do, in fact, enhance the end-user digital experience.

• Network Improvements: Corporate networks that are already in place are constantly being upgraded and changed. Most organizations are redesigning their network and security architecture in response to rising worker mobility and the requirement to access real-time data from infrastructure and the cloud. The network is becoming more sophisticated as a result of the widespread transition away from traditional and legacy LAN/WAN infrastructures and toward SDN and a hybrid cloud model.

  Due to the popularity and use of audio-video conferencing tools like Cisco WebEx, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom, expect more traffic to travel over these networks. IT can increase bandwidth and capacity by using new hardware, but it is necessary to have knowledge of migration efforts, application intelligence, and end-user experience.

  A genuine DEM solution offers benchmarks for application workloads and network performance before, during, and after the network changes. Network engineers and IT support teams are able to quickly assess the outcomes and success of any network transformation. By regularly monitoring all dependent services, confirm the new SD-WAN policies and controls in place. Improve network application delivery and verify quicker response times to ensure remote workers maintain productivity. DEM can help you achieve your network transformation goals, whether they are to lower costs, boost agility, or enhance the end-user experience.

• Engage In Small Troubleshooting Anywhere: Currently, 1 in 4 Americans works from home. The number of American laborers working remotely will rise to 36 million by 2025, up 87% from pre-pandemic levels. Employees in remote or hybrid work environments want the right conditions to succeed. Personal device (desktop, laptop, or mobile) or Wi-Fi signal problems that continue to hinder productivity and teamwork It can be difficult to determine how programs run on a local workstation or if there are local networking issues without direct in-person access to IT. The sheer number of people wishing to work remotely in various time zones as a result of the ongoing pandemic is putting a tremendous amount of strain on IT. Additionally, in order to support efforts to alter the digital experience, organizations have created a new position for the C-suite called the "Digital Experience Officer".

  While a DEM solution addresses technology issues, employees embrace a work-from-anywhere strategy. Crowd-sourced metrics, which include web or desktop experience scores from various employee locations, make it easier to identify underperforming programs. IT can localize problems and assess whether they affect all users or just a few of them, thanks to scoring. Finally, the solution must have access to telemetry information on individual SaaS application domains or desktops as a whole which is the source of the delay.