Performance management is no longer limited to measuring application health, network performance and storage capacity. It’s about illustrating the alignment of IT systems to business functions, identifying critical areas for improvement and ensuring service levels to external and internal customers. How, then, to divine business performance from the mass of raw data produced by IT monitoring systems?

The problem is certainly not a shortage of data. If a service is running, it can be measured, and IT departments are very good at collecting data, says Werner Bornman, head of risk and governance at Stanlib. But the deeper meaning eludes a lot of IT departments.