Originally Posted on Quora

There are really two client facing benefits that APM supports. The first is software quality: being able to show that you have visibility into the software life cycle (Dev, Test, Operate) and actively prevent performance problems from getting deployed. The earlier you can identify problems, the cheaper and quicker it is to resolve them. Your client needs confidence that your software systems, and development life cycle, are not going to negatively impact their business.

The second benefit, which is a direct function of the first, is operational stability: being able to prove that you can meet a contracted SLA (Service Level Agreement) for the overall availability and capacity of the software service they are contracting. Your client should always be willing to pay a premium for a reliable service, and your monitoring, as well as your APM discipline, is how you can different your service offering from a competitor’s.

Any sufficiently complex software system will have some unforeseen problems. It is almost unavoidable, given the rapid pace of enhancement, feature development and deployment. Your ability to employ APM technology to root out these problems proactively, to predict operational capabilities and capacity – this is the story you will tell your clients, in the process of negotiating an contract. Your practice with APM (how you employ the technology) can make a real difference – especially when your competition can not tell a similar story and nor show the same evidence.