Application intelligence vendor, AppDynamics, has launched a new European Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering, built on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) EU (Frankfurt) Region.
The new offering recognises that data sovereignty concerns put new pressure on European enterprises and may decelerate their efforts to digitally transform. European SaaS allows organisations to use AppDynamics to monitor their applications on-premises or in the cloud and have control around data residency; businesses can comply with country-specific jurisdictional and regulatory control guidelines relating to the location of stored data.
AppDynamics' European SaaS provides data residency on the AWS EU (Frankfurt) Region, with backups on the AWS EU (Ireland) Region, so that all data at rest remains in Europe. The European SaaS on AWS also includes access to AppDynamics for Kubernetes and Next Generation Business iQ through automated upgrades. The new European SaaS offering extends the scope of AppDynamics' current SOC 2 certification in place for the existing SaaS business. Some of the features customers can use are: access controls, data encryption at rest and in-transit, and service isolation which draw from AWS' existing security capabilities.
InfoQ asked Bradley Owen, product manager, SaaS at AppDynamics to expand upon the announcement.
InfoQ: It seems that part of what is driving this is GDPR. Is this the case and, if so, what strategies and particular parts of the regulation does this satisfy?
Bradley Owen: Our new European SaaS offering is in response to market interest and meeting our customers' needs. European businesses want greater control for how they monitor their application and business performance. While there is a lot of buzz around GDPR, the timing of our European SaaS offering is coincidental. However, the timing does provide an opportunity to reinforce our commitment to building security into our platform by design.
InfoQ: What is the significance of Frankfurt?
Owen: We looked at a lot of options to support our European customers and their desire for a SaaS solution with data residency in the EU. We chose Frankfurt because it complemented our offering while meeting our expectations for best servicing our European customers.
InfoQ: What are the use cases and features of AppDynamics for Kubernetes please?
Owen: There's a ton of excitement around Kubernetes. But a recent CNCF survey reported that for large enterprises, monitoring is one of the top hurdles to adoption. What makes AppDynamics for Kubernetes special is it the only container monitoring solution that can connect container performance to customer experience or business performance. Organisations can ensure they deliver flawless application experiences with visibility into the Kubernetes platform and the performance of applications, and infrastructure.
InfoQ: And the same for Next Generation Business iQ?
Owen: Application success is inseparable from business success. If an app is crashing or not providing the experience customers demand, chances are they'll jump ship to a competitor. This elevates IT's role. IT can no longer be viewed as a bunch of people in a disconnected back office building things for their business colleagues. Business iQ puts application teams in a creative and powerful position to drive the business by providing a platform for organisations that gives immediate, clear and actionable correlations between application performance, user experience and business outcomes. Carhartt, for example, is using Business iQ to demonstrate that their IT team can work work with the business to ensure that technology and software can drive a competitive advantage.
InfoQ: How does this compare with SaaS offerings AppDynamics has offered to date? And how long have these alternative SaaS offerings been available?
Owen: AppDynamics SaaS has been available for years. One of the things we heard from customers was a desire for data residency in Europe. At the same time we were looking to leverage some of the latest advancements in AWS that would enable us to more easily scale our services to allow us to address on-demand capacity needs. We started trials in Frankfurt earlier this year and started onboarding customers last quarter. Now, we can offer our European customers the best of both worlds through AWS' Frankfurt Region.
InfoQ: Please can you explain more about SOC2 and the built-in features that you describe - these are the new parts of the extended scope - is that correct?
Owen: To provide customers with transparency and assurance about its security program AppDynamics undergoes semi-annual SOC 2 Type II audits. We continue to adapt to remain agile to new and evolving threats facing our customers and our company.
InfoQ: What if an organisation's preferred cloud provider is Azure or GCP?
Owen: One of the key benefits of AppDynamics is that organisations can use it to monitor their customers' experiences and the impact it has on their business, regardless if their applications are hosted on one cloud, multiple clouds or on-premises. However, for AWS customers there are some added benefits. For example, customers who already have approved workloads in AWS can more quickly realise the power of AppDynamics SaaS because they have already been approved to run workloads in AWS. In other cases, customers with unused budget with AWS can take some of that money off the table and use it toward AppDynamics SaaS.