Here is a list of how long it took various technological innovations to reach a market of 50 million commercial users:

• Broadcast Radio 36 years
• Television 13 years
• Personal Computer 16 years
• Commercial Internet 4 years

The e-business market is happening so fast that the system or performance manager must therefore learn to manage the performance of such systems quicker than other IT market trends have been mastered.

There is always a tendency to think that any new IT innovation is totally new. Many commercial companies have an interest in promoting this view, so that you buy new products to support new environments. Current experience shows that many e-business applications are built on traditional database back-end systems however. Often these are existing legacy systems. Typically 80% of the response time for e-business applications takes place at the back end. Master the performance of these systems and you are managing the majority of the service that the user experiences. These are the very systems we have been managing for years, with software and personnel in place to do the job.

One can thus build on existing software and past techniques to save time. Commercial tools will enable Performance Management functions to be established quickly. Even if they don't offer a 100% solution, an 80% solution implemented quickly will offer benefits and can then be refined as the market matures.