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Compuware Releases Top 25 Cloud Service Providers’ Global Performance One-year Rankings

Announcement posted by Bass PR 10 Oct 2011

Microsoft Windows Azure (Chicago) Is the Top Cloud Service Provider
Sydney – 10 October 2011 -- Compuware Corporation <http://www.compuware.com/>  (Nasdaq: CPWR), the technology performance company, today released the one-year average results of the top 25 cloud service providers’ global performance rankings. These rankings allow organisations shopping for a cloud service provider to compare and track cloud service providers’ global performance and make informed cloud purchasing decisions before migrating to the cloud.

The ranking results are published on CloudSleuth <http://www.cloudsleuth.net/>  - sponsored by Compuware – the industry’s only partner-driven cloud performance community. Using Compuware’s Global Provider View <https://www.cloudsleuth.net/web/guest/global-provider-view>  application, more than half a million tests were performed over the last 12-months on the average global response times of the world’s top cloud service providers, measuring their global service quality from the end-user’s perspective.

Microsoft Windows Azure <http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/>  (Chicago) tops the list with the best performance, followed by Google App Engine <http://code.google.com/appengine/>  ranking second, GoGrid <http://www.gogrid.com/>  ranking third, OpSource <http://www.opsource.net/>  ranking fourth and Rackspace <http://www.rackspace.com/>  ranking fifth.

To view the CloudSleuth blog post <http://bit.ly/nJqvIJ>  on the cloud provider rankings and the source data, click here <http://bit.ly/nJqvIJ> . To download the source data only, click here <http://bit.ly/oIZp9a> .

“It’s great to be recognised for our excellence in cloud performance," said Mark Worsey chief information officer at GoGrid <http://www.gogrid.com/> . “Our customers have high expectations when it comes to cloud performance and availability, and this ranking is just more validation that we are continuing to provide our customers with top-notch, reliable and accessible cloud services to meet their business needs.”

“As a leading cloud service provider, cloud performance and availability is crucial to the success of our business,” said John Rowell, CTO at OpSource <http://www.opsource.net/. “The Global Provider View on CloudSleuth <http://www.cloudsleuth.net/>  helps us measure ourselves against our competition and gives us insight into the quality of service we are providing to our customers, ensuring we meet our service level agreements (SLAs).”

One of the biggest inhibitors to the widespread use of cloud-based applications is user frustration due to poor application performance <http://www.compuware.com/application-performance-management/> . Studies have shown that users are becoming increasingly impatient — when page load times approach six seconds, the page abandonment rate approaches 33 percent.

Users experiencing poor performance will leave with a negative impression of a site and are much less likely to return. High abandonment rates directly impact revenue and ROI, so the ability to effectively manage application performance should be a key component of every organization’s cloud monitoring <http://www.cloudsleuth.net/>  strategy.

“We know that distance, routing and peering play an important role in determining website performance, and it is clear that some providers, such as Microsoft Azure-Chicago, have effectively mastered the combination,” said Steve Tack, Chief Technology Officer of Compuware’s APM <http://www.compuware.com/application-performance-management/>  business unit. “Organisations need to understand what levels of performance – i.e. speed and availability – are needed from their cloud-based applications in order to deliver fast, reliable and highly satisfying end-user experiences. Simply using hardware availability SLAs to manage service providers isn’t effective from an end-user perspective. Organizations need to measure the true experiences of their most important end-user segments, including those that are far away, to ensure their cloud service provider can deliver fast and reliable experiences in key regions.”

The Global Provider View <https://www.cloudsleuth.net/web/guest/global-provider-view>  uses the Compuware Gomez Performance Network (GPN) <http://www.compuware.com/application-performance-management/backbone.html>  to run end-user performance tests – measuring response time and availability – against a standard reference application that is hosted by the cloud service providers listed in the rankings. Gomez <http://www.compuware.com/application-performance-management/>  has developed a worldwide reputation for the quality and impartialness that clearly defines the methodology used for each of its benchmarks <http://www.gomez.com/benchmarks> . CloudSleuth <http://www.cloudsleuth.net/>  subscribes to the same open methodology in its performance visualization practices. For more details on the Global Provider View methodology <https://www.cloudsleuth.net/web/guest/global-provider-view> , click here <https://www.cloudsleuth.net/web/guest/global-provider-view> .

The Gomez platform <http://www.compuware.com/application-performance-management/the-gomez-platform.html>  is the industry’s leading solution for optimising the performance of Web, non-Web, mobile, streaming and cloud applications. Driven by end-user experience <http://www.compuware.com/application-performance-management/end-user-experience-synthetic-monitoring.html> , Gomez provides a unified view across the entire application delivery chain <http://www.compuware.com/application-performance-management/what-makes-gomez-unique.html#unify> , from a user’s browser or mobile device, across the Internet or a corporate WAN, in the cloud, to inside the data center, eliminating blind spots from the First Mile <http://www.compuware.com/application-performance-management/first-mile.html>  to the Last Mile <http://www.compuware.com/application-performance-management/last-mile.html> .

Compuware is recognised as a leader in Gartner Inc.’s “Magic Quadrant for Application Performance Monitoring” <http://bit.ly/q5jKi7>  report. To view and download a complimentary copy of the report, click here <http://bit.ly/q5jKi7> .

Compuware Corporation

Compuware Corporation, the technology performance company, provides software, experts and best practices to ensure technology works well and delivers value. Compuware solutions make the world’s most important technologies perform at their best for leading organisations worldwide, including 46 of the top 50 Fortune 500 companies and 12 of the top 20 most visited U.S. web sites. Learn more at: http://www.compuware.com.