System complexities and interdependencies are making enterprise application problems inevitable, intractable, and more elusive. The worst-case scenarios can be overwhelming. Given the time, cost, and impact caused by software defects in recent years, you might expect some progress in the state-of-the-art techniques for finding and resolving defects. While advanced application design and new development and integration technologies have emerged, the pure effort involved in root-cause analysis for most organizations is stuck in the past. The processes remain labor intensive.

This paper presents recommendations for comprehensive problem management and describes how IT organizations can address problems related to performance and availability, while reducing costs.