Many early adopters of cloud computing are poorly equipped to monitor and manage the performance of their cloud applications. In a just-published InformationWeek article, author Michael Healey outlines five steps users can take to change that.Healey, who's CTO of IT integration company GreenPages, writes that 40% of cloud users don't monitor application performance and only 16% employ WAN acceleration, based on an InformationWeek Analytics survey of business technology pros using or planning to use cloud services.

"The dearth of standard monitoring metrics, cloud vendors' reluctance to reveal performance statistics, and our own inability to guarantee connectivity quality on the Internet have combined to move performance from a small annoyance to certified nightmare status for organizations that have accelerated their adoption without proper planning," he writes.

Healey offers a five-step process to get a handle on cloud app performance:

1. Measure your company's internal traffic and bandwidth levels before getting into cloud computing.

2. Ask your Internet service provider to help monitor and troubleshoot cloud apps.

3. Give remote workers tools to troubleshoot and report slowdowns.

4. Pay attention to the overall state of Internet performance.

5. Use WAN optimization to get the most from cloud connectivity.

Until now, the performance of cloud apps is a subject that has gotten less than its share of attention, as early adopters have been preoccupied with security, governance, reliability, and other issues common to first-time users. However, that's changing as more IT organizations gain experience in the cloud and as vendors such as CA, Hyperic, IBM, RightScale, and ScienceLogic target the need for products that monitor and manage cloud services.

For Michael's Healey's full report, see "Maximizing Your Cloud Applications." And feel free to comment here with your own cloud-management experiences and favorite tools.