There is a dual financial hit to businesses if application performance across the company network is allowed to drop, according to a study from Forrester Consulting.

According to the research, many companies claim that poor application performance results in both lost revenues and increased operating costs.

However, the organisation adds that some businesses are placing expectations on their IT departments which are simply impossible to fulfil - identified as the main reason preventing them from meeting the requirements of service-level agreements.

But with more effective communication between the IT department and the business, it is suggested that it may be possible to ensure good quality of service is maintained.

Jean-Pierre Garbani, vice-president and principal analyst with Forrester Research, says: "If alignment is viewed as conformity to user expectations in terms of availability, performance, usability and accuracy, then monitoring end-user performance is the only way IT knows that it is meeting these expectations."

Fellow analyst IDC recently revealed that the cost of powering and cooling all the world's external storage surpassed $1 billion (£510 million) over the course of 2007.

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