Application management appliances are worth a look
Appliances move up the stack
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Senior Editor Denise Dubie guides you through the latest developments in management tools and services.
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When a network manager needs a new router, he goes to Cisco, buys a box and plugs it in. It may not actually be quite that
easy, but most of the work involved in installing new network equipment is in design and configuration.
However, when an enterprise management engineer needs new application management products, his first impulse is to turn to
software. Deploying software designed to manage applications, however, can require almost as much effort as deploying your
typical ERP system - we are talking months or years.
Application management appliances are often perceived as pricey alternatives designed to gain control of an infrastructure
gone awry. Companies ante up the cash necessary to buy appliances that give them deep perspective to execution environments
when their backs are against the wall. Drivers for such purchases range from recurring problems that defy diagnosis to composite
transactions experiencing perennial performance issues.
Business applications are becoming so complex that even large enterprises are falling short in terms of their ability to manage
them. If we use the ITIL definition of problems, which is "the unknown root cause of one or more incidents," recent EMA research
shows that the percentage of IT problems actually solved in many large companies is between zero and 10%. The traditional
"war room" team approach to problem determination is becoming far too expensive to be viable. Instead, companies tend to add
horsepower, develop workarounds for recurring problems or turn to the reboot as the management product of choice.
Today's application management appliances are perfectly poised to address these challenges. Their ability to deliver application
intelligence via visibility to execution environments will undoubtedly contribute to market share gains as application architectures
continue to become increasingly complex. Compuware, Coradiant and Wily appliances, designed to analyze messages embedded in
HTTP traffic, have been in the marketplace for some time. Products that analyze lower level network traffic, such as EMC (Smarts)
and more recent application management offerings from Network General and Network Physics, approach the same problem from
a different angle.
Forum Systems, Layer 7, Reactivity, and IBM DataPower are all designed to analyze, parse, and transform XML messages. While
these products currently focus primarily on XML acceleration and security, their technology also positions them to extend
their reach to application management over time.
Denise Dubie is senior editor with Network World.
Partner Content
Blue Stripe Software
www.bluestripe.com/
Improving Application Performance Troubleshooting
Diagnosing why an application is slow is hard, at times taking days or weeks to isolate and resolve. This paper explains the challenges involved using current management tools, provides a 'wish list' for application management and analysis, and explains the need for an application system-wide approach that monitors entire applications, not components.
Download Whitepaper
Virtual Vigilance: Managing Application Performance in Virtual Environments
This paper highlights the impact of virtualization on application performance. "Managing Application Performance in Virtual Environments" states: "Best-in-Class organizations are predominately taking actions around improving visibility across both physical and virtual systems, assessing the business impact of application performance and understanding interdependencies of applications in virtualized environments."
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Application Service Requests: The Missing Link for Pragmatic ITSM
Forrester Research analyst Glenn O'Donnell and BlueStripe co-founder Vic Nyman discuss a breakthrough approach to application problem management. Learn the new approach for ITSM problem management, which provides: Rapid isolation of application slow-downs to specific components for quick problem resolution, 24/7 monitoring for proactive notification of potential issues before end users are impacted and much more.
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