When you press an elevator button and nothing happens, how long do you wait before you jab the button again? If you’re like most people, chances are you wait about three seconds. Just like using an elevator, when it comes to the applications you use over a network you have thresholds at which you are satisfied with, tolerate, or are frustrated with performance. In this blog Peter Sevcik and Rebecca Wetzel explore application performance from the end user’s perspective. We examine best practices and technologies for measuring and improving the lot of the end user – with the goal of helping you understand and improve your end-users’ experience.
We call this topic Application Performance Management (APM). APM covers both the technologies and the processes that make a system deliver the performance needed to support business needs. Unlike network/infrastructure management, APM isn’t limited to the network cloud or the data center – it extends from the data center, through the network all the way to the user. After all, if a user can’t to do his or her job, then business needs cannot be met. APM links business needs with the performance the user experiences to ensure that users get the performance they need to be productive.
It is critical to do more than give lip service to performance/business linkage. We will provide clear methods for understanding, quantifying, and improving that linkage. Much of what we plan to cover will leverage your current infrastructure with new and more effective management techniques. And we will also cover the constantly emerging and evolving products and services that enable new approaches and improved outcomes. To give you a preview of what you will see in this blog, we will discuss:
Process – Defining processes for APM grounded in ITIL
Architecture – Technology, interfaces and work-flow that support the processes
Technology – Products/services that implement the architecture
Best Practice – Making sure that the processes and technology are working well
To give you some background about us, we work for a small consulting company called NetForecast. Both of us have been consulting to enterprises and vendors on how to improve application performance for a long time. We have found that many organizations get focused on technology and ignore process. You need both to manage and improve performance.
We will be covering both topics so that you can avoid buying the wrong stuff and take proper advantage of the stuff you do buy. Furthermore, we find that many vendors fail to properly describe the clear value of their solutions. They fall into the trap of claiming that their cool new product will fix all that ails you! We will try to clarify the value of various technologies and vendor approaches. Our goal is to educate and separate truth from hype. Each of our blog entries will take the form of:
Tutorials – Methodology handbook “how to” stuff, or
Examples – Nuggets of what we find, or
Developments – New products or services, or
Trends – What the new products and services mean
