The market for application performance management is a
relatively new one in IT.
It sits alongside the more mature areas of network services
management and IT services management and all three disciplines fit
under the rather clumsy phrase of IT performance optimisation.
The aim of this software, however, will be close to the hearts of
most IT directors: to extract maximum value from existing IT
resources, such as IT applications in the front or back office, the
network and to help IT support staff to communicate more
effectively.
The increasing complexity of internet-based applications means that
often they can only be fully tuned when run in the live production
environment. Application performance management tools provide
visibility into the network, monitoring transactions across IT
systems, and identifying wrongly configured infrastructure
devices.
From the moment an IT director signs a service level agreement with
a supplier, the control the IT department has over an application
begins to diminish. The developers move on to other projects or
move on altogether, taking the knowledge of the application with
them.
With application performance management tools identifying a faulty
line of code, IT can remain on top of performance issues and honour
the SLA.
The application performance management market largely comprises
specialist suppliers, such as Compuware, Mercury and Opnet,
offering software tools for monitoring end-user machines, networks,
servers and databases.
The bigger suppliers, such as Computer Associates, Hewlett-Packard
and IBM, also have a stake in this market.
Some of the technology emerging is quite novel. For example, Opnet
can simulate a complete wide area network that can run an
application and indicate where response delays are occurring on the
network.
The benefit of this technology lies in the freedom to experiment
and run what-if scenarios without affecting the performance of the
live network.
Application performance management tools can also allow managers to
lighten the workload on IT staff.
Support staff are normally quite stretched, with keymembers of a
team in constant demand. Resolving application performance issues
withoutapplication performance management tools is often a
time-consuming and costly trial-and-error process just to pinpoint
the problem location.
The right tools not only help to resolve issues faster, but can
generate the information needed to run your IT department more
efficiently. Few IT directors would say no that.
Michael Azoff is senior research analyst at the Butler
Group