Market Analysis: Holistic Application Performance Management 2

Pieces Of The Puzzle
Our premise of a holistic APM environment implies a configuration that functions in harmony with the surrounding network, all the pieces fitting gracefully into the bigger picture. While some vendors are working to this end, most still offer disparate parts of the puzzle. We'll test how well suites collect data and see if agents are really critical, especially on application servers and supporting system components.

Makers of products based on synthetic transactions say they can detect performance problems in scenarios where deploying agents isn't practical. We'll find out how well they do that. Alternatively, some companies use appliances that track and measure user response times without agents. But do you need client agents to really quantify when a user is experiencing unacceptable performance? If an organization is monitoring most components of its app environment, is it worthwhile to deploy a holistic APM architecture? Clearly, quantifying ROI can be a real challenge.

While organizations can combine APM pieces from different vendors, the trend is toward using one supplier for tight pre-built integrations. APM vendors have realized that this approach will provide the most value--and larger sales. Unfortunately, the cost of this holistic approach may not be realistic for many businesses, so they still need individual components that can provide greater visibility into application health than they receive today. As we review APM offerings, we'll discuss ways to move forward on a budget.

Special Cases

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APM has a role to play in helping virtualization move into an operational environment. Thus far, few businesses have enjoyed the power and space savings represented by virtual data centers because IT managers are hesitant to migrate critical business applications without proactive performance monitoring. Organizations without a good grasp of the state of their application landscapes fear degrading performance by virtualizing.

In addition, telecommunications and IT service providers, facing increased industry consolidation, are seeking ways to offer more value-added services. These typically involve the application service infrastructure and APM. Without an understanding of application performance, however, they're unable to provide service-level agreements and quality service to customers.

Driven by regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, as well as standards such as ITIL v3 or ISO 2000, IT service providers are turning to CIO dashboards or business service management suites that depend on APM. Any dashboard requires an understanding of the apps and the underlying infrastructure. Fault management, while still important, is becoming less of a focus as businesses seek to be proactive and prevent faults from occurring in the first place.

One Size Doesn't Fit All
Get ready for the process of choosing an APM partner by developing a solid understanding of how your applications work. For example, many vendors offer agents for J2EE or .Net apps but provide no agent support for general Web-based application platforms. Others provide real-time user monitoring through the capture of packet-level data from switches but no synthetic transaction capabilities for off-hours testing. To develop your short list, watch for our ongoing reviews, and ask these questions:

How does the product collect server hardware, operating system, application, and network performance information? How does it discover the root cause of a performance problem across application, system, and network layers? Does it require proprietary agents, and does it perform synthetic transactions? Is it hardware or software?

What apps can it monitor, and will it work with existing management tools? What type of historical performance reporting is available, and does it discover a baseline for the existing environment, then report on deviations from that baseline?

Michael Biddick ([email protected]) is a contributing editor at InformationWeek and executive VP of solutions at Windward Consulting Group.

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