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The App Hugger's 5 Truths About Application Recovery - and an Opportunity for Innovation

Kevin McCartney

Application (App) Hugger: Someone who is obsessed with application availability, particularly from the end user perspective — in the same manner that the “server hugger” focuses on infrastructure monitoring.

1. Applications Can Be as Finicky as Cats - OK, They Can Be a Bitch to Manage

Applications are typically very complex, with many dynamic components. They are notoriously fragile since they are constructed with a very specific technical hierarchy, order and dependencies between application components — as well as within the IT ecosystem in which they run. And various application types have different architectures, as well as unique underlying relationships to their infrastructure.

This makes the task of managing multiple applications in a run-time environment very challenging. It requires that the appropriate steps must be taken, and completed in the appropriate sequence, depending on the current state of an application.

2. Users Are Great at Telling You When Something's Broken - Just Let 'Em Try Fixing It

IT operations teams spend a significant portion of their budgets on intelligent software-based systems, tools and staff to monitor their networks, servers and systems to identify problems — before their users find them.

Once a problem is identified and cause pinpointed — a challenge we'll deal with in another App-Hugger Brief — the IT staff begins an application repair or recovery process that is almost always painstakingly labor-intensive and manual — and therefore fraught with risk.

3. Re-arranging Servers and Routers on the Enterprise Titanic

And this problem is only getting more daunting: As the variety of application types (custom, commercial off-the-shelf, SaaS) and platforms (cloud, on-premise, virtual) continues to explode, application recovery becomes even more complex and labor-intensive — increasing the risk of downtime even more.

4. We All Know Scripts and Runbooks Don't Scale

Some IT departments have improved the speed and efficiency of the application recovery process over time with tools like scripts and runbook automation.

But those still require development of individual steps and libraries full of scripts that have to be created and maintained — for each individual application. In many cases the runbook is still a physical binder sitting on a shelf.

5. An Opportunity for Innovation: Why Not Push-Button App Recovery

Next generation Application Management platforms must combine features such as stateful awareness to enable “push-button” application recovery — across all of enterprise's applications, regardless of type or infrastructure. “Push-button” application recovery (PBAR) alerts an authorized IT staff member to trigger a pre-determined sequence of steps and scripts to recover an application. The sequence is based on a carefully defined set of business rules developed by the IT department.

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The App Hugger's 5 Truths About Application Recovery - and an Opportunity for Innovation

Kevin McCartney

Application (App) Hugger: Someone who is obsessed with application availability, particularly from the end user perspective — in the same manner that the “server hugger” focuses on infrastructure monitoring.

1. Applications Can Be as Finicky as Cats - OK, They Can Be a Bitch to Manage

Applications are typically very complex, with many dynamic components. They are notoriously fragile since they are constructed with a very specific technical hierarchy, order and dependencies between application components — as well as within the IT ecosystem in which they run. And various application types have different architectures, as well as unique underlying relationships to their infrastructure.

This makes the task of managing multiple applications in a run-time environment very challenging. It requires that the appropriate steps must be taken, and completed in the appropriate sequence, depending on the current state of an application.

2. Users Are Great at Telling You When Something's Broken - Just Let 'Em Try Fixing It

IT operations teams spend a significant portion of their budgets on intelligent software-based systems, tools and staff to monitor their networks, servers and systems to identify problems — before their users find them.

Once a problem is identified and cause pinpointed — a challenge we'll deal with in another App-Hugger Brief — the IT staff begins an application repair or recovery process that is almost always painstakingly labor-intensive and manual — and therefore fraught with risk.

3. Re-arranging Servers and Routers on the Enterprise Titanic

And this problem is only getting more daunting: As the variety of application types (custom, commercial off-the-shelf, SaaS) and platforms (cloud, on-premise, virtual) continues to explode, application recovery becomes even more complex and labor-intensive — increasing the risk of downtime even more.

4. We All Know Scripts and Runbooks Don't Scale

Some IT departments have improved the speed and efficiency of the application recovery process over time with tools like scripts and runbook automation.

But those still require development of individual steps and libraries full of scripts that have to be created and maintained — for each individual application. In many cases the runbook is still a physical binder sitting on a shelf.

5. An Opportunity for Innovation: Why Not Push-Button App Recovery

Next generation Application Management platforms must combine features such as stateful awareness to enable “push-button” application recovery — across all of enterprise's applications, regardless of type or infrastructure. “Push-button” application recovery (PBAR) alerts an authorized IT staff member to trigger a pre-determined sequence of steps and scripts to recover an application. The sequence is based on a carefully defined set of business rules developed by the IT department.

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Hot Topics

The Latest

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A large majority (86%) of data management and AI decision makers cite protecting data privacy as a top concern, with 76% of respondents citing ROI on data privacy and AI initiatives across their organization, according to a new Harris Poll from Collibra ...

According to Gartner, Inc. the following six trends will shape the future of cloud over the next four years, ultimately resulting in new ways of working that are digital in nature and transformative in impact ...

2020 was the equivalent of a wedding with a top-shelf open bar. As businesses scrambled to adjust to remote work, digital transformation accelerated at breakneck speed. New software categories emerged overnight. Tech stacks ballooned with all sorts of SaaS apps solving ALL the problems — often with little oversight or long-term integration planning, and yes frequently a lot of duplicated functionality ... But now the music's faded. The lights are on. Everyone from the CIO to the CFO is checking the bill. Welcome to the Great SaaS Hangover ...

Regardless of OpenShift being a scalable and flexible software, it can be a pain to monitor since complete visibility into the underlying operations is not guaranteed ... To effectively monitor an OpenShift environment, IT administrators should focus on these five key elements and their associated metrics ...

An overwhelming majority of IT leaders (95%) believe the upcoming wave of AI-powered digital transformation is set to be the most impactful and intensive seen thus far, according to The Science of Productivity: AI, Adoption, And Employee Experience, a new report from Nexthink ...

Overall outage frequency and the general level of reported severity continue to decline, according to the Outage Analysis 2025 from Uptime Institute. However, cyber security incidents are on the rise and often have severe, lasting impacts ...

In March, New Relic published the State of Observability for Media and Entertainment Report to share insights, data, and analysis into the adoption and business value of observability across the media and entertainment industry. Here are six key takeaways from the report ...

Regardless of their scale, business decisions often take time, effort, and a lot of back-and-forth discussion to reach any sort of actionable conclusion ... Any means of streamlining this process and getting from complex problems to optimal solutions more efficiently and reliably is key. How can organizations optimize their decision-making to save time and reduce excess effort from those involved? ...

As enterprises accelerate their cloud adoption strategies, CIOs are routinely exceeding their cloud budgets — a concern that's about to face additional pressure from an unexpected direction: uncertainty over semiconductor tariffs. The CIO Cloud Trends Survey & Report from Azul reveals the extent continued cloud investment despite cost overruns, and how organizations are attempting to bring spending under control ...

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