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How to Avoid Mobile Application Meltdown

Mobile Computing: A Whole New Approach to APM

Consumer mobile apps are everywhere, but many CIOs are just beginning to consider how to best distribute mobile apps to workers and customers. Companies with more progressive outlooks are developing their own internal app stores, and analyzing which legacy apps should go mobile and which third-party apps to support. In the rush to meet the needs of the business, and keep pace with demands from customers and partners who crave mobile access, IT risks making some missteps.

The consumer IT movement means that expectations for performance have changed dramatically. Developers and IT managers need to understand the requirements for “instant-on” apps, which launch at the touch of a finger and work flawlessly all the time. If an application stops working, the user will ditch it and go download something else. So what can you do to avoid mobile application meltdown and failed ROI?

Performance in the Mobile World

There are many differences between mobile, distributed computing and computing of the past -- in which users and applications were tethered to the desktop. For one, most enterprise IT departments have limited visibility beyond servers.

In the mobile world, IT needs to determine how to efficiently and accurately trace the transaction to a single user’s device -- no matter whether the device runs Android, Apple iOS, Windows or something else. That requires a new approach to monitoring, and possibly, new tools and processes based on user-centric experiences. From the narrow angle of the server side performance, response times may seem peachy. In reality, due to inefficient website implementation (e.g. multiple roundtrips) or a slow network, users may suffer.

Then IT must consider the vast number of different locations from where users will be accessing corporate data and applications on their mobile devices. The more variability -- users who log on from home, the airport, over corporate or public cloud connections -- the more complicated troubleshooting will be for the IT team. Also, IT has a higher incidence of unexpected use patterns, as more people log on during unpredictable hours and from unknown locations.

With so many different potential issues and devices to monitor, not to mention higher volumes of traffic altogether, a sophisticated alert system based on historical trend analysis will help IT stay in the driver’s seat.

What is the threshold for each device and operating system, after which performance will likely begin to suffer? How do certain geographic regions and common user locations (e.g. metropolitan airports) differ from others when it comes to performance and network reliability? Alerts should be customized for a much larger number of potential situations and scenarios so that IT can respond appropriately -- versus a costly and ineffective one-size-fits-all approach.

Website and IT managers need to consider how well their public and private sites are optimized for mobile access. Many enterprise applications today, particularly legacy ones, don’t run well from the mobile Web. Best coding practices for supporting mobile clients include minimizing the number of “round trips” or the requests from client to server such as client-side redirection and loading only the content that the user needs to see right now, often called “lazy loading”.

Finally, application managers will need to develop and monitor a much larger number of performance baselines. Most organizations are supporting multiple different platforms across the user base. This means that there is no such thing anymore as a single transaction baseline, related to a hardwired PC. To compare apples to apples, application monitoring must be segmented by network and platform (e.g. LAN user, WiFi user, teleworker, mobile user by device) so when things go wrong you can locate exactly the problem spot.

In our mobile world, maintaining the status quo for application performance isn’t viable. Employees and customers now have much more power when it comes to information technology. Enterprise mobile computing is bound to have vast and still unknown implications on the practice of application performance management. Yet being proactive with a mobile APM strategy can deliver a whole new level of business productivity and innovation to delight employees and end customers alike.

About Zohar Gilad

Zohar Gilad is Executive Vice President, Products, Marketing and Channels at Precise Software. Before joining Precise, Zohar held several senior executive positions with Mercury Interactive, acquired by HP in 2006. At Mercury, Zohar drove expansion into new markets, creating new product categories: Load Testing, Quality Management, Application Management, and finally Business Technology Optimization. From 2000-2003, as the General Manager of the Application Management business unit, he helped grow the business from $0 to about $100M a year. Prior to joining Mercury, Zohar held software development positions at IBM and Daisy Systems.

Related Links:

www.precise.com

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How to Avoid Mobile Application Meltdown

Mobile Computing: A Whole New Approach to APM

Consumer mobile apps are everywhere, but many CIOs are just beginning to consider how to best distribute mobile apps to workers and customers. Companies with more progressive outlooks are developing their own internal app stores, and analyzing which legacy apps should go mobile and which third-party apps to support. In the rush to meet the needs of the business, and keep pace with demands from customers and partners who crave mobile access, IT risks making some missteps.

The consumer IT movement means that expectations for performance have changed dramatically. Developers and IT managers need to understand the requirements for “instant-on” apps, which launch at the touch of a finger and work flawlessly all the time. If an application stops working, the user will ditch it and go download something else. So what can you do to avoid mobile application meltdown and failed ROI?

Performance in the Mobile World

There are many differences between mobile, distributed computing and computing of the past -- in which users and applications were tethered to the desktop. For one, most enterprise IT departments have limited visibility beyond servers.

In the mobile world, IT needs to determine how to efficiently and accurately trace the transaction to a single user’s device -- no matter whether the device runs Android, Apple iOS, Windows or something else. That requires a new approach to monitoring, and possibly, new tools and processes based on user-centric experiences. From the narrow angle of the server side performance, response times may seem peachy. In reality, due to inefficient website implementation (e.g. multiple roundtrips) or a slow network, users may suffer.

Then IT must consider the vast number of different locations from where users will be accessing corporate data and applications on their mobile devices. The more variability -- users who log on from home, the airport, over corporate or public cloud connections -- the more complicated troubleshooting will be for the IT team. Also, IT has a higher incidence of unexpected use patterns, as more people log on during unpredictable hours and from unknown locations.

With so many different potential issues and devices to monitor, not to mention higher volumes of traffic altogether, a sophisticated alert system based on historical trend analysis will help IT stay in the driver’s seat.

What is the threshold for each device and operating system, after which performance will likely begin to suffer? How do certain geographic regions and common user locations (e.g. metropolitan airports) differ from others when it comes to performance and network reliability? Alerts should be customized for a much larger number of potential situations and scenarios so that IT can respond appropriately -- versus a costly and ineffective one-size-fits-all approach.

Website and IT managers need to consider how well their public and private sites are optimized for mobile access. Many enterprise applications today, particularly legacy ones, don’t run well from the mobile Web. Best coding practices for supporting mobile clients include minimizing the number of “round trips” or the requests from client to server such as client-side redirection and loading only the content that the user needs to see right now, often called “lazy loading”.

Finally, application managers will need to develop and monitor a much larger number of performance baselines. Most organizations are supporting multiple different platforms across the user base. This means that there is no such thing anymore as a single transaction baseline, related to a hardwired PC. To compare apples to apples, application monitoring must be segmented by network and platform (e.g. LAN user, WiFi user, teleworker, mobile user by device) so when things go wrong you can locate exactly the problem spot.

In our mobile world, maintaining the status quo for application performance isn’t viable. Employees and customers now have much more power when it comes to information technology. Enterprise mobile computing is bound to have vast and still unknown implications on the practice of application performance management. Yet being proactive with a mobile APM strategy can deliver a whole new level of business productivity and innovation to delight employees and end customers alike.

About Zohar Gilad

Zohar Gilad is Executive Vice President, Products, Marketing and Channels at Precise Software. Before joining Precise, Zohar held several senior executive positions with Mercury Interactive, acquired by HP in 2006. At Mercury, Zohar drove expansion into new markets, creating new product categories: Load Testing, Quality Management, Application Management, and finally Business Technology Optimization. From 2000-2003, as the General Manager of the Application Management business unit, he helped grow the business from $0 to about $100M a year. Prior to joining Mercury, Zohar held software development positions at IBM and Daisy Systems.

Related Links:

www.precise.com

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In the final part of APMdigest's 2025 Predictions Series, industry experts offer predictions on how AI will evolve and impact technology and business in 2025 ...

E-commerce is set to skyrocket with a 9% rise over the next few years ... To thrive in this competitive environment, retailers must identify digital resilience as their top priority. In a world where savvy shoppers expect 24/7 access to online deals and experiences, any unexpected downtime to digital services can lead to significant financial losses, damage to brand reputation, abandoned carts with designer shoes, and additional issues ...

Efficiency is a highly-desirable objective in business ... We're seeing this scenario play out in enterprises around the world as they continue to struggle with infrastructures and remote work models with an eye toward operational efficiencies. In contrast to that goal, a recent Broadcom survey of global IT and network professionals found widespread adoption of these strategies is making the network more complex and hampering observability, leading to uptime, performance and security issues. Let's look more closely at these challenges ...

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The 2025 Catchpoint SRE Report dives into the forces transforming the SRE landscape, exploring both the challenges and opportunities ahead. Let's break down the key findings and what they mean for SRE professionals and the businesses relying on them ...

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The pressure on IT teams has never been greater. As data environments grow increasingly complex, resource shortages are emerging as a major obstacle for IT leaders striving to meet the demands of modern infrastructure management ... According to DataStrike's newly released 2025 Data Infrastructure Survey Report, more than half (54%) of IT leaders cite resource limitations as a top challenge, highlighting a growing trend toward outsourcing as a solution ...

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Gartner revealed its top strategic predictions for 2025 and beyond. Gartner's top predictions explore how generative AI (GenAI) is affecting areas where most would assume only humans can have lasting impact ...

The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) is accelerating across the telecoms industry, with 88% of fixed broadband service providers now investigating or trialing AI automation to enhance their fixed broadband services, according to new research from Incognito Software Systems and Omdia ...

 

AWS is a cloud-based computing platform known for its reliability, scalability, and flexibility. However, as helpful as its comprehensive infrastructure is, disparate elements and numerous siloed components make it difficult for admins to visualize the cloud performance in detail. It requires meticulous monitoring techniques and deep visibility to understand cloud performance and analyze operational efficiency in detail to ensure seamless cloud operations ...

Imagine a future where software, once a complex obstacle, becomes a natural extension of daily workflow — an intuitive, seamless experience that maximizes productivity and efficiency. This future is no longer a distant vision but a reality being crafted by the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence ...

Enterprise data sprawl already challenges companies' ability to protect and back up their data. Much of this information is never fully secured, leaving organizations vulnerable. Now, as GenAI platforms emerge as yet another environment where enterprise data is consumed, transformed, and created, this fragmentation is set to intensify ...

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