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Resource Monitoring vs. Application Performance Monitoring (APM)

How Middleware Resource Monitoring is Different from APM
Ted Wilson

Is middleware resource monitoring the same thing as APM? No – but it is highly complementary with APM and organizations generally need both for complex, large-scale application environments that depend on middleware.

End to end resource monitoring is fundamentally different.


We see four general categories in the enterprise monitoring landscape:

1. Low level infrastructure monitoring, often open source or low-cost

2. Domain-specific admin and monitoring tools including database, server, log, and vendor-specific tools

3. Application-aware resource monitoring of infrastructure

4. APM, including transaction tracing and end-user monitoring

APM, and especially transaction monitoring, has its place. It is an important capability for some types of users such as developers who need to understand the behavior of their transactions and how they are performing. It is also very good at identifying code-based problems. If your problems are in the code, then APM can help. But what if the problem is not in the application itself but the infrastructure that supports that application? Most application performance issues are not code-based problems.

Oftentimes, the problems lie in the middleware tiers, servers and other resources. These are equally as important to monitor.

The Complexity of Middleware

Middleware components are usually distributed, clustered and shared across multiple services and applications. Many organizations use middleware provided by multiple vendors across multiple tiers, on-premise, in the cloud, or hybrid. And a single middleware technology, such as TIBCO EMS, requires real-time and historical metric gathering for the EMS Servers, topics, queues, and destinations to really understand performance. An effective monitoring system will also provide information about other interdependencies. Is a problem with pending messages really occurring because of a CPU issue with a VMware host?

This all makes holistic monitoring tricky. So when an application problem lies in a middleware tier, your application support and middleware support teams require specialized tools to proactively identify the problem before the application is affected. If they are relying on end user or transaction monitoring for this type of problem, chances are the middleware components are going to be a black box. APM tools just don’t provide adequate visibility into the middleware.

So before you increase spending on APM tools, be sure you have the middleware tier covered and those support teams have the tools they need to be proactive in resolving the infrastructure level problems.

Ask yourself how you solve the majority of your Sev 1 incidents today. Are you using tools that help you understand the performance of your clustered middleware? Or are you using tools that help you understand your transactions and transaction throughput? The answer may help you in prioritizing your monitoring investments.


Ted Wilson is Chief Operating Officer at SL Corporation.

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Resource Monitoring vs. Application Performance Monitoring (APM)

How Middleware Resource Monitoring is Different from APM
Ted Wilson

Is middleware resource monitoring the same thing as APM? No – but it is highly complementary with APM and organizations generally need both for complex, large-scale application environments that depend on middleware.

End to end resource monitoring is fundamentally different.


We see four general categories in the enterprise monitoring landscape:

1. Low level infrastructure monitoring, often open source or low-cost

2. Domain-specific admin and monitoring tools including database, server, log, and vendor-specific tools

3. Application-aware resource monitoring of infrastructure

4. APM, including transaction tracing and end-user monitoring

APM, and especially transaction monitoring, has its place. It is an important capability for some types of users such as developers who need to understand the behavior of their transactions and how they are performing. It is also very good at identifying code-based problems. If your problems are in the code, then APM can help. But what if the problem is not in the application itself but the infrastructure that supports that application? Most application performance issues are not code-based problems.

Oftentimes, the problems lie in the middleware tiers, servers and other resources. These are equally as important to monitor.

The Complexity of Middleware

Middleware components are usually distributed, clustered and shared across multiple services and applications. Many organizations use middleware provided by multiple vendors across multiple tiers, on-premise, in the cloud, or hybrid. And a single middleware technology, such as TIBCO EMS, requires real-time and historical metric gathering for the EMS Servers, topics, queues, and destinations to really understand performance. An effective monitoring system will also provide information about other interdependencies. Is a problem with pending messages really occurring because of a CPU issue with a VMware host?

This all makes holistic monitoring tricky. So when an application problem lies in a middleware tier, your application support and middleware support teams require specialized tools to proactively identify the problem before the application is affected. If they are relying on end user or transaction monitoring for this type of problem, chances are the middleware components are going to be a black box. APM tools just don’t provide adequate visibility into the middleware.

So before you increase spending on APM tools, be sure you have the middleware tier covered and those support teams have the tools they need to be proactive in resolving the infrastructure level problems.

Ask yourself how you solve the majority of your Sev 1 incidents today. Are you using tools that help you understand the performance of your clustered middleware? Or are you using tools that help you understand your transactions and transaction throughput? The answer may help you in prioritizing your monitoring investments.


Ted Wilson is Chief Operating Officer at SL Corporation.

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The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

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