APMdigest rounds out the list with some final thoughts on the many valuable tools available – beyond what is technically categorized as Application Performance Management (APM) – to support the goals of improving application performance and business service.
16. Database Query Management
Integrated database query management is quickly becoming a required capability to ensure application performance. While performance problems can come from a lot of sources, the database is often at the top of the list of suspects. Being able to stay ahead of application performance issues caused by query issues is one of the best ways to get a quick boost to overall application uptime and performance.
Michael Thompson
Principal, Product Marketing, SolarWinds
17. Application Delivery Controllers
Applications are no longer contained in data center environments on stable, over-provisioned infrastructures. As the number of lightweight mobile applications increases, the task of ensuring superior application performance has become very complex. By using application delivery controllers, companies can optimize, secure and control the delivery of every enterprise and cloud service in use, while understanding the actual end-user experience delivered by those applications.
S. “Sundi” Sundaresh
CEO, Xangati
18. Agent Management
Whether it's a traditional on-premises deployment or a vendor-managed SaaS, APM solutions often rely on application-aware monitoring agents to collect key performance indicators on the health and availability of various application components, or to track and time transactions. However, in today's world of rapid application lifecycles, pattern-based application provisioning and dynamic workloads that appear and disappear frequently, keeping those agents pointed at these oft-changing application components can be a challenge. An intelligent endpoint management system that can deploy, patch and refresh agents automatically, in the background, and as part of automated batch jobs, is essential to the goal of having a low-touch, high-value APM solution.
Marvin Goodman
Market Manager, APM, IBM
19. DevOps
The most powerful augmentation of modern APM comes not from a specific technology, but from the adoption of a DevOps approach to software development. DevOps stresses communication, collaboration and integration between software developers, QA and operations professionals – and APM is the platform that empowers this approach. DevOps enables IT to deliver better business results faster, while reducing costs, and reducing the amount of time it takes to fix problems and launch new features and services to end users. Nothing is more effective at unlocking and maximizing value of your APM investments.
Andreas Grabner
Lead of Center of Excellence, Compuware APM
20. Business Intelligence
The gathering of data regarding the performance of applications and the infrastructure is of course key to effective APM. However, recent Quocirca research shows that the same data is also an important feed for operational intelligence tools which provide guidance not just for IT staff but for those managing business process.
Bob Tarzey
Analyst and Director, Quocirca
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