Application Performance Management: Managing High-Performing, Business-Critical Web Applications

white paper: application performance management
Effectively Managing
High-Performing,
Business-Critical Web
Applications
august 2008Table of Contents
Executive Summary
section 1 4The Rise of Web Applications
section 2 5Yesterday's Management Tools Are Not Enough
section 3 7Growing Complexity Demands a New Approach
Section 4 9Transactions Provide a Common Language
Section 5 10Does Your Organization Have a Strategy in Place to Manage the End-User Experience?
About CA wily Back Cover
Copyright © 2008 CA. All rights reserved. All trademarks, trade names, service marks and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies. This document is for your informational purposes only. To the extent permitted by applicable law, CA provides this document "As Is" without warranty of any kind, including, without limitation, any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. In no event will CA be liable for any loss or damage, direct or indirect, from the use of this document including, without limitation, lost profits, business interruption, goodwill or lost data, even if CA is expressly advised of such damages.Executive Summary
Challenge
Increasing reliance on web-based applications has had significant implications for both IT staff and business managers. IT's primary responsibility and ongoing challenge is to provide a reliable high-performance web applications services environment, an environment that ensures the end user's ability to successfully interact with web applications while enabling IT to meet Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Anything less than superior application performance can have immediate consequences. To meet demand, IT is utilizing new technologies such as Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and server virtualization, technologies that add another layer to this already-complex infrastructure including, networks, servers, firewalls and other components. With so many interconnected fast-moving parts, there is potential for many points of failure.
Opportunity
Real-time data that provides insight into the online customer's experience will help IT deliver reliable, efficient service. Insight into the complete end-to-end transaction enables proactive problem avoidance and, when problems do occur, helps IT quickly identify which customers are being affected, the nature and severity of the problem, impact on business, which systems are affected, the likely cause, and who to call for fast remediation.IT's closer relationship with customers and the data gathered related to customer transactions is now the primary source of information to business owners and is directly tied to customer satisfaction. Your IT teams now have the opportunity to take a leadership role and work more closely with business owners to refine today's online applications and develop applications for the future that not only meet end-user needs, reach new markets, and improve competitive position but also effectively leverage technolog[ooy.
Benefits
An Application Performance Management (APM) solution will enable your IT team to deliver competitive, high performance web applications and assure business stakeholders that these applications are successfully completing customer transactions at the intended and agreed on service levels. Real-time knowledge of the entire end-to-end user experience provides new insights that can significantly improve service delivery, increase customer loyalty, and improve the overall online experience for the customer. Transaction information available in APM reports provides a common language that meets the needs of both IT and business managers, enabling everyone to provide the best-possible experience for the end user. IT's role as a partner to business management is enhanced and, as IT and business managers work as a team, ensures delivery of high-quality online services to customers.
White paper: application performance management 3 section 1
The Rise of Web ApplicationsLike most enterprise IT organizations, your web applications services environment is growing at an increasingly rapid rate. It's clear that no traditional software application is immune to web-based competition, and the deployment of more and more web-based applications is an established fact.
At the same time, the complex... [download for more]