In the days of the nineties, a mere couple of Unix commands—specifically vmstat, netstat, and ps—sufficed for troubleshooting performance issues. One could swiftly diagnose application problems, whether it was a server-side resource scarcity, the JVM depleting its memory,or an inefficient response from a backend server. Minutes were all it took to pinpoint the issue,without any sophisticated tools.
However, in the present-day business landscape, like Grandma’s delicate spaghetti, reliance solely on operating system-level monitoring tools is a thing of the past. Consider the striking contrast between the applications of the old generation and their modern counterparts.
What’s good in Old APM?
In Figure a, a performance glitch can manifest in four systems at a high level—quite straightforward.
- The physical infrastructure of the server hosting the application
- Application
- Physical Infrastructure of the server hosting the Database
- DatabaseFigure b:
Why do you need APM?
As a modern-day application, potential performance issues sprawl across numerous domains, including:
- The physical infrastructure of the server hosting the application server
- Application Server
- Application
- Physical Infrastructure of the server hosting the Database
- Database
- Physical Infrastructure of the server hosting the Directory (e.g., Active Directory)
- Directory (e.g., Active Directory)
- A remote application accessed through a Web Service call or myriad other methods
- Physical Infrastructure of the server hosting the remote Application
- Message Queuing Server
- Physical Infrastructure of the server hosting the Message Queuing Server
- SAN (Storage Area Network)
- An external cache server
- A rules Engine Server
- A software and hardware Loading Balancer, or through a Proxy/Web Server
- A call to an external vendor traversing a firewall
- Calls to ERP systems like SAP
- Calls to Transaction processing systems such as Mainframe
- Services obtained from the Cloud
- A Job Scheduling Server
- A secure file transfer server
- A security Policy Server
It centrally manages data, enables quick identification of problem areas, and configures alerts for operational notifications. APM solutions provide end-to-end monitoring from end-users to backend Mainframe systems, preventing finger-pointing and ensuring credibility. They also offer 24×7 monitoring for mission-critical systems.
What Are The Reasons to Invest in an APM solution?
- Old-generation monitoring (siloed) falls short due to the complexity of modern-day applications.
- Modern APM provides end-to-end monitoring, eliminating the need for multiple tools.
- Significant ROI: Elevated credibility among customers by proactively monitoring systems with an APM product.
- Avoid the blame game within various teams, leading to quicker issue resolutions.
- Real-time monitoring of business transactions, including details like the casual backend SQL calls and code-level diagnostics, for pinpointing problem areas.
Bottomline
Deeper insight into application performance for capacity planning. Ready to invest in an APM solution? Fantastic decision. Begin by reading my article, ‘7 critical things you should look for in an APM solution.’ Exercise diligence in considering various APM products and selecting a couple for on-premises proof of concept.
Remember: Prevention is superior to cure. Avert application outages and downtime by investing in an APM solution.
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