In this article, we'll outline new challenges to on-time application delivery, discuss a framework for dealing with delivery, and point out the specific Observer features best suited to manage and troubleshoot these issues. We've based several of these ideas on Dr. Jim Metzler's recent IT Advisory: A Top-Down Approach to Managing Application Delivery.
Emerging Delivery Challenges
First, let’s discuss some of the newer application delivery challenges: virtualization and multi-tiered applications.
Virtualization
While virtualized environments continue to grow, so do VM management issues. For example, your network monitoring tools may not provide visibility into all virtual traffic. Or, your staff may not be appropriately trained to handle virtual environments and may lack tools for tracking virtual machine configuration changes. This lack of visibility and understanding will impede efforts to optimize and troubleshoot the performance of applications running in virtual environments.
Multi-Tiered Applications
Another trend is the evolution of multi-tiered or "n-tiered" applications. Today's CRM packages, accounting platforms, and other complex database driven applications are almost impossible to house on a single system. Rather, they have grown to consist of multiple server tiers handling different application processes. These layers present a unique troubleshooting challenge: how do you identify and track latency among the various components making the multi-tiered application?
Application Delivery Strategy
Next, you need an effective battle plan to handle the emerging challenges and ensure on-time delivery. As Metzler recommends in his paper, rather than taking a "bottom-up management approach that focuses on individual technology domains," shift towards a top-down approach composed of:
- Identifying and baselining business-critical applications
- Understanding the underlying components responsible for delivering applications
- Establishing and monitoring acceptable performance targets
- Incorporating tools to achieve full visibility, identify anomalous behavior, and respond rapidly to problems
Enforcing With Observer
So you understand the issues and have a great plan of attack. But, what will be your weapons of choice?
The Observer® platform provides the necessary top-down approach for companies to increase application uptime and decrease mean time to resolution (MTTR).
Starting at the top, Observer Reporting Server provides enterprise-wide views of application performance. Drill down from the high-level views to investigate and troubleshoot performance at the packet level. Observer automates application discovery, helps categorize critical components, benchmarks and tracks performance, and alerts you to performance deviations. Use Observer's application analysis for managing response times and in-depth transaction analytics for overall performance details.
Our platform provides complete visibility regardless of the environment or application. For example, you can leverage our new Virtual TAP functionality to gain full visibility into all VM conversations and traffic. Or, track multi-tiered applications using Observer with Link Analyst® to identify and manage application dependencies and resources.
To sum up, the keys to ensuring on-time application delivery are: (1) understand emerging issues that can impede application delivery, (2) have a coherent strategy for addressing delivery issues, and (3) use the Observer platform to proactively manage and resolve performance problems.
Read the IT Advisory for a deeper look into developing effective management strategies. |
