Part 3 of 4 ( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 )
In this 4 part series, we outline the most common obstacles to achieve effective APM and how to address them to save money, increase efficiencies, and protect the user experience (UX).
When done right, Application Performance Management (APM) gives companies increased visibility that reduces risk, enables better decision-making and provides peace of mind. However, many companies face organizational barriers that prevent them from fully harnessing the predictive power this discipline can bring.
Roadblock #3
Lack of Actionable Performance Data
Many organizations collect only veneer-level, observational data (such as page load or click response time) that only peripherally reflects real-world user activity and usage patterns. If data is not collected on virtual user activity modeled after the end-user experience, the output could mislead your team, providing the state and capabilities of an application that does not represent reality – and basing business intelligence off misleading data can lead to poor decisions in terms of development, deployment and infrastructure spend.
WHAT TO DO?
Model usage patterns; measure behavior patterns.
It is critical to marry end user experience to the utilization of infrastructure. Begin with a thorough model of usage patterns—what are users doing, when, how and any combination of behaviors they might do. Next, outline the right metrics to capture these behavior patterns and utilize the data to frame and inform your performance testing strategy. Then, continue to track these metrics in production and monitor for trends over time. Finally, incorporate “what-if” testing of potential infrastructure changes to understand impacts, and be sure to monitor in test as you expect to in production, using the same environments and tools. Real, user-centric data can be turned into actionable intelligence, enabling IT to support the business more efficiently. Furthermore, any baseline data gathered and properly modeled becomes the gold standard to which all future performance tests are compared – meaning all future test data will also be valuable, as it is based on comparison to a truly representative scenario.
Achieve Effective APM | Roadblock #4
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