Application Support - Overview and Benefits of Application Monitoring tools

Every company uses a wide range of software programs to provide services and communicate with customers in the modern digital era. However, even minor performance problems can have a big impact, including user frustration, loss of clientele, reduced revenue, and damage to a brand’s reputation. Application Performance Monitoring (APM) is useful in this situation. APM is the activity of monitoring critical software application performance metrics with monitoring tools to obtain insights, find problems, and enhance performance. In this article, we’ll talk about the advantages of APM and go over some of the widely used APM software solutions in the market.

Benefits of APM:

1. Provide a unified view of the application stack: Using multiple performance monitoring tools can lead to information silos, making investigating and troubleshooting issues challenging. APM tools offer a comprehensive view of the application stack, enabling different teams to collaborate effectively. This visibility is crucial for efficient operations in today’s highly distributed systems.
2. Better uptime/Reduced downtime: APM tools monitor application performance in real-time, allowing organizations to identify and address performance issues proactively. By optimizing application performance and resolving problems quickly, APM helps ensure higher stability and uptime, minimizing downtime for end users.
3. Faster resolution times: APM provides real-time performance insights enabling swift reaction to issues. With contextual data and baseline performance metrics, APM tools help reduce the mean time to resolution (MTTR). Some tools even offer root cause analysis insights, expediting issue resolution.
4. Improve developer productivity: Developers often spend significant time debugging issues rather than building new features. APM tools provide comprehensive metrics that offer a clear picture of application operations. Developers can directly address complex requests that consume the most time, reducing troubleshooting efforts and allowing them to focus on developing new features.
5. Provide business insights: Monitoring application performance metrics such as availability and response time is essential. However, APM goes beyond that by offering business intelligence analytics. These insights help us understand how performance issues impact critical business objectives like revenue, productivity, and user satisfaction. Monitoring user experience provides valuable information on usage trends, response times, and overall satisfaction.

Popular APM Software Options:

Regarding APM software, several options are available in the market. Here are some major players:

1. Dynatrace
2. Datadog
3. New Relic
4. AppDynamics
5. Splunk

These APM solutions offer a range of features, including browser monitoring, application metrics, code profiling, detailed transaction traces, application log analysis, and server resource monitoring. Organizations can explore these options to find the APM software that best fits their needs and requirements.

Conclusion:

In today’s competitive digital landscape, organizations must pay attention to the importance of APM. By leveraging APM tools, businesses can gain a unified view of their application stack, reduce downtime, expedite issue resolution, improve developer productivity, and gain valuable business insights. APM has become a must-have for organizations striving to deliver exceptional user experiences, drive business success, and maintain a strong brand reputation.