What is Application Performance Management? A Beginners Guide to APM

Application Performance Management (APM) refers to monitoring or managing the performance of your code, application dependencies, transaction times, & overall user experiences.

APM generally comprises of measuring multiple metrics related to the application performance, service maps, real time user transactions etc. The purpose of APM is to turn a black box product into something that is more transparent by providing intelligent insights into its performance metrics. More granular information can be extracted based on the type of the application that requires vigilance.

Some people refer to APM as application performance management while some refer it as application performance monitoring. Although management is more of a proactive approach and monitoring on the reactive side when it comes to problem resolution. In any case, APM tools are crucial for the health of your applications. In short, Application Performance Management is all about understanding the “why” for any issue as soon as possible i.e. decoding why application transactions have slowed down or are failing.

Difference between monitoring & management

The term monitoring is used whenever you’re aggregating raw data & showcasing it to the user. On the other hand, management is used when the tool empowers you with the ability to take the right action on your monitored elements. Management tasks may include identifying overused components, making network configuration changes, generating reports, and a lot more.

Key features of APM

• Performance Monitoring for all the transactions

The most basic feature is to track the performance of each & every transaction generated by your application. This analytics data from your APM tool can be used to understand what all requests are frequently accessed, which applications are running slow, & which application needs improvement.

• Service Maps

Service maps gives you the right platform for finding root-cause of application errors by understanding interdependencies. An APM tool should ideally discover all the network elements, apps & servers in your infrastructure and categorizes them. Tools generally provide their users service maps which gives them the ability to visualize interdependencies that helps in saving time & energy.

• Real-time user monitoring

Real-time User Monitoring (RUM) is just like performance monitoring which collects & analyses each user transaction on an application or a website in real-time (as it happens). It’s commonly known as RUM short for – real user monitoring, real user metrics, real user measurement.

• Synthetic Monitoring

Synthetic Monitoring is proactive monitoring of transactions which helps users in identifying the problems and helps them determine if their application is working slowly or its down. For any admin end-users/ customers complaining about their application is a nightmare. Synthetic monitoring helps users mitigate the problems before they affect end users by proactively alerting & monitoring in real-time.

• Alert correlation

An Application Performance Management Tool like Motadata provides alert correlation. This means that you can correlate your NetOps, DevOps & APM data. The thresholds are set smartly for metrics and applications. Alert correlation facilitates faster resolution of application performance issues.

• Distributed transaction tracing

Robust application performance management tool lets user trace transaction requests from end-to-end distributed systems. Most APM tools give deep visibility all the way to code level, to assist users find out issues which may otherwise go unattended. Users should be able to track down individual application transaction traces & help them drill-down to database-level queries to analyse slowed down instances.

Bottom-Line Benefits of APM

• Boost revenue & sales

Every organization has some critical applications which is directly or indirectly proportional to the brand image or revenue. Issues related to these applications may have notable impact on the overall business performance.

Application Performance Management tools can deliver significant revenue related benefits, by lowering MTTR or Mean Time to Resolution for any incident. Quick problem detection and resolution provides a better customer experience which in turn boosts sales. Without an APM tool, businesses may seem blindfolded to their customer experience & then loose revenue caused due to unattended poor application performance.

• Ensure Business Continuity

According to Michael Azoff, Principal Analyst from Ovum, “A good APM software can reduce the risk of breakdown of your business operations / IT infrastructure.”

Application are the backbone for any business. Downtime of business-critical applications impacts the organization badly in terms of loss of revenue, drowned reputation, compromised productivity, compliance related impact.

• Enhanced End-User Experience

“Overall enhancement in the quality of application not only creates a better end-user experience, but also more productive business-level interactions with both internal as well as external users. – Jonah Kowall, Research VP, Gartner

Satisfying your end-users is always your priority. If your end users aren’t having a good time, they might not say that upfront. They will simply stop using your application or portal and move on to your competition quickly. This is the harsh reality. APM tool can keep you a step ahead.

Do I need Application Performance Management?

If you rely on applications then APM is an invaluable software for you. If you are from DevOps team then it is a 100% yes, APM will fit right in. Businesses that’re leveraging Application Performance Management tools consider it as their edge over competition since they solve issues faster, resolve a greater number of issues over a certain time period, and have intelligent business insight over their operations.

As per Gartner, “Application Performance Management may help businesses increase their revenues & help them keep their customers satisfied which results in a good bottom line.”

Nowadays almost every medium to large sized organization uses APM tool. As per Wikipedia, “Since 2013, Application Performance Management software have entered the zone for tough competition involving tech innovations & product strategy involving multiple vendors as well as their varied viewpoints. Such intense competition has led to a disruption in APM marketplace.”

How to get started?

First off you need to identify the applications that you need to monitor. Once you are all set, you can try Motadata for free.

We hope that this APM introduction has facilitated you with a base for starting your APM journey. Ready for an advanced APM software? Motadata is going to launch AI powered platform including observability platform as well as application performance management. Follow us on our social media platforms to stay updated for the launch date.