Tools - Application Performance Management
So what is Application Performance Management
Application Performance Management is the discipline that focuses on proactively monitoring the performance and availability of software applications by providing an end to end view of Application & System Performance. Application Performance Management recommends a holistic approach to managing application Performance and this includes includes monitoring of infrastructure performance & availability, application performance & availability and transactional performance & availability.
Most of the leading vendors provide monitoring solutions that provide outside in views (Transaction View -> Application View -> Infrastructure View -> Network View). Given the strength of different tools across the different tiers, the industry is moving (very slowly) towards a heterogeneous data-center that allows for integration of these different solutions across each of the tiers with an integrated dashboard having relevant views for IT & Business. These frameworks are expected to take a holistic view of the application with the objective of providing both the IT and Business views to the end customer. A list of the Performance Monitoring tools are provided below.
Different vendors tend to use very different terms and nomenclature for product. We have tried to standardize the terminology to the extent possible without diluting the vendors offering in the particular space. Here’s summary reference for the terms used below:
- End User Experience Monitoring (EUM) - User Transaction Monitoring through packet sniffing or through deployment of tier wise local plugins that timestamp packets at every machine and build a profile of transaction performance
- Real User Monitoring (RUM) - Synthetic Transaction Monitoring generally implemented using robotic transaction injectors
- Infrastructure Monitoring - Monitoring of Computer, Storage and Network Infrastructure
- Application Monitoring - Monitoring of Application, Middleware and Database Containers
You can read more on Application Performance Management at - Performance Monitoring Fundamentals
Provided below is a list of frequently used tools for purposes of Application & Infrastructure Performance Management. At this point this page includes just links to the various tool vendors or websites. Over a period of time we intend to introduce a summary of different tools, tool reviews including a short description of their strengths and weaknesses to help readers better grasp positioning of the relevant tools and frameworks within the enterprise.
| Vendor | Area Of Focus | Link |
|---|---|---|
| AppDynamics | Application Performance Management | Link |
| BMC | End User Experience Monitoring | Link |
| Application Diagnostics | Link | |
| Capacity Management | Link | |
| Cloud Performance Management | Link | |
| Computer Associates | Application Performance Management | Link |
| Infrastructure Performance Management | Link | |
| Compuware | End User Experience Monitoring | Link |
| Real User Experience Monitoring | Link | |
| Application Monitoring & Diagnostics | Link | |
| Application & Database Monitoring | Link | |
| Correlsense | End User Experience Monitoring | Link |
| Fluke Networks | Application & Network Performance Management | Link |
| End User Experience Monitoring | Link | |
| GroundWork | Infrastructure & Network Monitoring | Link |
| Hewlett Packard(HP) | Real User Monitoring (Synthetic Transactions) | Link |
| End User Monitoring | Link | |
| Service Level Management | Link | |
| Transaction Monitoring & Tagging | Link | |
| SaaS APM | Link | |
| Hyperic | Application + Infrastructure + Network Monitoring | Link |
| INCINGA | Infrastructure + Network Monitoring | Link |
| Nagios | Infrastructure + Network Monitoring | Link |
| Nastel | End User Experience Monitoring with Transaction Tagging | Link |
| OP5 | Infrastructure + Network Monitoring | Link |
| Opsview | Application + Infrastructure + Network Monitoring | Link |
| OpTier | End User Experience Monitoring with Transaction Tagging | Link |
| Pandora FMS | Infrastructure + Network Monitoring | Link |
| Quest (Dell Software) | End User Experience Monitoring | Link |
| Application Monitoring & Diagnostics | Link | |
| Database Monitoring | Link | |
| Real User Monitoring (Synthetic Transactions) | Link | |
| Storage Monitoring | Link | |
| Virtual Infrastructure Monitoring | Link | |
| Riverbed | Application Performance Management | Link |
| Solarwinds | Application + Infrastructure Monitoring | Link |
| End User Experience Monitoring | Link | |
| Zenoss | Infrastructure + Network Monitoring | Link |
| Zabbix | Infrastructure + Network Monitoring | Link |
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Trevor Warren is passionate about challenging the status-quo and finding reasons to innovate. Over the past 16 years he has been delivering complex systems, has worked with very large clients across the world and constantly is looking for opportunities to bring about change. Trevor constantly strives to combine his passion for delivering outcomes with his ability to build long lasting professional relationships. You can learn more about the work he does at LinkedIn. You can download a copy of his CV at VisualCV. Visit the Github page for details of the projects he’s been hacking with.