Tevron - Application Monitoring - Performance Testing

October 28, 2009

Using Business Service Management to Succeed in a Tough Economy

Filed under: Computer Software

Whether the economy is booming or facing a crunch, one factor plays a critical role in business: IT. In today’s business environment, almost all business activities are tied with the IT department. However, most of the departmental heads have no idea of the impact of complex technology on their respective business processes. Many a times, department heads have no means of identifying and preventing bottlenecks within applications so that end users are not affected. In today’s tough economy, Business Service Management can come to the rescue of many IT managers as well as departmental heads to ensure a smooth running of business processes.

The importance of knowing end to end performance is not only applicable for large enterprises, but smaller entities too. In fact, monitoring end to end performance of applications is more important for small businesses, considering that they function on a very tight margin. In order to stay on top of any performance issue and to effectively solve it, business owners need application monitoring tools through which they can monitor whether their business services are functioning properly. Such application monitoring would also inform them of any bottlenecks in advance and prevent any large scale impact on end users. Business Service Management enables both the teams to do just that.

Business Service Management solutions help bridge the gap between the departmental heads and the IT team. When a BSM solution is put to work, the business department can work in coordination with the IT department to ensure that all the services are available and any potential problems may be solved before they start affecting end users. BSM helps in detection of IT issues, tracing their root problem and solving them quickly.

With Business Service Management,

• Issues related to business-critical applications can be dealt with proactively
• Departmental heads can start prioritizing tasks according to their importance
• Information can be presented according to the role of the person concerned
• IT Service Management is easier to put into practice

Businesses hence need to consider Business Service Management as a necessary component in order to know the end to end performance of all their critical applications. However, businesses are sometimes forced to choose between two extreme BSM solutions: one which is inexpensive but lacks functionality, and another, which is expensive and needs a lot of manpower to support it.

An ideal Business Service Management would be one which is integrated, affordable and easy to use. A business should not have to make a compromise in quality due to the cost of the BSM solution. An ideal solution would allow end to end performance monitoring as well as management Service Level Agreement. It would also not require any manpower to manage it.

Until sometime ago, only larger APM vendors used to offer BSM solutions; even then, these solutions were expensive and complicated. But now, with the popularity of Business Service Management, other vendors have started offering affordable and easy to use solutions which can be applied in small businesses as well.

The increased dependency on IT for business critical functions has made Business Service Management as well as IT Service Management a must for any business. Both IT managers and departmental heads can work together to ensure that business services are available to end users without a problem.

Mark Waltzer is an expert on Business Service Management, application monitoring and APM solutions. His advice helps businesses meet service level agreement conditions.

Visit: http://www.tevron.com/

Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

Performance Testing: Importance and Objectives

Filed under: Computer Software
In the IT service industry, performance testing of applications is undertaken to evaluate the performance of mission critical applications of organizations. Performance testing ensures that the applications being tested are available, reliable and efficient when put under load. Optimum performance of applications can ultimately ensure that the service level agreement conditions are met with.

Importance of Performance Testing

  • Application performance has a major impact on the overall quality and popularity, especially in cases where organizations are dependent on IT for major business activities.
  • Clients have a clear expectation when it comes to quality and have become more demanding.
  • Every client looks for a reliable and fast application; performance testing ensures that all applications are performing optimally and are available and speedy.
  • The need for eliminating bottlenecks has become greater in this competitive business world. Performance testing ensures that bottlenecks are identified and eliminated before the application goes into the production stage.
  • Breach in service level agreement conditions can be prevented through performance testing of applications.
Performance Testing Objectives
  • To analyze the root cause of problems and plan for solving them.
  • To ensure that the application meets the performance criteria of clients as well as the company.
  • To ensure that applications take the minimum response time possible.
  • To eliminate malfunctions in the application before the production stage.
  • To make certain that service level agreement conditions will be met by conforming to a certain performance criteria.
  • To minimize cost through performance testing.
  • To compare two applications for performance.
Most organizations which are dependent on their applications for business activities have realized the importance of performance testing and are using performance testing solutions which help them prevent problems in applications and meet service level agreement conditions. Until recently, multiple solutions were required for each application. But now, many APM vendors offer performance testing solutions which cover all applications within the organization, so that complicated, separate solutions for each application are not required. That means just one performance testing solution supports multiple applications. Eliminating the need for multiple performance testing solutions also saves costs for the organizations concerned.

Business Service Management and its Benefits

Filed under: Computer Software
Business Service Management (BSM) helps businesses in understanding how IT services can be used, benefited from and improvised. Through Business Service Management, IT managers can monitor applications so that they can foresee and deal with application outages. In large organizations, in case of an outage, it is important to know exactly which department is going to be affected in order to prevent major impact. IT managers also need to ensure that Service Level Agreement conditions are met by ensuring that all business-critical applications are available and error-free. Business Service Management helps IT managers in doing this by tracking, monitoring and managing the investment and operational part of the information technology to make sure that they are in the interests of business. BSM hence intersects the IT processes with the business processes in order to ensure that the IT infrastructure gives maximum benefit to the business.

Business Service Management solutions are not only useful to IT managers, but also business managers. Business managers can quickly analyze the business impact of downtime and deal with clients accordingly. IT managers can then take action to solve that problem and avoid a breach in Service Level Agreements. Using Business Service Management solutions, IT managers can see on a real time basis, where the problem has occurred and which departments will be impacted by it. With this information, IT managers can then plan on how to resolve the problem and which area to target first. This helps them ensure that conditions of Service Level Agreements are not breached.

Business Service Management helps organizations in many ways:

  • Business managers can allocate resources efficiently with the help of BSM
  • With a Business Service Management solution, business managers can understand the business impact of system failure
  • Service Level Agreement conditions can be met successfully
  • The root cause of the problem in any application can be pinpointed and a solution can be found quickly
  • A Business Service Management solution can help avoid considerable loss in costs
  • Businessmen can alert clients in case there is a critical outage
  • IT managers can allot work according to priorities to get the problem solved quickly
  • Business Service Management solutions give visibility to IT infrastructure, which can help with better management of business resources

Performance Testing: 3 Tips To Effectively Test Application Performance

Filed under: Computer Software

Application performance testing is undertaken by companies to determine the performance, availability, speed and reliability of applications. IT departments usually undertake performance testing to note how applications perform under different types of workload. Performance testing of applications is used for different purposes: it can be used to identify performance bottlenecks, to ensure that the applications meet set criteria or to compare the performance of two applications. Performance testing of applications hence helps IT managers in IT service management and also to meet terms of service level agreements by ensuring application availability and reliability.

The following are three tips for performance testing that can make the process easier for you:

  1. Set Specific Performance Criteria

    2. Application performance criteria need to be set keeping the end users in mind. Without an idea of their expectations, performance testing may be rendered useless. Take inputs from end users regarding the problems they generally face and what they expect from applications. Companies dealing in various industrial verticals are increasingly using performance testing solutions to ensure that their IT service management meets customer expectations. Only if end user expectations are satisfied can the performance testing activities prove successful.

  2. Take the Database into Consideration for Performance Testing

    3. Simultaneous user sessions and their response timings are usually taken into consideration while undertaking performance testing. Load testing is also performed on applications to check the effect of multiple simultaneous user sessions. Such steps are essentially important for companies involved in IT service management. However, the database affects the end user experience drastically. For example, a transaction for a user can be very fast in case it is inserted into a table which is empty; however, the response time deteriorates once the table grows. Taking the database into consideration is hence vitally important for performance testing of applications.

  3. Don’t Overdo it

    4. You need to take some points into consideration in order to optimize application performance. For example, before even getting involved in performance testing, optimum application performance can be ensured through scalable architecture and strong hardware resources. Performance testing of applications is then done by IT managers to double check that all applications are available according to the service level agreement requirements. However, you should not overdo it. Talk to end users about which parts of the application they use most frequently and concentrate on optimizing those parts for performance. Don’t spend more time than required on performance testing of rarely-used application features.






















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