codecentric AG

Fabian Lange, Head of Competence Center PerformanceASPECTS OF MODERN APM SOLUTIONS

codecentric AG

− Complex IT architecture

− Technology mix

− Large amount of IT infrastructure

− Legacy does not go away

− High rate of change

− Multiple distributed development teams

− Operations has little insight

TODAYS CHALLENGES IN APM

codecentric AG

TYPICAL(?) APPLICATION ARCHITECTURE

Amazon EC2 Public Cloud

VMware Private Cloud

MQ

Tomcat

Jboss

Spring

Weblogic

codecentric AG

− Single point for application health monitoring− APM solution has to support most existing and future technologies− Including End User Monitoring  

− High grade of automation− Deployment of the APM solution− Discovery of application architecture and code execution paths− Auto Configuration without expert knowledge− Change Adoption− Behavior learning

− Meaningful data presentation− User view of transactions− How does the end user notice problems− Different views for various stakeholder

APM NEEDS TO PROVIDE

codecentric AG

− Scalable solution that can monitor− Tenths, hundreds, thousands of machines− Millions and Billions of transactions per minute− Thousands of users

− Tools to narrow down root causes− Operations needs to find the needle in the haystack− Provide detail level information to responsible development team

− Tools to monitor the application− Health− Load and Trends− Aggregation and Reporting

APM NEEDS TO PROVIDE

codecentric AG

MAIN ASPECT

codecentric AG

− Is there a problem?− Baselines provide realistic thresholds

− Where is the problem?− Distributed transaction tracing helps locating the root cause− Often connected to responsible dev team

− What is the problem?− Drill Down allows finding details

− Code Execution− Environment Metrics− User Data

− Improving MTTR is the main reason for APM

MTTR – MEAN TIME TO REPAIR

codecentric AG

SIDE ASPECTS

codecentric AG

− Monitoring is more important than test− Reality is different from test environment− Not reproducable problems happen in reality

− Testing allows early feedback− No real customers harmed− Early tests are an integral part of agile methodologies

− APM Solutions should support Production as well as Test environments

LOAD AND PERFORMANCE TESTS

codecentric AG

− No time for complex tool− Time savers cannot require extra time

− Not everybody is a performance expert− Collect enough data to troubleshoot problems without knowledge− Provide certain degree of automatic problem resolution− Still some problems require performance know how

− Apple raised the bar for everybody

EASE OF USE

codecentric AG

− Business wants new functionality …− … and agile finally delivers

− Application changes frequently …− … and with it its performance characteristics

− Successful products create demand …− … which is often solved by adding resources

CHANGE

codecentric AG

1. Application Complexity cannot be handled by Operations2. Operational Complexity is unknown to Developers

− DevOps lets development and operations teams cooperate more closely− Developers learn how servers are set up and configured− Operations learn how applications are supposed to work− Developers learn the pain to be called during night− Operations learn development practices like test and version control

− Major improvement for application

− Development and Operations share responsibility for Applications− They need shared tooling

DEVOPS

codecentric AG

− Cloud aka Virtualization is nothing new − APM Solutions can provide extra value

− Determining the correct sizing at any time− Automatically reconfigure the application by load pattern

− APMaaS− APM solutions can leverage SaaS models− Low cost of ownership− Pay Per use

CLOUD

codecentric AG

SUMMARY

codecentric AG

− IT Applications change fast− APM Solution needs to adapt automatically− Support for multiple languages, frameworks and protocols

− Operations need wide overview, but Developers need deep insight− An APM Solution has to provide both

− Alerts need to be actionable− False alarms disturb− No red light should be ever ignored− APM solution should be able to alert the right thing

SUMMARY