Application performance management (APM) has become an essential practice for organizations that rely on critical software applications But what exactly is APM and why has it become so important? This comprehensive guide will explain everything you need to know
APM refers to the monitoring and management of software application performance and availability. The goal of APM is to ensure applications meet expectations for speed, reliability, and user experience.
With APM, companies can proactively identify and resolve performance problems before they impact customers or business operations. This is accomplished by continuously measuring key application metrics, detecting abnormal performance, diagnosing root causes, and taking corrective actions.
APM evolved from earlier approaches like application performance monitoring (APM) and application service management (ASM). It provides a more holistic view across complex modern application environments involving cloud, containers, microservices and more.
Why Application Performance Management Matters
Applications have become critical for how companies engage with customers partners and employees. Even minor performance problems can have major consequences including
- Customer dissatisfaction and loss of business
- Revenue and productivity losses
- Damaged brand reputation
- Non-compliance with SLAs
With user tolerance for poor performance being extremely low, the importance of APM continues to grow. Proactive APM can help companies achieve key benefits:
- Improve customer satisfaction and loyalty
- Increase conversion rates and revenue
- Reduce operational and troubleshooting costs
- Optimize resource utilization
- Accelerate application development
Core Capabilities of Application Performance Management
Modern APM solutions offer a robust set of capabilities to manage performance across complex application environments:
Monitoring and Data Collection
APM monitors critical metrics like response time, throughput, and uptime from the end user perspective. It also collects granular performance data across application components, databases, servers, and infrastructure. Monitoring may involve both active and passive data collection.
Analytics and Reporting
Powerful analytics convert huge volumes of monitoring data into actionable insights. Intuitive reporting provides visibility into both real-time performance and historical trends.
Automated Root Cause Analysis
When issues occur, APM can pinpoint the root causes among interconnected application components and infrastructure. This accelerates problem diagnosis and resolution.
Predictive Capabilities
Advanced analytics and machine learning allow APM to detect anomalies, forecast upcoming problems, and prescribe corrective actions. This enables a shift from reactive to predictive performance management.
Integration and Collaboration
APM integrates monitoring data with other IT systems like AIOps platforms. It also enables collaboration between teams to accelerate incident response.
The 5 Key Components of APM
Industry analysts like Gartner break APM down into 5 main functional dimensions:
1. Digital Experience Monitoring
Measures performance and availability from the end user perspective. This includes both real user monitoring and synthetic monitoring.
2. Application Topology Discovery and Visualization
Automatically discovers dependencies and maps communication between application components. Provides visualized topology model.
3. Business Transaction Monitoring
Tracks transactions from a business process perspective across all components and resources involved.
4. Application Component Monitoring
In-depth monitoring of individual components like database, Web or app servers, storage, and custom code.
5. Analytics and Reporting
Aggregates monitoring data and delivers insights via dashboards, alerts, custom reports and more. Provides single pane of glass.
Implementing an Effective APM Strategy
Developing a successful APM program requires careful planning and execution covering five key areas:
1. Define APM Goals and Requirements
Document specific goals, use cases, and requirements across different application teams and stakeholders.
2. Select the Right APM Solution and Vendor
Evaluate top vendors and choose a solution that aligns with requirements and budget.
3. Deploy Monitoring Infrastructure
Install agents, collectors, probes, and dashboards to enable robust data collection.
4. Establish Processes and Integrations
Define processes for triage, collaboration, and integration with ticketing and DevOps tools.
5. Drive Adoption and Value
Promote adoption through training and workshops. Continually demonstrate APM value to the business.
The Future of Application Performance Management
APM continues to evolve at a rapid pace. Key innovations include:
-
Observability – Advanced instrumentation and analytics providing deeper visibility into dynamic, distributed applications.
-
AIOps Integration – Incorporating AI and ML to enable smarter automated management.
-
Cloud Optimization – New techniques for monitoring and managing cloud-native apps.
-
Proactive Optimization – Using analytics to continuously tune performance and resources.
As applications grow more complex and business expectations for performance increase, APM is becoming an indispensable practice for IT teams. Following the strategies outlined in this guide will help you build a successful APM program that delivers value across your organization.
Why is application performance management important?
More and more systems architects are choosing to build and deploy their applications as a collection of microservices, rather than as single monoliths. These microservices are typically run on distributed infrastructure components, such as VMs, containers, or serverless functions. This design paradigm allows for each microservice to be scaled independently of one another, which can improve the application’s availability, durability, and efficiency.
While application performance management is necessary for both monolithic and microservice-based architectures, the latter presents a new set of challenges. Without full visibility into every layer of your distributed applications and infrastructure, it can be extremely difficult to detect and resolve critical performance issues. This, in turn, can negatively impact user experience and lead to lost revenue. As such, IT organizations need to leverage an array of monitoring tools in order to increase their system’s observability and effectively manage its performance.
A side-by-side simplified comparison of a monolithic vs. microservices architecture.
Learn how application performance management can help teams optimize their dynamic and distributed systems.
Application performance management is the collection of tools and processes that enable IT organizations to ensure the availability of their software applications and meet customer expectations. Monitoring data is an essential part of application performance management, as it gives teams the insight they need to identify areas in need of optimization and prioritize tasks effectively. In this article, we’ll discuss why application performance management is important, how it can increase your visibility into dynamic and distributed systems, and what to consider when choosing an application performance management solution.
Application Performance Management Simplified
What is Application Performance Management (APM)?
In the fields of information technology and systems management, application performance management ( APM) is the monitoring and management of the performance and availability of software applications. APM strives to detect and diagnose complex application performance problems to maintain an expected level of service.
What is application performance management?
Application Performance Management is the broader strategy of managing the overall performance, starting with code, application dependencies, transaction times, and user experience. Monitoring is a small – but critical – part of it. It points out, typically via alert notifications, that there is a problem.
What is the difference between application performance monitoring and application performance management?
The focus of application performance monitoring is on specific metrics and measurements; application performance management is the wider discipline of developing and managing an application performance strategy. All these terms refer to related technology and practices. Why do we need APM?
What is Application Performance Management (APM) & end-user monitoring (eum)?
Application Performance Management (APM) revolves around monitoring various aspects crucial to performance optimization. Real-time monitoring enables instant insights into system behavior, identifying issues promptly. End-user monitoring (EUM) focuses on the user experience, ensuring applications meet expectations.
