All About Application Performance Management Software

Q: Why is a web or mobile application like a puppy?

A: The way they behave totally affects the owner’s (or users’) experience.

So, if the little pup is not doing okay, the owner’s mood gets affected to. If the app is not working fine, the user’s experience gets affect. If the pup is feeling low, the owner gets mellow too. If the app is down – you get the gist! Clearly, both of them need to be looked after.

For a puppy, this looks like puppy training - activities that teach the pup how to behave like a Good Boy. If an end user's experience involves getting bitten, it is significantly poor, right? For an application, this training looks like application performance management - activities that monitor and manage an applications manager behavior so that it, too, behaves like a Good Boy.

Is it great if the end user's overall experience involves slow load times, program crashes, bugs and data breaches? No - and no puppy cuddles either.
 
 So, wouldn't it be nice if there was some software to manage all this application performance for you? Well.

*Gives Willy Wonka-sequel knowing smile and breaks into song* - and you'll be... introduced to Application Performance Management Software.
 

What Is Application Performance Management Software?

 
First, let's check we're on the same page when we talk about applications. In this article, an application is any program designed with an end-user in mind, like databases, word processors, photo editors and such. It's not a form you fill out when you need a passport, apply for a new job, or want to be on the next season of The Bachelor.

Now that we've cleared that up let's get into why you're here: application performance management, or APM Software and we should clear something else up, too.

You see, APM is used as an acronym for both application performance management and application performance monitoring - two similar but different things. Confusing, no? In this article, we use APM to mean Application Performance Management.
 
 Hope now we’re in the all clear. Let's explain what APM Software does.
 
APM Software monitors and identifies anything that affects the user experience and alerts a technical team if it finds anything. It also proactively prevents any issues from occurring in the first place, either by observing real-time user sessions and seeing where things go wrong or by creating user simulations that are designed to "break" the application in a test environment.
 

What Is The History Of Application Performance Management Software?

 
APM Software has been around since the end of the last century. So, 20 years then after which we see two eras of APM Software.

APM BC (before cloud) was created to help organizations manage their three-tier applications. A three-tier application infrastructure middleware market consisted of a presentation tier (what the user looks at - all the pretty things), the business logic or application infrastructure monitoring tier (the business rules that control the software application) and the data storage tier (which pretty much does what it says). These three tiers needed managing because they typically lived in different environments but needed to speak to each other.
 
Then the cloud muscled in and, as with literally every other tech at this time, things changed.
 
Applications became more widely distributed and iterated more frequently (thank you, agile workflow!). This evolution meant that APM PC (post cloud computing) needed to support these new and improved applications by understanding where the apps lived and how users accessed them and how the apps themselves integrated.
 

What Are The Benefits Of Application Performance Management Software?

 
APM Software places user experience and application insights at the heart of the application network infrastructure and its operating system. To be honest, that's all the benefits you need. If you don't put the user experience first, you'll end up last.
 

However, because APM Software is a fantastic bit of kit it has several unique benefits for you and your organization, we will include some of them here -
 

• Tech Stack Visibility

  We love a technology stack, don't we? The only problem is, we end up with stacks of technology. APM Software infrastructure components give you visibility across the stack, the whole stack and nothing but the stack.

• Organizational Optimization

  Here's your chance to prove that the IT team is precious to an organization and not there merely to turn dodgy devices off and on again. APM insights provide real-time information that allows your team and the other departments to optimize activities, budgets and resources. Go you!

• Insightful App Development

  Would you let a 10-year-old decide what your next app update should include? No. Because that would be foolish and would probably involve some game.
  
  If your app developers make app updates with no user insight, you'd probably be better off with the 10-year-old. At least 10-year-olds are fun.

 
With APM, there's no guesswork. App updates - and future app developments are based on real-time insight from real-user interaction.
 

What Features Should You Look For In An APM Software Tool?

 
We're many things but a mind-reader isn't one of them. So, when it comes to what features YOU, dear reader, should you look for in an APM Software? We don't know. You might work for a local start-up with 100 employees or a 50-year-old establishment with thousands of staff spread globally. The needs of each will differ significantly.

So, instead, here are some of the core features of APM tool: what it is, what it does and why it's useful. Then you can decide for yourself how your business will benefit from it.
 

• Visual Analytics

  Application performance management tool takes all that juicy application data and pulls it into one easy-to-read dashboard. There's no point having all your applications monitored if you have to log into five different reports to view the information, nor if you need a rocket-science degree to interpret what you're seeing. The dashboard is all-important. It should allow you to measure every app performance metric your business deems essential, be customizable - even role-based. Otherwise, why get an APM solution at all.

• API (Application Programming Interface) Monitoring

  An API allows two applications to talk to each other. As with people, if there's a breakdown in communication, things can go very wrong very quickly, so API's need constant monitoring. This aspect of APM is critical and many APM solutions cause fake drama to see how the applications react. You know, like in Real Housewives.

• Application Tracing

  Have you ever heard of the butterfly effect? A butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can cause a hurricane in Texas? The butterfly effect is an underlying principle of Chaos Theory. It illustrates the interconnectedness of things and how one small event in one place can cause mayhem in another. (Side note: this is a metaphor, America. Do NOT blame Brazil the next time Texas has a hurricane). Anyway, application delivery server tracing is designed to prevent the butterfly effect. It identifies the dependencies between apps, so we can avoid chaos in the other if something goes wrong in one.

• Data Import/ Export

  If your data can't move quickly and securely between systems and platforms, there'll be no 'act' in your APM activities. No invites for that matter, either.

• Alerts

  "I love waking up to 100 error alerts on my work phone,” said no one ever. The problem is, when you receive alerts about Every Little Thing that happens, you miss the big things. Don't create a boy-who-cried-wolf situation where you become blind to issues. Choose a solution that allows you to configure alerts to choose who needs to know what and when.

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)

  Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning have and will continue to transform application performance monitoring tool development. Many APM solutions are designed to allow new and old architectures to work seamlessly.

 

What Should You Do Before You Begin Looking For An APM Software?

 
I know what you're thinking. Woah - that's a lot to think about. It is! Check them out; sign up for a free trial or a webinar; take them for a test drive. You need to try them within your existing IT infrastructure (and see what else they're capable of doing) to determine if they're right for you - both now and in the future.
 
Also, here are some of the top-rated APM solutions out there.
 

• Dynatrace

  is an enterprise APM solution that uses AI-supported algorithms and machine learning to improve the performance issue of your application version of your application monitoring and allow you to be more proactive.

• New Relic

  is a mobile and web APM provider that allows you to achieve full-stack observability and visualize all your data in one place.

• Datadog

  is an APM offering for IT, Dev and Ops teams who need to transform the vast volumes of data produced by their applications and tools into actionable insights.

 

What's The Future Of Application Performance Management Software?

 
Real people need to solve real problems. Ergo, real web application users and developers need to solve performance metrics problems. The APM Software of the future will get better and better at allowing them to do this. Here's how:
 

• Customer experience! Customer experience! Customer experience! Applications are ONLY as good as the customer experience and APM tools support, making every touchpoint exceptional.

• You love 'em, we love 'em and soon everyone will love 'em. A demand for always-on performance management will drive a more comprehensive need (and appreciation) for APM tools. We may even see job roles emerge that focus solely on performance management.

• As APM tools strive to become less time-consuming (read: less alert noise and more self-learning), we'll see more automation. As APM tools strive to become less time-consuming (read: less alert noise and more self-learning), we'll see more automation.

• AI and machine learning will be expected rather than innovative - less "Oh cool!" and more of "Yeah, so?"

• End-to-end transaction tracing (who did what, when, how and why) is already here but not being utilized nearly as much as it should be. Watch this space explode.

 
Did we mention customer experience?
 
Think about the apps you enjoy using most. Most likely, they're easy to use and each update leaves it better than the last. Then think about the apps you used once and uninstalled. Yeah.
 
You can bet your bottom dollar that the organizations behind the apps you love will all use some form of application performance management software. They understand that an app-loving customer is more engaged and loyal.
 
So, when a user uninstalls your application, they're canceling you too.
 
So, what are you doing to make yourself a permanent installation?