Overview of application monitoring
What is application monitoring?
Application monitoring is a method of ensuring that an application operates and performs as effectively as
possible. Application monitoring includes continuously measuring and reviewing key metrics, tracking performance
bottlenecks, and fixing errors in the application.
Adding an application monitor helps developers measure the application's health with information resourced from
key performance metrics such as application availability, errors, resource usage, and performance variations
over time. This data is used to improve the end-user experience.
Why is application monitoring important?
Application monitoring solutions track core business applications and notifies users of performance issues. This helps
with:
- Fixing issues before they cause service interruptions or a downtime in your applications.
- Providing a unified view of various events and their correlations through application dependency mapping.
- Assisting developers with optimizing the application by tracking different performance and utilization metrics, thereby elevating the customer's experience.
How does the application monitoring process work?
Application monitoring services help collect and analyze vital data by instrumenting application code using
language-specific agents, APIs, and distributed tracing. With an application monitoring tool, teams can
benchmark key performance metrics of their application against preset baselines and identify abnormal variations
in those metrics.
The resulting data is displayed via a comprehensive dashboard and analyzed using technology like AIOps to
identify the root cause of issues like performance lags and resource unavailability. By narrowing down the
problem, developers can contextually debug them.
Does application monitoring consider the end-user perspective?
End users are often the first to notice and report an issue such as a downtime in the application or service,
making them one of the most effective application monitoring systems there is. However, this isn't a sound tactic
from a customer experience perspective.
Investing in an application monitoring solution that tracks device health and front-end performance proactively
enables organizations to diagnose and resolve issues before end users encounter them. With continuous monitoring,
you can ensure that your website or application is up and running and loads fast, which leads to a fulfilling
experience for your end users. So, yes, application monitoring takes the end-user perspective into account.
How can application monitoring tools help your organization?
Real-time application monitoring is imperative to ensure that your infrastructure stays functional and helps you
mitigate issues before they occur. With an application monitoring tool, you can:
- Reduce application or service downtime.
- Improve the end-user experience.
- Lower your operating expenses.
- Improve developer productivity.
- Improve visibility and prioritize business-critical tasks.