Consider a database driven application. For example, let’s consider a meteorological station wherein a software application collects various metrics such as temperature, wind, chill factor, humidity, rain precipitation and so on. This application gathers the information from various instruments and the data is stored in a database grid. The IT admin of this metrological station has to ensure that the work flow of this application is up and running and that they are available at all times.

The admin should be able to monitor specific key performance metrics (KPI) from these databases to find out if the processes executed by the software application are error-free. The admin should be able to find out the performance of the query that is being executed. The performance of the query is calculated by the amount of time taken by the query to execute and return value. If the query execution time is above a certain pre-assigned threshold, then the admin should immediately alerted that there has been some issue with the performance of this particular query. The admin can then take action to improve the query of the database and ensure that the application is running smoothly.

Using Database Query Monitor in Applications Manager, the admin will be able to do the exact same thing. In addition, instead of just being notified of a performance related issue with the query, the admin can assign certain actions related to the alert and thus automating the whole process. While the admin will get notified of certain error in the performance of a query, Applications Manager executes appropriate action assigned with the alert and ensure that the performance of the processes remain high. The admin can also enable reports for various queries that is being monitored and also schedule reports accordingly.

For more information about Database Query Monitor, click here. This is available from 8.5 version of Applications Manager, which you can download it here.

Yes you have heard it correct! Our brand new podcast "Performance Matters ..." has been released today. This is going to be a series of podcast where we will be focusing on ManageEngine Applications Manager and its abilities. We will discussing in-depth about its features, how to utilize Applications Manager to its fullest capabilities and much more. We will also be discussing about the current trend in applications performance market and the various challenges faced by end users.

In this first episode, you will get a first hand introduction about ManageEngine Applications Manager, its key features, abilities and why Applications Manager is the favorite performance management software among its end users from Gibu K Mathew, Product Manager for Applications Manager.

Performance Matters...

Episode 1: An Introduction to ManageEngine Applications Manager - with Gibu K Mathew

(Time: 7:55 | MP3 Format)

You can download this file onto your mp3 player/iPod. Do post your comments about the podcast.

Applications Manager now supports MS Office SharePoint server. It can automatically diagnose, notify and correct the performance and availability problems that may occur. Applications Manager provides comprehensive fault management and proactive alert notifications for any impending problems and triggering corrective actions. It also gathers performance data for future planning, analysis and reporting and are supported out-of-the-box.

Some of the key performance metrics include:

• Office Search Gatherer ( Reason To Back Off, Active Queue Length, Threads In Plugins, Delayed Documents, etc.)
• Excel Services Web Frontend (Active Requests, Requests Per Second)
• Document Conversions (Incoming EMail Messages Processed, Pending Conversions)
• Active Server Pages (Errors/sec, Requests Queued, Requests Rejected, Requests/sec, Current Sessions, etc.)
• Share Point Server Servcies ( Service Name, Status, Health, Availability) and much more...

Here are some screenshots of Applications Manager monitoring MS Office SharePoint:

Well, you are already aware that Dell Openmanage gels well with Applications Manager. However, one of our customers - Paul Redpath from Catalyst2, pointed out to us that the SNMP traps are sent to 162 UDP port by default. So, the user need to ensure that they open the firewall and re-configure Applications Manager to listen to that port for SNMP traps. Once it is configured, the user can see the traps under Alerts >> Unsolicitated Traps and create new Alert for traps in the Applications Manager.

Here is  a screenshot for configuring SNMP trap for Applications Manager.

Thanks Paul for your How-To! :-)

The key is JSON Feeds!

You can integrate Applications Manager’s data in your intranet web page. We provide the Monitor Group and Monitor status in the form of JSON feeds (lightweight computer data interchange format, used as a simple alternative to using XML for asynchronously transmitting structured information between client and server).

To see the monitor group status, you can access this URL
<http://<AppManagerHostname>:<port>/jsonfeed.do?method=createMonitorGroupFeed>

To see the monitor status, you can access this URL

<http://<AppManagerHostname>:<port>/jsonfeed.do?method=createMonitorFeed>

For eg., a Sample file <jsonsample.html> that is used to parse the JSON data, is added to <AppManager_Home>/working/html directory.

Changes to be done in the <jsonsample.html>:

Change the hostname and port in the URL in first line in the sample file to suit your environment.

<script src=”http://< appmanagerhostname>:<port>/jsonfeed.do?method=createMonitorGroupFeed”>

If you want to view the monitor group status (Coming through JSON Feed), you can invoke URL -
http://<appmanagerhost>:<port>/html/ jsonsample.html

Susan

In today's fast growing e-commerce market, the ability to develop and deploy web applications quickly could make or break a company's future. However, developing and launching live web applications alone just does not merely guarantee company's success. Without proper systems in place to monitor, verify and detect symptoms of a problem, management of such applications can soon turn into a manageability crisis. As many organizations adopt web-based applications fueled by latest developments in web 2.0 technologies, the stake for accurate management systems has never been so high.

As organizations quickly embrace various technologies to improve their web applications, various web technologies are mashed to form a single/collage web application. Undoubtedly, the complexity of such an “integrated” application also increases exponentially. As these applications interact with in themselves and end users, they become extremely data intensive. Hence, the availability of data becomes extremely important. As it goes through several testing cycles, various scenarios are played out and the code is debugged before the application goes live. However, when the application goes live, end user scenarios prove to be completely different. Thus, there could be a distinct disconnect between the end user experience versus the use cases tested.

For example, lets us consider British Airways (BA) which lets the end user book tickets through critical live web applications. With worldwide customers, it becomes crucial for BA to be able track their web applications health and availability 24x7x365. Through global Point of Presence, such monitoring and alerting is carried out by finding out the response times of websites from different geographical locations. Several extraneous factors, fuzzy boundary conditions, quality of data input are also likely to affect the performance of the web application. These factors could negatively impact the performance of the web application and in extreme cases - may even derail the entire application. Such a derailment could affect BA’s revenues - which could range from a few thousands of dollars to millions/billions. In addition, the company’s image could also be adversely affected.

In mission-critical live web applications detecting the failure is only the half the work. Finding out the root cause of the failure becomes more important.

Figure 1: Scenario 1 – Without proper monitoring tools, failures go un-noticed

Figure 2: Scenario 2 – With proper monitoring tools, failures are monitored and informed as it happens

Methods such as URL monitoring and URL sequence monitors, which are actively practiced by ManageEngine Applications Manager, are used to detect such failures actively. These monitors provide live monitoring facilities, which enable the IT team to track web applications health and availability. Based on certain conditions and parameters, alerts are then issued to the IT team. By providing such active alerts, end user experience measurements help any organization to be able to track their web applications live and help them to maintain the performance of the application at optimal level.

Better end user experience = Better Revenues = Better Reputation = Loyal Customers

 

Many enterprises/organizations have started looking at these parameters as it becomes a part of the vital statistics of what the end user want/need. It also helps the IT team to detect any kind of failure occurring within the web application and thus avoiding failures in the future as well. Maintaining better end user experience measurement would lead to better retention rate of a company’s customer base. It also helps in acquiring new customer base and ultimately translates into better revenues and market share growth.

Last blog highlighted our plans for SAP Support in our next major update. However a nice enhancement to our Release 7.4 was the support for hierarchical monitor groups. This should help our users to better group & monitor IT resources. Here is how.

The traditional approach to monitoring resources, follow a siloed approach to monitoring technology components. There, high level availability and health are known for individual components and it is hard to visualize what resources need more attention based on business priority. With support for sub-groups, this situation is changing and will improve visibility even for the Head of Operations. For example, now you would be able to see that the overall business application had a 99.985% availability and can then check the reports and interpret how the downtimes total up.

The accuracy of reports will be improved by the ability to group relevant resources and by defining proper "dependency rules". These dependency rules will also help handle clustered setups.

The hierarchical grouping along with the support for dependencies with rules like "Critical if any 'N' Monitors are critical" should enable managing business services better.

Hope the below graphic is self explanatory. Click it to enlarge it.

Cheers !

Gibu

Twitter :  @Gibu_

ps :

A previous blog highlight, just in case you missed it :

Response Time across multiple locations