Technical debt accumulates when short-term solutions lead to long-term software inefficiencies, increasing maintenance costs, slowing development, and degrading performance. To effectively manage technical debt, teams need full-stack observability, from a high-level application view down to code execution and thread-level analysis.
Tackling technical debt ensures long-term software sustainability. Application performance monitoring (APM) tools can provide a structured approach to this by detecting performance bottlenecks, inefficient code, memory leaks, and database slowdowns early in the development cycle, ensuring application stability.
Understanding technical debt: Causes and consequences
Common causes of technical debt
- Rushed development cycles: Tight deadlines may force teams to implement quick fixes rather than well-designed solutions.
- Outdated technologies and dependencies: Legacy systems and unmaintained frameworks increase complexity.
- Changing requirements and scope creep: Frequent changes introduce inconsistencies and inefficiencies.
- Poor initial design and architecture: A lack of planning results in rigid, hard-to-maintain systems.
- Insufficient testing and monitoring: Neglecting thorough testing and continuous monitoring can allow minor issues to snowball into significant problems.
The consequences of unchecked technical debt are profound
- Performance degradation: Applications may experience slow load times and high latency, frustrating users and impacting retention.
- Increased operational costs: More resources are required to maintain and troubleshoot problematic systems.
- Security vulnerabilities: Outdated or poorly written code can expose applications to potential exploits.
- Developer burnout: Constantly addressing recurring issues can demoralize teams, leading to decreased productivity and higher turnover.
Let’s explore how APM helps you systematically eliminate technical debt, starting with a bird’ s-eye view of your application and drilling down to code—and thread-level analysis.
How to reduce technical debt using APM tools
Continuous observability: Preventing technical debt at the application level
Identify high-level performance issues before they spiral into technical debt.
At the core of technical debt prevention is continuous observability. Site24x7’s APM provides real-time insights into the four golden signals, namely:
- Application response times.
- Throughput trends.
- Request failures and error rates.
- Infrastructure bottlenecks.
This high-level visibility helps teams detect performance degradation early, preventing the accumulation of inefficient work-arounds.
Anomaly detection: Proactive issue identification
Prevent minor inefficiencies from turning into major technical debt.
Using AI-powered anomaly detection, Site24x7 automatically flags:
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- Unexpected spikes in error rates.
- Sudden increases in response times.
- Unusual resource consumption patterns.
This allows teams to resolve issues before they affect end users, reducing the reliance on quick patches that add to technical debt.
Milestone markers (CI/CD): Tracking the impact of code changes
Ensure new deployments don’t introduce more technical debt.
Each code deployment or configuration change can impact performance. Site24x7’s milestone markers help teams:
- Compare performance metrics before and after a release.
- Track error rates after a new feature rollout.
- Roll back changes if performance degrades.
By integrating with CI/CD pipelines, teams can fix performance regressions early instead of letting them accumulate into long-term technical debt.
Distributed tracing: Pinpointing bottlenecks in microservices
Avoid inefficient fixes by understanding the dependencies in a distributed system.
In microservices-based architectures, technical debt often arises when teams lack visibility into:
- Propagated latencies due to cross-service communications.
- Inefficient network routes causing API slowness.
- Performance degradation in asynchronous calls.
Site24x7’s distributed tracing maps requests across services, helping teams:
- Identify latency sources without making blind optimizations.
- Optimize API dependencies to reduce unnecessary delays.
- Detect latency issues in asynchronous requests and their impact on performance.
Database monitoring: Avoiding query-related technical debt
Fix database inefficiencies before they impact application performance.
Poor database performance is a major contributor to technical debt. Site24x7 offers deep database monitoring:
- Query response times: Identify slow-running queries and optimize indexing strategies.
- Error percentages: Detect failing transactions early.
- Slow queries and locks: Pinpoint database bottlenecks.
By optimizing slow queries and high-failure transactions, teams can prevent database-related technical debt from affecting overall application performance.
Performance bottlenecks and code-level analysis
Identify slow code paths and optimize execution for long-term stability.
Many technical debt issues arise at the code level due to inefficient loops and logic, excessive memory usage, and slow function execution.
Site24x7’s code-level diagnostics help developers:
- Analyze execution times at the method level.
- Optimize resource-heavy functions.
- Ensure best coding practices to prevent future slowdowns.
By continuously analyzing code performance, teams can make targeted optimizations instead of relying on quick patches that add to technical debt.
Thread dump analysis: Fixing deadlocks and thread contention
Reduce technical debt caused by inefficient multithreading.
Un-optimized multithreading can introduce significant technical debt, leading to thread deadlocks, high CPU usage due to excessive threads, and unresponsive applications due to contention.
With thread dump analysis, developers can:
- Identify blocked and waiting threads.
- Pinpoint thread contention issues.
- Optimize thread management to improve performance.
By resolving thread-related issues early, teams can prevent CPU bottlenecks and ensure efficient parallel execution. This reduces unexpected slowdowns and helps maintain application responsiveness over time.
Memory leak detection: Preventing long-term stability issues
Address one of the quietest causes of performance degradation and downtime.
Memory leaks contribute significantly to growing technical debt by causing gradual slowdowns and increased resource consumption, ultimately leading to unpredictable crashes.
Site24x7’s memory leak detection helps teams:
- Monitor heap memory consumption trends.
- Detect objects that are not getting released.
- Optimize garbage collection to prevent memory bloat.
Root cause analysis: Fixing issues at their core
Avoid temporary fixes—solve problems at their source.
Many teams patch issues without fully understanding their root cause, leading to repeated failures and growing technical debt.
Site24x7’s detailed root cause analysis (RCA) reports help developers:
- Diagnose root causes of failures instead of fixing symptoms.
- Analyze full execution traces to detect inefficiencies.
- Ensure long-term software stability by making informed fixes.
By addressing root causes rather than applying short-term patches, teams can reduce the accumulation of unnecessary technical debt and maintain a cleaner, more maintainable codebase.
Benefits of APM in managing technical debt
| Site24x7 feature | How it helps reduce technical debt |
|---|---|
| Continuous observability | Prevents unnoticed performance degradation |
| Anomaly detection | Flags performance issues before they escalate |
| Milestone markers (CI/CD) | Ensures new releases don’t introduce more debt |
| Distributed tracing | Helps optimize service communication |
| Database monitoring | Identifies slow queries and high error rates |
| Performance bottleneck and code analysis | Fixes inefficient code execution |
| Thread dump analysis | Prevents deadlocks and threading issues |
| Memory leak detection | Reduces long-term performance degradation |
| RCA | Ensures issues are fixed properly, not patched |
Final thoughts: A proactive approach to technical debt
Technical debt is not just about outdated code; it’s about hidden inefficiencies, poor monitoring, and reactive fixes that pile up over time. Site24x7’s APM provides a structured approach to tackling technical debt by offering:
- Full-stack observability for tracking issues from the application level to the thread level.
- Proactive anomaly detection for fixing problems before they escalate.
- Detailed RCA for avoiding temporary fixes.
By integrating Site24x7 into your development and operations workflows, your team can build resilient, high-performing applications—without accumulating unnecessary technical debt.
