As we pointed out in the past, data-driven approaches are changing the software development process. Big data is being finely woven into many new applications. Big data is at the heart of the development process, since developers need to find new ways to streamline content creation and coding. They must also find ways to integrate data technology into their applications, since data analytics helps enhance the performance of new applications.
As data-driven application development becomes more common, application performance monitoring will be more essential as well. How does this new technology influence the direction of the app development profession?
The Growing Importance of APM in Big Data Application Development
Application performance monitoring (APM) involves looking at processes and tools that help information technology professionals ensure that their products work well. The goal is to improve the user experience. This technology relies extensively on data analytics, AI and other data-driven technology. It’s related to application performance management and focuses more on tools than the performance levels. In this article we’ll be taking a look at how APM works.
About APM
You might be wondering what is application performance monitoring and how it works in the context of big data development? It is an effective solution involving monitoring of the infrastructure and seeing how the user experience is. Effective APM tools allow administrators to find and isolate issues that might affect how well a product performs.
The metrics are collected from one or more items on a network. The tool may collect memory demands, bandwidth consumption, CPU utilization, and other data. Then the tools can determine the issue at hand.
What Goes Into APM?
There are several components that APM focuses on as found in the AppOptics Blog, including component and real user monitoring, business transactions, data analytics, and runtime architecture. End-user experience monitoring involves collecting performance data to better understand how the application is working for users. That way, the IT professional can understand potential issues with the product. It’s also known as real user monitoring and allows organizations to respond to issues better. APM also involves examining business transactions. You might look at specific interactions and recreate them so you can know what leads up to an issue. It allows a company to trace an event across the components of an app. Plus, it allows you to see where events happen and if the efficiency is optimized.
How it Works
APM involves looking at the way that products are working and if they are doing so appropriately. If they aren’t, then software collects information on the issue. Then the data can be analyzed to determine the impact on a company and if necessary, the environment can be corrected to prevent future issues. You’ll want to consider metrics when coming up with a solution. These are measures that you can implement to better understand a process’s status. If the metrics change, there might be a problem. A few metrics to look at include:
- CPU Usage: This involves checking the CPU usage to see if it is impacting performance.
- Web Performance Monitoring: This looks at the response time of user interactions to determine if performance is being affected by the speed.
- Customer Satisfaction: This shows whether the customers are happy with the tool.
- Number of Instances: This metric looks at server instances to see how many run each time.
- Request Rates: This looks at how much traffic the application receives to see if there are any decreases or increases.
Choosing the Right Tools
With application performance monitoring software, it looks at the performance of an application over time. That way, an IT professional can understand the effect of different variables on how well an app functions. When you choose the software, look for products that allow you to focus on the user experience and ease of use. Ensure that you can create a plan of action from the data you collect.
APM is the Future of Data-Driven Application Development
Big data is fundamentally altering the nature of application development. APM is going to be increasingly important as developers strive to streamline the process and ensure their applications work seamlessly.