Application Monitoring In Complex Multi-Tier Worlds

Riverbed Technology is widening its application performance management (APM) scope with the release of OPNET AppInternals Xpert 8.5 this month. This APM suite is aligned for examining performance issues in complex multi-tier applications.

Take a deep breath before you try and pronounce it, but as a product, OPNET AppInternals Xpert 8.5 provides visibility into the performance of applications "from the browser to backend" (i.e., at the database level).

The product integrates both a) end-user experience monitoring with b) code-level transaction tracing and c) monitoring of application and system performance metrics. This trio of functions then is hoped to give developers data to collaboratively identify, troubleshoot, and debug application performance issues.

Core developers, application support, development, and QA teams want coordinated visibility into application performance to (in an ideal world) proactively detect issues before they impact the business, as well as to analyze applications prior to deployment to identify bottlenecks that can impact performance in production.

NOTE: OPNET AppInternals Xpert 8.5 uses other Riverbed technologies, including Stingray Traffic Manager, to gain added visibility into end user experiences.

This product is built with a service-oriented architecture and Agile development processes to address not only the increasing rate at which new applications are rolled out, but also how applications are now sprawling and increasing in complexity. This new version release integrates with Visual Studio and Eclipse to enable "bi-directional drill down" to help streamline application debugging and troubleshooting. It also opens up visibility and enhances collaboration across application operations and developer teams.

Operations teams can drill down from the transaction trace to the affected code to highlight the affected calls or methods for developers — then, developers and QA staff can also quickly debug new releases by understanding where code is being used and who is using it in the production environment.

Senior vice president and general manager of the Riverbed Performance Management business unit Paul Brady explains that, "End-user experience monitoring of web-based applications, including cloud-based applications, is achieved by leveraging lightweight JavaScript, which can now be automatically injected via AppInternals agents or Stingray Traffic Manager, an application delivery controller that allows organizations to build custom functionality or implement traffic management policies that are unique to an application."