If you are running an ecommerce site or any business dependent on an online application, the success of your business is dependent on the reliability of these applications. Applications are the digital channels through which current and prospective customers engage with your products and brand.
Ergo, to optimize ROI and stay ahead of the competition, application monitoring must be a top priority. Research has shown that slow page load times, dead links and frequent errors are sure ways to drive customers away from your business. With so many options at their disposal, they have little patience for slow erratic service.
As this Stackify article shows, there are a number of tools businesses can use for application monitoring. For now, we’ll look at the key reasons why application monitoring is crucial.
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Improved Sales
Many businesses make the costly mistake of spending an inordinate amount of time on user interface design as opposed to application functionality. Properly functioning business applications are much more important in making a good impression. A customer’s experience will tell them all that they need to know about your business.
Stable, smooth running applications connote professionalism and dedication. In the absence of frustrating errors and sporadic timeouts, visitors can focus on what brought them to the site: view the products available and make purchase.
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Business Continuity
Application performance and business continuity requirements are closely intertwined. Both are critical for enterprise success. The goal of business continuity is to prevent a disruption of processes from dealing a fatal blow on operations.
Through performance monitoring, organizations can collect valuable data on applications. Such data can then aid in the identification of countermeasures that would lead to a more resilient business continuity plan. Businesses that understand how their applications function are in a better position to withstand a catastrophic event.
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Diverse Platforms
For more than a decade, laptops and desktop computers were how the average person accessed the internet. Today, web-based applications can be accessed from smartphones and tablets as well. These devices are comprised of diverse operating systems, hardware platforms, internet browsers and security features.
In addition, this environment is in a constant state of flux thanks to new hardware models and software updates. Application performance monitoring leverages tools that ensure real-time review of what’s happening in an application, its dependencies, how it performs in different environments and highlighting changes that need to be made.
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Complex Development and Business Processes
The complexity of software development and the business processes the application is meant to automate creates a wide number of moving parts. Despite meticulous care, there is always the possibility of bugs and vulnerabilities falling through the cracks.
Rigorous testing during development and after deployment to production equips administrators with the data necessary to identify and resolve problems before they cripple the business. Such data would include transaction throughput, bandwidth usage, CPU utilization and memory demands.
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Management of Technology Costs
Just like human health, prevention is better than cure when it comes to management of technology costs. Performance management gives insights that make it easier to predict the seasonal peaks and valleys of application use.
This allows you to better plan for infrastructure capacity and only pay for what you really need. It provides a clearer picture of traffic growth and makes upgrade plans more predictable. You have plenty of time beforehand to look at what’s available in the market and make the best purchase.
Effective application performance monitoring must be regular and carefully planned. There’s a growing array of tools that make the monitoring process easier and more efficient. Businesses must make the most of them; their success depends on it.
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