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Why Application Availability
Matters
And how to achieve increased availability through the use of AppMetrics®
www.xtremesoft.com+1 781-759-1220
Current Trends in Application Development
In order to remain competitive, organizations must build new, mission critical applications that automate and enhance their business processes Consequently, a shift is underway from ‘stovepipe’ internal
applications, to web enabled, transaction-based applications
Today off-the-shelf technologies are being used for this custom application development Transaction based application servers for business logic:
Microsoft COM+ and Microsoft .NET Serviced Components IBM WebSphere (J2EE) and BEA WebLogic (J2EE)
XML Messaging servers for EAI/B2B document interchange: Microsoft BizTalk Server webMethods and IBM MQ Series
The Evolution of the Application Services Stack
Over the years, the application stack has evolved considerably Application developers can now rely on standardized, off the shelf technologies
instead of painstakingly developing each supporting layer
But application availability continues to remain an issue…
Platform Evolution : Mainframe Client/Server Web EAI/B2B Web Services Platform Evolution : Mainframe Client/Server Web EAI/B2B Web Services
Application
Application
System SW
ApplicationApplication
Application
System SW
DBMS
Application
Application
System SW
DBMS
ApplicationServer
Application
System SW
DBMS
ApplicationServer
IntegrationServer
Application
System SWSystem SW
DBMSDBMS
ApplicationServer
ApplicationServer
IntegrationServer
IntegrationServer
Web ServicesWeb Services
Application
Why Does Application Availability Even Matter?
“As business becomes increasingly dependent on technology and information, availability is a universal concern for every business, in every industry… And globalization means there are no more periods of ‘acceptable’ downtime. At any time of the day or night, somewhere in the world, customers and vendors need access to your corporate information. If they can't get it, they'll go elsewhere – creating an opportunity for your competition.”
Application Availability: An Approach to MeasurementDavid M. Fishman, Sun Microsystems
http://www.nextslm.org
An Unavailable Application Negatively Impacts the Business
Lost Revenue Poor service leads them to
switch to other vendors
Lost profit Increased operational costs
Lower revenues and profits leads to cost and headcount reductions
Leading to fewer resources, increased job pressure, career stagnation
IT DevelopersIT DevelopersAre responsible for ensuring the application supports the business plan
IT OperationsIT OperationsAre responsible for ensuring availability of the application
EmployeesEmployeesRely on the application to process and monitor customer transactions, or facilitate day-to-day operations
What’s the Impact of Down-Time?Quantitative & Qualitative
Customers and PartnersCustomers and PartnersDirectly use the application or rely on applications used by your employees to submit or modify business transactions with your organization
The Impact of Down-TimeAn Internal Business Application Example
Industry Financial Services ▪ Insurance
Application Description Claims Processing Application This application moves and synchronizes data between Microsoft
SQL Server, a 3rd party claims package, and a 3rd party check writing application.
Use Characteristics Application Users: 100 to 1,000 Transactions Processed per Day: 1,000 to 10,000 Value per Transaction: $26 to $100 (profit per claim)
A Five Hour ApplicationOutage and Its Ripple Effect
Claims Department Employees: 250Average Claims per Hour: 2Employee Cost per Hour: $17.00
Average Lost Profit per Claim: $43.00Lost Productivity During Outage: $21,250
Delayed Profits from Claims: $107,500
Government penalties directly impact bottom line profitability and stock valueNegative press begins to hurt company's reputation and undermine its ability to hold onto long term, profitable customers and underwrite new ones.
EmployeesEmployeesDuring the outage, claims cannot be processed by the employees – Unfortunately, this is a routine occurrence.
1
CustomersCustomersAs outages continue to occur, customers notice that claims are taking longer to resolve. They are becoming increasingly frustrated, and gradually begin switching to better insurers.
3
Other PartiesOther PartiesAnd, the government starts to assess penalties for the repeated, disproportionate number of claims that do not meet processing deadlines.
4
IT IT Operations/DevelopmentOperations/DevelopmentThe outage is quickly discovered, but it takes several hours to identify the root cause before the application can be restored for use.
2 IT Employees Tasked: 4Average Cost per Hour: $33.00
Lost Productivity During Outage: $660
Other, unaccountable loss from impact of scheduled work or project delays.
Late claims spark increased number of customer inquires, impacting call centerIt takes 3 years of paid premiums before breaking even on a new customer. Profitability is severely impacted by higher customer acquisition costs as the company tries to offset the loss of established customers.
As the Application Stack Evolves, So Must Its ManageabilityManagement Products Must Keep Pace With Evolving Requirements
Platform Evolution : Mainframe Client/Server Web EAI/B2B Web Services Platform Evolution : Mainframe Client/Server Web EAI/B2B Web Services
Application
Application
System SW
ApplicationApplication
Application
System SW
DBMS
Application
Application
System SW
DBMS
ApplicationServer
Application
System SW
DBMS
ApplicationServer
IntegrationServer
Application
System SWSystem SW
DBMSDBMS
ApplicationServer
ApplicationServer
IntegrationServer
IntegrationServer
Web ServicesWeb Services
Application
Memory Management
Operating System
Management
Database and Network Management
Application Server
Management
B2B Control and
Business Process
Management
Web Services
Management
What Role Do Management Frameworks and Consoles Play?
Their key strength is gathering a broad array of events and metrics (a distributed event manager) from: Operating Systems
Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2003 Server, Windows 2008 Server, UNIX, Linux
Network Protocols DHCP, DNS, RAS, WINS
Microsoft Technologies Active Directory, IIS, Terminal Services, MSCS, MSMQ
They are also geared towards managing packaged applications: Microsoft Exchange Server & Lotus Notes Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle 8i, IBM DB2 Siebel CRM, PeopleSoft HR, etc…
How Do You Manage CustomDeveloped Business Applications?
You need to know what’s going on underneath your application, in the operating system Management frameworks and consoles do this well
Microsoft Operations Manager, BMC Patrol, Tivoli Enterprise, Computer Associates UniCenter TNG, Hewlett-Packard OpenView, NetIQ AppManager
But you really need to know whether or not your custom code is successfully transacting the business as intended This is outside their realm of expertise!
Even Microsoft is relying on other vendors to provide ‘expert knowledge’ and tools for complex management problems Which is why, when it comes to managing custom developed business
applications, Xtremesoft’s AppMetrics is the solution
Microsoft’s View on Systems Management
MicrosoftServer
Operating Sytems
StorageMgmt
SecurityManagement
HostingMgmt
NetworkMgmt
ChangeMgmt
Base servermanagementprovided byMicrosoft
Value added andother ‘expert’ managementprovided by ISVs(like Xtremesoft)
Xtremesoft’s AppMetricsis a Focused Solution
A solution geared towards explicitly managing: COM+ and .NET Serviced Components
AppMetrics collects detailed, application specific events and metrics for your custom business applications Aggregates events from multiple underlying technologies Collates them from the perspective of your application Gives you a view that corresponds to your businesses Enables you to measure and maximize a specific custom
application’s effectiveness and availability
Technologies
Packaged Apps
System
AppMetrics does Events & Metrics for Custom Applications
Mission-Critical Management
Terminal Svcs Active Directory MSMQ IIS MSDTC DHCP
CPU Memory Disk Network File System Print
Exchange SQLServer
Management Tools typically do Events & Metrics for Operating Systems
Management Tools typically do Events & Metrics for Technologies
Some Management Tools do Events & Metrics for Packaged Applications
Custom Developed AppsCustom Developed AppsCustom Developed Applications
Your B2CRetail PurchasingWeb Site & App
(COM+)
Your TradingPartner Supply
Chain App(BizTalk Server)
What Does This Mean?
Traditional management tools are general practitioners They provide cursory information on your application server Information that can tell you that a single server the application is
hosted on is non-functional The server’s CPU is thrashing, server memory use exceeding 80%, or a
server and its application has crashed
Often too late, and unable to answer the real question, “Why?”
Xtremesoft AppMetrics is the specialist It can diagnose and pinpoint “Why?” and do so proactively
An application’s CPU or memory use exceeding threshold, a designated kind of transaction taking too long, a particular component is aborting, a components method accessing a database repeatedly hangs
And on a per application basis, across a server farm, not just per server And give you detailed reporting for capacity planning and analysis
Custom ApplicationKey Business Events & Metrics
Traditional management tools and frameworks won’t tell you about business transactions: Shopping cart transaction count? Purchase order approval duration? Credit card approval abort count? Invoice transmission failed? (Show it be automatically
resubmitted?)
These are your front office business transactions, and represent real dollars and opportunities Not your back office infrastructure!
You need to manage both!
Business Value
$$$
What’s the Value to You?
System System Operating
System
Management tools typically tell you that disks are spinning, CPU’s aren’t pegged, network packets are flowing… System
System Technology
Management tools typically tell you DHCP, DNS, Active Directory, WINS, and MSMQ, are up and running…
System System Packaged
Applications
Some kinds of management tools let you know SQL Server database records are being written and Exchange Server e-mail works…
System System Custom
Applications
AppMetrics lets you know that the ‘business’ process logic implemented in your custom application is transacting successfully… (or not!)
How Does that ValueTranslate into Real Money?
“By using AppMetrics, the availability of the application has increased by a few percentage points. Considering for every one percentage point of additional availability a thousand man-hours of down-time is saved and hence results in millions of dollars in improved efficiency throughout the organization.”
www.xtremesoft.com
+1 781-759-1220
“Maximize the availability of your applications on the Microsoft platform”