Prologue

Application Performance Management , Riverbed Special Edition, introduces you to application performance management (APM) solutions and how these tools can help you monitor and troubleshoot your mission-critical applications — from the perspective of your users, as well as your systems.

This blog contains volumes of information that rival a map of the human genome, conveniently distilled into six short chapters chock-full of just the information you need! Each chapter is individually wrapped (but not packaged for individual sale) and written to stand on its own, so feel free to start reading anywhere and hop, skip, or jump between chapters (or around your office)! Here’s a brief look at what awaits you.

Understanding What Application Performance Management Is. I begin by exploring some application trends and different elements of APM, including monitoring and troubleshooting.

From the Driver’s Seat: End-User Experience Monitoring. This chapter takes a look at application performance from the user’s perspective.

Looking Under the Hood: Transaction Tracing. Here, you take an in-depth look at how application transaction tracing accelerates troubleshooting, and how APM helps bridge the workflow between application support and development.

Horsepower and Fuel Efficiency. In this chapter, you learn to use a “big data approach” to deal
with all of the data that APM collects.

Exploring the Application Performance Management Terrain. Here, you learn about some creative uses for APM to help improve efficiency and effectiveness in your organization.

Ten (Okay, Five) Application Performance Management Evaluation Criteria. Here, in classic for be style, I tell you about several important criteria to look for in an APM solution.