Monitoring Applications: Performance Issue Prevention Strategies

Application performance monitoring (APM) is a critical function of IT infrastructure to ensure apps are working properly. APM tools help businesses ensure that their applications meet expectations for performance, availability, and overall end-user experience. They do this by measuring application performance, security, and compliance, sending alerts when performance baselines are not met, and providing insights into the root causes of performance issues. This helps businesses minimise downtime, maintain customer satisfaction, and reduce operating costs.

There are various types of application monitoring, including fault monitoring, performance monitoring, configuration monitoring, security monitoring, and accounting monitoring. Each type plays a specific role in monitoring within an organisation, and the choice of monitoring type depends on the organisation's needs.

This paragraph provides an introduction to the topic of application performance monitoring, including its definition, importance, benefits, and different types.

Monitor user experience data and feedback

User experience data and feedback are essential for understanding and optimising the user experience, which strongly impacts your relationship with customers. User feedback is also foundational for improving application performance and user retention.

There are several ways to collect user feedback and data:

• User research and observation: This can be done through field observation or research labs, but has expanded to include digital channels as well.
• User interviews: Direct conversations with users can provide in-depth insights into their perspectives, motivations, and experiences.
• User communities: Engaging with user communities allows you to observe discussions, answer questions, and directly engage with users.
• Social media: Social media platforms provide a wealth of unsolicited feedback, allowing you to monitor user sentiments in real-time.
• Analytics tools: Tools like Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics provide quantitative data on user behaviour, including page views, click-through rates, and user journeys.
• In-app feedback tools: Embedding feedback mechanisms directly within your application or website makes it convenient for users to share their thoughts.
• Customer support interactions: Asking for feedback during customer support interactions can provide insights into user experiences and satisfaction levels.
• Feedback widgets: Strategically placing feedback widgets or pop-ups at specific points within your product or website can capture spontaneous feedback related to current user experiences.
• Surveys: Time-sensitive surveys sent at specific times, such as after a product update or feature release, can ensure feedback is relevant and accurate.
• Net Promoter Score (NPS): NPS is a common type of feedback that asks users how likely they are to recommend a product to a friend. While simple, it can provide interesting insights into customer satisfaction and brand strength.

When collecting user feedback and data, it is important to:

• Decide what you want to find out: Clearly define your research goals and the specific questions you want to answer.
• Use simple and clear language: Ensure that the language used in feedback collection is easy to understand and communicates the subject and intention effectively.
• Account for the user's level of information: Ask questions that users can actually answer. Test your assumptions about their level of knowledge to avoid skewing results.
• Avoid social sanctioning: Ensure that questions do not put users in a position where they may need to provide an answer with social implications. Anonymous feedback can encourage honesty.
• Avoid leading questions: Compose questions in a way that does not suggest a particular answer or imply positive or negative implications.
• Avoid double-barrelled questions: Ask about one topic at a time to get clear insights and avoid confusing users.
• Start with general questions and move to specific ones: This will make it easier for users to answer and provide a natural flow to the feedback process.
• Know when to use open-ended and closed-ended questions: Open-ended questions allow users to provide more nuanced information, while closed-ended questions make data analysis easier.
• Offer multiple channels: Users have diverse communication preferences, so offering multiple channels for feedback, such as email, in-app forms, or social media, can increase response rates.

By effectively monitoring and acting upon user experience data and feedback, organisations can ensure their applications meet expectations for performance, availability, and overall user satisfaction.

Set up alerts and notifications

Setting up alerts and notifications is a critical aspect of monitoring applications for performance issues. It ensures that relevant team members are promptly notified of any potential issues, allowing them to address them before they significantly impact the end-user experience. Here are some detailed instructions and best practices for setting up alerts and notifications:

• Define Performance Thresholds and Alerts: Establish clear performance thresholds based on factors such as user traffic, response times, and error rates relevant to your specific business needs and Service Level Agreements (SLAs). These thresholds will trigger alerts when they are not met, notifying the appropriate team members.
• Customise Alerts: Avoid generic alerts by customising them according to your specific requirements. Consider grouping related alerts into a single notification to reduce alert fatigue and ensure that alerts are accompanied by contextual information to aid in swift issue resolution.
• Streamline Notifications: Evaluate the possibility of integrating alerts into the collaborative channels already used by your employees, such as email, Slack, or project management software. This prevents the need for teams to adopt additional platforms and streamlines their workflow.
• Define a Clear Escalation Process: Establish a clear and concise process for escalating critical issues. Ensure that all relevant parties are aware of this process to facilitate swift and appropriate responses.
• Regularly Review and Refine Alert Systems: Review and adjust alert systems at regular intervals appropriate for your business. Stay updated with evolving SLAs and technologies, and incorporate new features as necessary to maintain the effectiveness of your monitoring system.
• Automation: Leverage the power of automation by utilising tools that offer automated alerts, report generation, and incident remediation. This reduces the manual workload on your IT and DevOps teams, enabling them to focus on more complex tasks.
• Avoid Alert Fatigue: While it is crucial to notify teams of potential issues promptly, be mindful that excessive alerts can lead to alert fatigue. Carefully define the situations that warrant an alert, and consider grouping related alerts to maintain the effectiveness of the notification system.
• Contextual Information: Ensure that alerts are accompanied by relevant contextual information. This empowers teams to quickly understand the issue and take appropriate action, reducing the time required for issue resolution.

Monitor resource usage

Monitoring resource usage is a crucial aspect of application performance monitoring. It involves tracking the utilisation of resources such as CPU, memory, storage, and network by running applications. This granular approach to monitoring helps organisations optimise their application resources and ensure efficient and effective performance.

Tools and Techniques for Monitoring Resource Usage

There are various tools and techniques available to monitor resource usage:

• Performance Monitor: This tool allows users to view data such as processor, hard drive, memory, and network usage. It provides real-time data about memory, network adapter, physical disk, and processor usage. It also offers customisation options, such as adding counters to monitor specific resources.
• Resource Monitor: Available on Windows Vista and later versions, this tool provides real-time information about hardware and software resources. It includes tabs for Overview, CPU, Memory, Disk, and Network, offering detailed insights into resource utilisation.
• Task Manager: While providing a more basic overview, Task Manager highlights resource usage of individual processes and allows users to terminate any misbehaving processes.
• Terminal Applications: Linux commands such as 'top' and 'ps' provide information about active processes and running systems.
• Android System Info: This application provides detailed information about device resources, including battery usage, memory, storage, RAM, CPU load, and app details.
• System Settings: On Android devices, the 'Settings' app can display memory usage by running apps, and Trepn Profiler shows CPU usage.

Best Practices for Monitoring Resource Usage

When monitoring resource usage, it is important to:

• Establish clear performance goals: Define measurable goals with quantifiable metrics and KPIs. Develop a plan to achieve these goals, including regular monitoring and analysis of performance data.
• Monitor appropriate metrics: Focus on metrics critical to identifying performance issues, such as user experience data/feedback, response times, and error rates.
• Set up customised alerts and notifications: Create alerts and notifications based on performance thresholds to promptly notify relevant team members of any issues.
• Avoid alert fatigue: Ensure that alerts are tailored to critical issues and provide contextual information to help resolve them swiftly.
• Define a clear escalation process: Establish a concise process for escalating critical issues and communicate it to all relevant stakeholders.
• Streamline notifications: Integrate alerts into existing collaboration channels to prevent teams from having to adopt additional platforms.
• Regularly review and refine: Review alert systems and adjust methods to incorporate new features and changes in SLAs and technologies.

Monitor response times

Response time is a critical metric for application performance monitoring. It measures the time taken for an application to respond to a user's request, and slow response times can indicate performance issues. Monitoring response times helps identify problems such as slow database queries, increased network latency, or central processor unit (CPU) spikes.

Digital experience monitoring tools can be used to gather response time data from the user interface on the end-user device. This provides insights into user behaviour and enables prompt troubleshooting and resolution of frontend issues. Real-user monitoring, a type of digital experience monitoring, monitors the experience of actual users on the system, providing valuable data on response times.

Application monitoring software can also help measure and improve response times. These tools provide insights into the root causes of performance issues and use automation to resolve them before they impact the user experience. For example, Raygun, a performance monitoring tool, offers features such as smart error grouping, which collects errors under a single root cause to avoid flooding users with notifications.

Performance monitoring tools like Windows Performance Monitor allow for detailed analysis of application and hardware data. It provides counters to monitor various aspects of system performance, including processor, hard drive, memory, and network usage. By customising these counters, administrators can monitor response times for specific applications or hardware components.

Additionally, full-stack observability offered by some APM tools provides a comprehensive view of the entire application environment, helping identify potential bottlenecks and optimise response times. This includes monitoring the application stack, IT infrastructure, and database performance.

Monitor error rates

Monitoring error rates is a critical aspect of application performance monitoring. Here are some detailed instructions and best practices to effectively monitor error rates:

Establish Clear Performance Goals:

Set clear and measurable performance goals that align with industry standards and user expectations. Identify key metrics such as response time, uptime, and error rates. Define the acceptable error rate threshold and set up a process to monitor and address errors proactively.

Implement Error Monitoring Software:

Utilize error monitoring software to quickly identify and fix application errors. Look for solutions that provide insights into software stability, give developers metrics for technical debt management, and enable better decision-making between building new features and fixing existing bugs.

Prioritize and Classify Errors:

Not all errors have the same impact on the application. Prioritize critical and revenue-impacting errors that need immediate attention. Classify errors based on their severity, frequency, and potential business consequences to optimize bug fixing efforts.

Set up Customized Alerts and Notifications:

Customize alerts and notifications based on the defined performance thresholds and error rates. Ensure that relevant team members receive timely notifications to examine and address issues before they affect the end-user experience. Avoid alert fatigue by carefully defining critical situations and providing contextual information with each alert.

Monitor Real User Metrics:

Implement real user monitoring (RUM) to capture a diverse set of metrics, including error rates, page load times, rendering performance, and transaction success rates. This provides valuable insights into the user experience and helps identify areas of improvement.

Automate Issue Remediation:

Invest in automation tools that speed up issue remediation. AI-driven automation can pinpoint issues, optimize resource allocation, and streamline incident resolution with minimal human intervention. Focus on automating repetitive and high-volume tasks such as anomaly detection, log analysis, and basic incident response.

Continuously Review and Refine:

Regularly review and refine your error monitoring processes. Stay updated with changing SLAs, technologies, and business requirements. Adjust your methods and incorporate new features to ensure the effectiveness of your error monitoring system over time.

By following these practices, organizations can effectively monitor error rates, improve application health, increase team productivity, and enhance the overall user experience.

Frequently asked questions