Application Performance Management (APM) is the practice of monitoring and managing the performance and availability of software applications. APM aims to detect and diagnose complex application performance problems to maintain an expected level of service. It involves tracking key software application performance metrics using monitoring software and telemetry data. Practitioners use APM to ensure system availability, optimize service performance and response times, and improve user experiences.
APM tools monitor the transaction speeds of end-users, systems, and network infrastructure to detect bottlenecks and potential service interruptions. APM allows system administrators to identify and diagnose the root cause of performance problems more efficiently, which helps to ensure a consistent level of service.
Two challenges for implementing APM are that it can be difficult to instrument an application to monitor application performance, especially among components of an application, and applications can be virtualized, which increases the variability of the measurements. To alleviate the first problem, application service management (ASM) provides an application-centric approach, where business service performance visibility is a key objective.
An effective APM platform should focus on infrastructure monitoring, as well as tracking the user experience, the performance and reliability of any dependencies and business transactions. APM tools provide administrators with the data they need to quickly discover, isolate and solve problems that can negatively impact the performance, reliability, and user experience of enterprise applications.
In summary, APM is a critical practice for ensuring the performance and availability of software applications, and it involves monitoring key performance metrics to detect and diagnose complex application performance problems. APM tools help system administrators identify and diagnose the root cause of performance problems more efficiently, which helps to ensure a consistent level of service.
