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What Is Application Performance Monitoring? Complete APM Guide

Application performance monitoring is important in a digital landscape. Imagine your website facing a sudden spike in traffic, slowing down, and frustrating potential customers. Understanding and exploring application performance monitoring can help you avoid such scenarios and keep your business running smoothly. 

Alerty's free APM solution can provide the insights you need to optimize your site's performance and enhance user experience effectively.

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Table of Contents

What Is Application Performance Monitoring (APM)?

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Application Performance Monitoring (APM) software is vital for organizations to ensure that their critical applications perform at the expected level. It helps maintain the desired performance level, availability, and user experience. APM solutions enable organizations to proactively predict and prevent performance issues before they affect end-users or the business. 

APM software achieves this by:

  • Measuring application performance
  • Alerting administrators of performance issues
  • Identifying root causes of performance problems
  • Automatically resolving many performance issues

Application Performance Monitoring vs. Management

Although often used interchangeably, there is a distinction between application performance monitoring and management. APM, or Application Performance Monitoring, is a subset of APM software that involves continuous monitoring of the application’s performance. To manage application performance, you must first monitor it.

Evolution of APM Solutions

Traditional APM tools are giving way to more modern and complex APM solutions. Observability, a technology surrounding performance data collection and analysis, is increasingly important for managing modern, distributed, cloud-native applications. Observability provides a more in-depth understanding of application performance metrics, allowing for more comprehensive tracking and analysis.

Effective APM solutions offer numerous benefits to organizations. 

  • They help optimize critical application performance
  • Ensure a better user experience
  • Prevent damaging performance issues

APM tools also provide insights into baselines and historical data, allowing for identifying trends that could affect future performance. They can automate problem resolution, freeing IT resources to focus on more strategic initiatives.

The need for effective APM solutions grows as applications become more complex and distributed. APM tools must adapt to monitor performance across:

  • Hybrid and multi-cloud environments
  • Microservices
  • Other modern application architectures

The ability to monitor and manage application performance in real time will be critical for the success of modern businesses in the digital age.

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How Does APM Work?

how does it work - Application Performance Monitoring

Application performance monitoring tools or platforms work by observing how apps perform and whether they behave appropriately. If the apps aren't behaving appropriately, data is collected on the source of the issue. The gathered data is analyzed in the context of its effect on the business, and the application environment is corrected to resolve any similar problems before they occur.

When configuring an APM platform, three categories of data should be considered:

1. Metrics

A metric is a quantified measure that can be used to understand the status of a specific process. Metrics are often compared to a defined baseline to analyze the system or process's status. Changing metrics is a common indication of an underlying issue.

2. Traces

A trace is the complete processing of a request. It illustrates and understands the request's complete journey as it travels through all the network's components and services. A trace contains hundreds of data points that can indicate errors, diagnose security threats, and detect and isolate network issues.

3. Log files

Log files are automatically created by an application or OS and hold information about user behavior and app events. They are used to perform root cause analysis, understand why a metric changed, and identify where an event began.

Because performance monitoring is part of the broader performance management topic, it's important to note that monitored data and analytics might not be enough to ensure adequate user experience. Performance management systems will often combine monitoring data with automation and orchestration to bring autonomy to some problem remediation.

Full-Stack Monitoring for Developers and Startups

Alerty is a cloud monitoring service for developers and early-stage startups, offering:

  • Application performance monitoring
  • Database monitoring
  • Incident management

It supports technologies like NextJS, React, Vue, and Node.js, helping developers identify and fix issues. 

  • Alerty monitors databases such as Supabase, PostgreSQL, and RDS
  • Tracking key metrics like CPU usage and memory consumption
  • It features quick incident management and Real User Monitoring (RUM) to optimize user experience
  • Its universal service monitoring covers dependencies like Stripe API, OpenAI, and Vercel. 

Alerty uses AI to simplify setup, providing a cost-effective solution compared to competitors. It is designed for ease of use, allowing quick setup, and integrates with tools like Sentry, making it ideal for developers and small teams needing efficient, affordable monitoring. 

Catch issues before they affect your users with Alerty's free APM solution today!

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APM vs Observability

Differences APM vs Observability - Application Performance Monitoring

Application performance monitoring (APM) and Observability are often used interchangeably, but they can split in scope. Although both can be used to assess application health and user experience, the two approaches work differently.

Surface Similarities

APM is about gathering data through metrics, traces and logs to measure performance and identify potential problems. On the surface, observability shares the exact definition. Observability defines or gauges a system's state based on the data that the system generates. APM and observability are indistinguishable for relatively simple systems involving a handful of hardware in a limited physical deployment.

Observability typically goes further than APM. The fundamental difference between the two ideas is in how much data is collected and how that data is processed and interpreted.

Beyond Basic Monitoring

Modern application architectures can be complex, involving many services and distributed systems across multiple networks and physical locations, including the cloud. This evolution can present convoluted and challenging environments to monitor. Observability focuses on collecting more data across a broader range of environments and then performs sophisticated analytics on data patterns to provide insights into large and complex environments.

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Key Features And APM Metrics

key features - Application Performance Monitoring

CPU Usage

APM monitors your web server's CPU usage, memory needs, and disk read/write speeds to ensure usage doesn't negatively impact performance.

Error Rates

Monitoring how often application performance degrades, APM helps identify issues like web requests ending in an error or failing during memory-intensive processes.

Response Time or MTTR

Calculating average response time or MTTR helps determine whether speed impacts app performance.

Number of Instances

Knowing the number of server or app instances running at once, especially for cloud-based applications, is crucial. APM can cost-effectively autoscale your app to meet user demand.

Request Rates

Evaluating your application's traffic and collecting data on spikes, inactivity, or the number of active users can help optimize or pinpoint the source of issues.

Application Availability

Monitoring your application's uptime effectively checks compliance with SLAs.

Garbage Collection (GC)

Monitoring for performance degradation is crucial if your app uses GC-heavy languages like Java.

User Experience

AppDynamics uses Apdex scores and SLA thresholds to measure user satisfaction or tolerance against baseline performance, focusing on the most important element: user experience.

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9 Reasons Why Is Application Performance Monitoring Important?

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1. Increase application stability

Ensuring your applications are stable is crucial to providing a seamless user experience. Application performance monitoring plays a vital role in achieving this goal. By monitoring various metrics, such as response times and resource utilization, an APM tool can identify possible challenges before they can impact an application's stability.

By proactively monitoring an application’s performance, you can detect anomalies that could lead to instability. With real-time insights APM tools provide, you can address these issues promptly and prevent them from causing disruptions for your users. This proactive approach to application stability helps maintain a positive reputation for your business and keeps customers satisfied with reliable app experiences.

2. Improve the quality of software releases

With an APM tool, developers can gather valuable insights into their applications' performance and behavior. They can implement these learnings during the development process itself. This allows them to be aware of any issues or bugs early on, resulting in higher-quality software releases.

With APM, developers can:

  • Monitor code execution
  • Track response times
  • Identify memory leaks
  • Analyze error logs

By continuously monitoring application performance throughout the development cycle, teams can ensure that each release meets high quality and functionality standards.

APM tools also provide comprehensive visibility into how an application behaves in different environments and under varying workloads. This helps developers understand how IT infrastructure or configuration changes affect overall performance. With this knowledge, they can make informed decisions and optimize their codebase for better reliability and efficiency.

3. Reduce time to recovery in case of app failure

When an application fails or experiences performance issues, time is of the essence in resolving the problem. APM plays a crucial role in reducing the time to recovery in such cases. By continuously monitoring performance metrics, APM tools can quickly detect failures within an app, allowing IT teams to address them before they can escalate further.

With APM, IT teams can:

  • Receive alerts
  • Notifications
  • Detailed insights about errors, crashes, slow response times, and other performance bottlenecks

With this information, assisted by APM's collaborative features, they can swiftly investigate the root cause of an issue and take immediate corrective actions.

4. Boost app uptime

When an app experiences downtime frustrates users and can lead to a potential revenue loss. APM tools help identify and address issues that could cause downtime, ensuring your app stays up and running smoothly.

An APM tool can alert you to any risk of downtime by continuously monitoring your application's performance. This would allow you to take immediate remedial action before users are impacted. An APM tool will provide real-time insights into the health of an application’s infrastructure, allowing you to prepare fixes and schedule maintenance without causing any downtime. 

5. Drive engineering productivity and collaboration

Another important benefit of application performance monitoring is driving engineering productivity and collaboration. By providing real-time insights into an app’s performance, APM tools enable engineers to identify inefficiencies in the code. This allows them to optimize their code and improve efficiency, increasing productivity. In addition, APM tools facilitate collaboration among different app development and maintenance teams.

With a centralized platform that provides visibility into the entire application stack, developers, operations teams, and other stakeholders can easily communicate and share information about performance issues. This leads to faster problem resolution and smoother team workflows, improving collaboration and more efficient development processes.

6. Reduce the number of app performance incidents

By continuously monitoring various metrics, APM tools can quickly identify and alert you to potential issues before they snowball into major problems. This high level of proactivity helps minimize incidents that disrupt app performance and degrade user experience. With quantitative information, you can immediately resolve any underlying issue. 

This prevents issues from causing more significant incidents down the line. By reducing the number of app performance incidents through effective APM practices, businesses can maintain their applications' high availability while avoiding costly downtime.

7. Enhance end-user experience

With APM tools, businesses can unlock valuable information on how their applications behave from a user’s perspective. By monitoring metrics such as page load times, response times, etc., APM helps locate any issues that may negatively impact user experience.

By proactively monitoring and optimizing app performance with an APM tool, businesses can ensure that users enjoy a smooth and seamless experience when interacting with their applications. This helps retain customers and boosts:

  • Customer satisfaction
  • Loyalty
  • Conversion
  • Profits

By identifying areas for improvement to enhance the end-user experience, businesses can stay ahead of their competitors and deliver exceptional apps that meet and exceed user expectations.

8. Speed up root cause analysis of defects

When an application experiences performance issues or failures, rectifying the underlying causes is essential. APM tools provide detailed insights into the various metrics, logs, and traces associated with an application, allowing developers to pinpoint the exact source of any problem.

By leveraging the tool’s capability of collecting and analyzing data in real time, teams can streamline their troubleshooting processes. These tools enable engineers to drill down into specific transactions or components within an application to understand where bottlenecks or errors originate. Speeding up root-cause analysis helps ensure that applications remain stable and perform optimally.

9. Maintain consistent revenue generation

One way APM helps maintain revenue consistency is by managing issues that could lead to app crashes. APM tools provide valuable data on user behavior and preferences, enabling businesses to make informed decisions about monetization strategies and identify opportunities for upselling or cross-selling.

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What Are The Use Cases Of Application Performance Monitoring?

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Real User Monitoring

Real user monitoring, or end-user experience monitoring, is the collection and analysis of user data to build an understanding of an application's performance levels. By establishing a baseline for acceptable performance, you can accurately predict when an application will experience issues. 

For example, if the number of customers experiencing problems when trying to check out items exceeds the threshold, the APM alerts the relevant teams. You can perform user monitoring in two ways:

  • Synthetic monitoring simulates user behavior to capture problems before an application is released to production.
  • Agentless monitoring analyzes network traffic without installing software agents on monitored applications. 

User-Defined Transaction Profiling

You can use APM solutions to recreate common user interactions with applications. Doing so, you can better understand the conditions under which issues occur with your digital services. IT teams commonly use user-defined transaction profiling to troubleshoot applications and fix common user issues.

Component Monitoring

Component monitoring, or application component deep-dive monitoring, comprehensively tracks IT infrastructure. It monitors and analyzes an application's complete performance. Monitored resources include memory usage, servers, CPU utilization, and network components.

Infrastructure Monitoring

You can use APM tools to collect data from IT infrastructure, such as:

  • Servers (server monitoring)
  • Containers (container monitoring)
  • Databases (database monitoring)
  • Virtual machines (VM monitoring)
  • Other backend systems

It is done to detect performance problems and find the root cause of application errors.

Analytics

Effective APM provides data for analytics that enterprises can use to fix or improve their applications. Some APM tools use artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) algorithms to:

  • Conduct predictive analysis
  • Diagnose root causes of errors
  • Link complex application performance problems

SLA Monitoring

Service level agreements (SLAs) are critical to a contract between an IT services provider and a client. They set out the required levels of service that are agreed upon by both parties. APM can monitor the performance metrics in SLA frameworks, which helps providers ensure they are meeting expectations. It also highlights areas where providers are in danger of falling below the standards outlined in the SLA.

Comprehensive Monitoring Capabilities: Alerty Caters to Diverse Tech Stacks

Alerty is a cloud monitoring service for developers and early-stage startups, offering:

  • Application performance monitoring
  • Database monitoring
  • Incident management

It supports technologies like NextJS, React, Vue, and Node.js, helping developers identify and fix issues. 

  • Alerty monitors databases such as Supabase, PostgreSQL, and RDS
  • Tracking key metrics like CPU usage and memory consumption
  • It features quick incident management and Real User Monitoring (RUM) to optimize user experience
  • Its universal service monitoring covers dependencies like Stripe API, OpenAI, and Vercel. 

Alerty uses AI to simplify setup, providing a cost-effective solution compared to competitors. It is designed for ease of use, allowing quick setup, and integrates with tools like Sentry, making it ideal for developers and small teams needing efficient, affordable monitoring. 

Catch issues before they affect your users with Alerty's free APM solution today!

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Application Performance Monitoring Best Practices

ideation for Application Performance Monitoring

1. Use the Right Tool for the Job

Regarding application performance monitoring, one size does not fit all. Different applications and environments have unique monitoring needs, so it's essential to choose the right tool for the job. APM tools can range from simple to complex, each with its own set of benefits and challenges. 

2. Select Metrics and Collect Data Carefully

While it may seem like collecting more data is always better, this is not necessarily the case. Instead, it is crucial to decide which data is most relevant to your application and then implement APM to collect and process that information. 

3. Create Processes based on APM

Collecting data and generating alerts is only half the battle. What happens when issues arise? It's crucial to have processes and procedures in place to promptly address performance disruptions or application downtime. 

4. Create Manageable Processes

Establishing processes for APM should be an ongoing effort. It's essential to regularly revisit and update these processes to account for changes in your application and business needs. Creating dynamic processes that adapt to new challenges ensures that your APM efforts remain relevant and effective over time.

5. Test and Validate

Implementing an APM tool is only the first step. Ensuring that the data and metrics the tool collects are accurate and valid is crucial. Regular testing and validation can help identify any issues with the tool and address them promptly to maintain the reliability of your APM efforts.

6. Review Reporting

APM reporting can provide valuable insights into your application's performance. Take the time to review these reports and analyze trends in the metrics. By leveraging APM reporting, you can make informed decisions about infrastructure upgrades, capacity planning, and software optimizations to enhance your application's performance and user experience.

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How Do You Choose The Right APM Solution For Your Organization?

man finding best tool parameters - Application Performance Monitoring

Buy-in

Before integrating an application performance monitoring (APM) platform and its suite of tools into your IT environment, you must consider many factors. Ensure your teams understand the rationale and personal benefits behind introducing APM. You need to find a solution that fits in with existing systems and processes your team is comfortable with.

Features

Numerous APM tools are available. Make sure that the APM platform you introduce has the right tools for your applications and supports your programming language.

Cost requirements

APM can demand considerable computing resources, especially if you plan to monitor several applications. Ensure you have the necessary budget for computing resources along with the cost of the APM itself.

Ownership

Consider who will oversee and own your APM and which teams will be responsible for maintenance and administration.

Can the APM tool work within the environment

Use proof-of-principle testing to evaluate APM tools and validate their ability to meet established requirements -- such as:

  • AI analytics
  • Custom metrics
  • Cloud integration

Verify that the tools are suited to the existing environment and have no unusual or unplanned dependencies.

How can APM plans be changed?

Consider the ease of use when changing metrics, creating custom metrics, and accommodating new use cases. Understand how prospective tools and processes can adapt to changing business needs in the future.

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Top 5 APM Tools

discussion on best tools - Application Performance Monitoring

1. Alerty

Alerty is a cloud monitoring service for developers and early-stage startups, offering:

  • Application performance monitoring
  • Database monitoring
  • Incident management

It supports technologies like NextJS, React, Vue, and Node.js, helping developers identify and fix issues. 

  • Alerty monitors databases such as Supabase, PostgreSQL, and RDS
  • Tracking key metrics like CPU usage and memory consumption
  • It features quick incident management and Real User Monitoring (RUM) to optimize user experience
  • Its universal service monitoring covers dependencies like Stripe API, OpenAI, and Vercel. 

Alerty uses AI to simplify setup, providing a cost-effective solution compared to competitors. It is designed for ease of use, allowing quick setup, and integrates with tools like Sentry, making it ideal for developers and small teams needing efficient, affordable monitoring.

2. Azure App Insights

This popular tool from Microsoft provides deep insights into an application’s performance, availability, and usage on the Azure cloud platform. It collects data from various sources to provide a holistic view of an application’s health, such as:

  • Server logs
  • Application telemetry
  • User interactions 

With its powerful analytics capabilities, companies can identify bottlenecks and optimize their apps for better user experiences.

3. Instana by IBM

This artificial intelligence (AI)-powered APM solution automatically discovers and monitors an application stack's components. Using AI-powered root cause analysis, Instana can quickly pinpoint the exact location of a performance problem without the need for manual intervention. It offers deep visibility into distributed transactions, allowing users to track every transaction step across different services and microservices.

4. LogRocket

This tool provides session replay functionality, error tracking, and performance monitoring features. It enables one to see what users experience during their interactions with an app for effective troubleshooting. LogRocket provides detailed analytics and metrics such as page load times and error rates. This makes it a valuable tool for ensuring a smooth user experience.

5. Sentry.io

This open-source monitoring platform captures application errors by offering detailed crash reports and actionable debugging insights. It offers integrations with popular development tools such as GitHub and Slack, allowing seamless collaboration among team members during troubleshooting.

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Catch Issues Before They Affect Your Users with Alerty's Free APM Solution

Alerty is a comprehensive cloud monitoring service tailored to developers and early-stage startups. It offers a range of essential features to keep your applications running smoothly and efficiently. Let's take a closer look at what Alerty offers in application performance monitoring.

Efficient Application Performance Monitoring

Alerty excels in performance monitoring, providing real-time insights into your applications' health and performance. By supporting technologies such as NextJS, React, Vue, and Node.js, Alerty ensures that developers can easily identify and resolve any issues that may arise.

Database Monitoring Capabilities

Alerty offers strong database monitoring functionalities. It can track key metrics such as:

  • CPU usage
  • Memory consumption for databases like Supabase, PostgreSQL, and RDS

By monitoring these critical metrics, Alerty helps ensure the smooth operation of your databases.

Incident Management Made Easy

Alerty's incident management features enable quick identification and resolution of issues that may impact your applications and databases. With its efficient incident management capabilities, Alerty helps minimize downtime and maintain a smooth user experience.

Real User Monitoring (RUM) for Enhanced User Experience

To optimize user experience, Alerty offers Real User Monitoring (RUM) capabilities. Alerty provides valuable insights into how users interact with your applications by tracking user interactions and behaviors. This data can help you enhance user experience and drive user engagement.

Universal Service Monitoring for Full Coverage

Alerty's Universal Service Monitoring feature ensures you have full visibility into all the dependencies your applications rely on. Whether it's monitoring the Stripe API, OpenAI, or Vercel services, Alerty has you covered. By monitoring these dependencies, Alerty helps ensure your applications run smoothly and efficiently.

AI-Powered Simplified Setup

Alerty leverages the power of AI to simplify setup and configuration. This AI-driven approach makes it easy for developers to get up and running with Alerty quickly and efficiently. By streamlining the setup process, Alerty ensures you can start monitoring your applications without unnecessary delays.

Seamless Integration with Tools like Sentry

Alerty seamlessly integrates with popular tools like Sentry, making incorporating Alerty into your existing development workflows easy. This seamless integration ensures you can leverage Alerty's monitoring capabilities without disrupting your existing processes.

Affordable Monitoring Solutions for Developers and Small Teams

Alerty provides a cost-effective monitoring solution for developers and small teams. By offering an efficient, affordable monitoring solution, Alerty ensures developers can catch issues before they impact their users. 

With its free APM solution, Alerty makes it easy for developers to get started with monitoring their applications today.

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