The report focuses on what happens to software applications after they are deployed in live production use – how to extract maximum performance, how to troubleshoot when problems occur.
The report shows how optimising application performance is also dependent on the management of the network infrastructure (LAN/WAN hardware etc), and also on management of the delivery of IT services (Help Desk, problem management, change management etc).
Why is ITPO needed? Answer 1: To lower cost of running applications.
Production costs (such as maintenance and updates) are as much as 80% of Total Cost of Ownership.
Answer 2.
Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are very common but few organisations bother to monitor sufficiently well the service level – this defeats the purpose of SLAs.
Answer 3: IT is becoming increasingly complex (eg Web applications), and more is demanded from IT departments – IT departments need greater performance management automation to cope with the pressure.
The report highlights the Java and Microsoft technologies that put performance management at the centre of the agenda: for example the latest Java 2 Standard Edition version 5 just released has extensive support for Java Management Extensions (JMX) which provides Application Performance Management, and similarly with the just released Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 – both are discussed in depth in the report.
Section 4 also shows how it is important to feed knowledge gained about the application in live production back to development.
The reports shows what technologies are used in ITPO, discusses strategies for implementing these technologies and compares products from leading vendors in the field.
Readership: IT Management – Head of IT, IT team leaders, CTO and executive management.
IT Performance Optimisation (ITPO) is about improving how applications work in organisations, and about raising the standard to which they are expected to perform.
It is about hardware as well as software, because the platform upon which the application runs plays a crucial part in how well it can function.
Perhaps the most important part of this optimisation process is the management that can be applied, including the administration and control over IT that is needed to deliver service to wherever it is required.
Three major areas are covered by ITPO, and these are detailed in the Report itself: Application Performance Management (APM), Network Services Management (NSM), and IT Service Management (ITSM).
The emphasis of this report is on the business issue of making applications perform better; therefore the starting point is APM, with additional coverage of NSM and ITSM.
The business issues addressed in this report include: An Integrated Architecture.
The Report shows how to integrate the elements within APM, NSM, and ITSM.
Adopting a Performance Culture.
The Butler Group Closed-loop ITPO Model shows how production and development are linked by a feedback process.
ITPO and Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
Security and Compliance.
IT Department.
Performance Management tools bring automation to the IT department and help reduce the pressure on IT staff.
The technical issues addressed in this report include: Monitoring.
DatabaseOptimisation.
Tuning.
Application Traffic Management.
Legacy Systems.
Diagnosis and Resolution.
Modelling.
Application Portfolio Management.