Measuring Application Performance during Updates or Modification

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Intro

In a world of constant technical disruption, application owners are endlessly exploring ways to ensure performance and maintain relevancy for users. This drive for continuous improvement has led to the rise of working practices such as DevOps and Agile that facilitate regular application updates and version releases to support the development of key platforms. And although continuous improvement is a key focus, businesses often overlook the ‘continuous’ application monitoring practices required to measure the performance and end user experience effects of modifications.

Without an effective monitoring or performance assurance tool in place, updates introduced to end-users place businesses at significant risk. Most leading monitoring solutions require agent code insertions, amplifying risk and increasing effort to application update processes. To overcome this, businesses undergoing change must employ an easy-to-use, flexible monitoring solution that delivers valuable monitoring insight from a consistent benchmark.

Businesses must prioritise user journey when modifying applications

Whether increasing functionality, adding features or fixing bugs, there are a myriad of reasons why a company would look to deliver application updates in a regular manner. This is especially true for applications offering perishable goods to an unfaithful customer. In these cases, even a small issue or a seconds-long delay during application use can harm revenue when the user exits the application. Businesses must be sure they can quantify and fully grasp the effectiveness and performance of their key (revenue critical) user journeys that underpin the success of their applications.

Most leading application performance monitoring tools offer metrics using a RUM (Real User Monitoring) code agent-based approach, measuring completion time of user journeys. However, in the rare cases that application updates cause serious time-delays or failure of a key user journey, RUM solutions only flag issues once a user encounters a problem. By this time, the business is already losing revenue. In addition, RUM is not easily able to discount misleading factors such as Wi-Fi / cellular issues or device version distorting application performance metrics. The use of a code agent also means that each application update process adds an extra layer of complexity, ensuring the agent is not written out and/or made redundant during a change process.

As a result, RUM application performance monitoring tools can become more a burden than a useful tool. IT teams receive misleading results, unproductive testing and DevOps pain-points. To match the proactive nature of continuous improvement, businesses need a corresponding approach to monitoring – one that tests and validates application performance before end-users are affected.

Our Solution

Remasys’ Eagle-i employs a synthetic monitoring approach to proactively test key user journeys, using automated scripts to measure and monitor key user journeys. To isolate the effect of application modifications, Eaglei is designed to measure performance from a consistent benchmark, evading misleading results that can be caused by external factors such as network strength or device issues. Eagle-i is a technology agnostic, agentless solution, requiring no insertion of code agents which can be damaged by application modifications.

Remasys’ monitoring experts work with businesses to understand their critical user journeys before automation with Eagle-i. These journeys are then run 24/7 at scheduled intervals, collecting vital performance and availability metrics that are invaluable to businesses. An active monitoring approach allows identification of issues before they affect the end user. Support teams benefit from valuable time to resolve issues before end users are affected. In addition, Eagle-i provides a video of the user journey as a visual record of any relevant issues.