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2Identify Failed Connections
3Find Unexpected Dependencies
4Don’t Ignore Error Alerts
Application error messages are indicators of problems with either the application or the service. Don’t ignore these. Whether it’s a simple “404 Page Not Found” or a more complicated issue like a Customer Information Control System (CICS) transaction failing in the mainframe, it should be investigated and, if possible, eliminated.
5Get Your Timing Down
6Establish Balance
Poorly designed applications can result in unbalanced query structures in which individual requests generate multiple back-end calls that slow throughput to a crawl. IT operations teams should identify these situations and work with development teams to establish appropriate balance between front-end and back-end requests.
7Manage Management Tools
8Put the System to the Test
9Plan for Change
10Avoid the Five-Second DNS Tax
Misconfigured servers can request Domain Name System (DNS) entries that don’t exist, and time-outs won’t occur until five seconds have passed. Requests such as DNS lookups, reverse lookups and start of authority transactions can all be subject to delays, thus impacting performance. Identify DNS configuration errors and avoid the performance penalty.
11Manage for Transaction Response Times
Contrary to popular belief, high-resource utilization doesn’t necessarily indicate an end-user problem. Focus on transaction response time rather than resource utilization to quickly identify real performance problems.