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As the line between network and application monitoring continues to blur, vendors are scrambling to extend their reach into both areas of performance management.
Network performance reporting developer Concord Communications Inc. plans to introduce the latest version of its eHealth Suite, an integrated tool for all-around performance management, visualization and analytics.
The new eHealth Suite, which is due next month, will include management of client-side Java applications on top of existing Web and Windows applications, as well as on Microsoft Corp. Exchange 2003 e-mail servers.
The suite, through a series of agents, monitors performance on servers and end stations; detects performance degradation; and determines whats wrong, whats affected and how to resolve the problem, according to officials in Marlboro, Mass.
The eHealth Suite, along with the Business Service Console, which Concord released in May, is the companys answer to a refrain being sung on both sides of the network and server aisles, according to users and industry analysts.
“Environments have gotten more complex, and people are unwilling to pay more for tools that dont find and fix the problem,” said Rachel Chalmers, senior analyst at The 451 Group, in San Francisco.
The analysis company published a report in August predicting that the enterprise management industry will spend some $4 billion over the next 18 months to acquire application technology.
The primary benefits to IT shops from tools such as eHealth Suite are faster troubleshooting of performance problems and the ability to quickly show business users whats happening, according to user Henderson Jones, network analyst at the Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation, in Chicago.
“Were able to pinpoint problems and see where to add more infrastructure, servers or memory,” Jones said. “Now we can get this information within 15 minutes instead of 2 or 3 hours.”
Concord also simplified deployment of eHealth agents, which can monitor performance and generate synthetic transactions that mimic user behavior.