It environments have become complex, with architectures having three or more tiers, transactional information moving on the Internet, and more complex development schemes such as Java and .Net. As a result, IT managers can be at a loss to determine where to look when a critical applications performance suffers.
An array of developers are readying software that they say hunts down root causes of application performance degradation, whether it occurs in an application server, a database server or the heart of the application code.
Quest Software Inc. and Veritas Software Corp., for instance, are looking to acquisitions to help them offer more well-rounded APM (application performance management) software suites.
Quest plans to use technology it gained in the $115 million acquisition of Aelita Software Corp., announced late last month, to bolster its namesake APM suite for IT environments based on Microsoft Corp. technologies. The Aelita technology will enable Quest APM software users to administer, migrate, consolidate and recover environments based on Microsofts Active Directory and Exchange messaging software.
Aelitas technology will also enhance the Quest softwares capabilities for auditing Microsoft IT shops, according to Quest officials in Irvine, Calif.
Separately, Veritas, of Mountain View, Calif., is leveraging last summers acquisition of Precise Software Solutions Ltd. by tightening links between Precises APM software, now called Veritas i3, and Veritas storage management software. In the first half of the year, Veritas will integrate i3 with its File System software, according to officials in a public presentation made here late last month.
In Version 7.0 of i3, due in the second half of the year, Veritas will integrate i3 with its Cluster Server software and provide a unified Web GUI to all i3s components. In a move to attract more financial services customers, Veritas will add support for Sybase Inc.s Adaptive Server Enterprise and for IBMs MQ Series, both of which are widely used on Wall Street.
| Managing the application life cycleBenefits of APM software Development Raises red flag on performance problems Testing Provides insight into scalability Production Detects and corrects performancedegradation Upgrade Shows impact of customizations andupgrades | Managing the application life cycleBenefits of APM software | Development | Raises red flag on performance problems | Testing | Provides insight into scalability | Production | Detects and corrects performancedegradation | Upgrade | Shows impact of customizations andupgrades | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Managing the application life cycleBenefits of APM software | ||||||||||
| Development | Raises red flag on performance problems | |||||||||
| Testing | Provides insight into scalability | |||||||||
| Production | Detects and corrects performancedegradation | |||||||||
| Upgrade | Shows impact of customizations andupgrades | |||||||||
Veritas Senior Vice President Benjamin Nye, a former top executive at Precise Software, said that Veritas is moving toward adding more automation features so i3 can take corrective action to restore slowed applications but that currently there is a limit to what can be done. “I dont think the market is ready for a truly automated solution” that takes control entirely out of the administrators hands, Nye said.
Ntirety LLC remotely monitors, maintains and tunes customer companies databases. By using Veritas i3, the Newton, Mass., company knows if a customers application performance problems require the Ntirety database administrator to tune a database or simply to notify the customer that the problem resides elsewhere in the software stack. Ntirety CEO Michael Corey praised i3 for giving him early warning before performance is degraded. “Its smart about it. It doesnt just say, I have a critical problem. It says, I have a developing problem,” Corey said.