| -MILLION DOLLAR loses occur every day due to | | | | missing the true “gotchas.” |
| poor application testing plans, too much trust in | | | | Network & Application testing crosses many |
| automated testing tools and a general lack of the big | | | | corporate departments and boundaries. This wears |
| picture. Plans are made without understanding how IT | | | | people down and makes them ready to accept any |
| all works together. Yet more automated tools hit the | | | | result that will at least get the testing completed. |
| market every day. | | | | The results are not surprising from this perspective. |
| The Web is alive with ads for software that will do | | | | The incident of “successful” application |
| the following: | | | | performance in testing is not equal to the incidence |
| Analyze your application response time from the | | | | of successful application performance in real-life. |
| perspective of the User experience. | | | | Network & application performance problems |
| End to End transparent application monitoring. | | | | continue on--month after month, year after year. |
| Create “Load” that exactly simulates | | | | Users stop sending in tickets but still complain to their |
| user experience. | | | | manager. This results in a schism between perceived |
| Automate application performance analysis & | | | | problems and reported problems. |
| troubleshooting. | | | | The Solution: |
| Based on these products and their claims, you would | | | | There is really only one consistently successful |
| think that the goal of IT Management is to automate | | | | approach to troubleshooting under-performing |
| all aspects of Network & Application | | | | networks & applications, the Network & |
| Performance Troubleshooting. Nevertheless, here is | | | | Application Performance Analysis Team. This |
| an important question: Is that not a little like asking a | | | | approach has a near 100% success rate at providing |
| chicken to guard the chicken coop? Who is | | | | resolution. It involves utilizing a highly skilled |
| monitoring the monitor tool? Is it not just another | | | | “SWAT” team of individuals that look |
| application? This goes around in circles. | | | | at all the component factors. These factors include |
| Humans use tools, highly skilled and experienced | | | | the following: |
| humans. To rely so heavily on automation to monitor | | | | Servers |
| other automation is to hope one potential failure | | | | Directory Services |
| catches another potential failure. Furthermore, our | | | | Operating Systems |
| experience has shown that companies all too often | | | | TCP issues |
| utilize under-skilled staff for these roles, hoping that | | | | Other Protocol Issues |
| the tool will know what to do with itself or simple | | | | Workstation builds |
| default configurations will apply. Catch 22? Well, yes. | | | | LAN Issues |
| You cannot take the need for skill, training and | | | | WAN Issues |
| experience out of the equation; even if you believe | | | | User Skills & Training |
| automated tools can do the job. Yet experience has | | | | Database Optimization |
| shown that not only do many automated tools not | | | | Interaction with other Applications |
| perform exactly as anticipated, the skill level of the | | | | Server Consolidation / Virtualization Issues |
| human being configuring these tools and tests is | | | | The team works with a client’s Subject |
| critical to the success of the test. | | | | Matter Experts for the application and database |
| Here are a few typical problems: | | | | involved. Frequently, a Network & Application |
| It is the business user, possibly backed up by the | | | | Performance Analysis Team member is the first to |
| application Subject Matter Expert (SME) that designs | | | | understand the application from the bottom up to |
| most automated application tests. Between them | | | | the top. |
| there is little expertise regarding the network | | | | People working with other humans--interviewing |
| components, Operating Systems and TCP aspects of | | | | users, network staff, application staff and |
| the way the application works on a network--or | | | | others--utilizing protocol analyzers such as Sniffer, |
| across a WAN. Frequently they create problems that | | | | Ethereal, WireShark and others, will find the problem |
| are not reality based, resulting in testing artificial | | | | consistently. Resolution is always the Primary Goal. |
| problems due to incomplete testing designs--and | | | | |