How to solve application performance issues proactively

How an end user experiences application performance depends on numerous factors. For example, when a mobile app feels sluggish, there could be latency in the mobile network, an overloaded third-party API server, high response times from backend services, inefficient database queries, or memory leaks within the application. End users don’t know where the issue lies, nor should they; they simply care about their experience using the app. 

However, as the provider of this mobile app, or any other application, being able to pinpoint any performance issues is essential. Traditionally, this meant setting up various monitoring tools for all components on which your app relies: the network, servers, cloud services, middleware, and more. These are separate tools alerting you when something is wrong, but they leave you with the task of correlating metrics and identifying the root cause. 

This is a labor-intensive, manual effort, complicated even more because IT environments have become increasingly complex. For example, in hybrid cloud environments, workloads are distributed across various systems, and sometimes you may not know where a workload resides. Furthermore, with the advent of microservices architectures, conventional monitoring approaches may not be effective due to the multitude of components involved. All in all, the risk of having blind spots makes it challenging to understand what exactly is going on. 

An end-to-end observability solution 

A better alternative for application performance monitoring is an observability solution. This combines all relevant metrics from the network, infrastructure, application, user experience, and more into a single tool providing end-to-end insight into the application. It not only alerts you to an issue, but also clarifies what exactly is happening, why, and how to rectify it. Essentially, it serves as a single source of truth for all metrics related to application performance. 

An observability solution is not only needed for effective root cause analysis, but can also pinpoint opportunities for cost reduction by analyzing resource utilization and suggesting optimizations to enhance allocation. Resource usage can be identified end-to-end, potentially leading to insights such as your virtual machines being overly powerful for your needs. 

Business analytics 

Cegeka uses Dynatrace as an observability solution, which automatically discovers all components of your IT infrastructure. This discovery process runs continuously, recognizing new technology as it is added. Thanks to its end-to-end visibility, you can also determine which users and applications are impacted by any infrastructure issues. 

These performance metrics are visualized through dashboards, customized for each department or role. For instance, each product owner has a tailored dashboard for their application, while the CIO sees the same dashboard, but for all applications. Compliance dashboards can also be set up, for instance for DORA, which includes requirements related to application performance monitoring. 

Due to Dynatrace’s end-to-end visibility, the tool also translates metrics transparently. If a customer’s application uses servers in our data center, Dynatrace’s infrastructure monitoring component identifies a server by an internal ID that is relevant only within our data center. The customer isn’t familiar with these internal IDs, but Dynatrace translates them into more understandable labels for the customer, such as “DB1” for the first database server. 

Market evolutions driving observability 

Several market evolutions in monitoring make observability solutions particularly pertinent. First, the continued growth of mobile and cloud-native applications, alongside the ongoing shift from traditional data centers to private, public, and hybrid clouds, makes a single source of truth essential. Second, infrastructure now often incorporates modern agile practices like Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery (CI/CD). An observability platform supports seamless integration with these CI/CD systems. 

Third, investors and regulators are also demanding more precise information on sustainability metrics. These can be incorporated into observability platforms to reach standardized ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) disclosure across regions and sectors. Lastly, there’s a market-wide transition from reactive to proactive approaches. Rather than monitoring past events and reacting, observability empowers organizations to preemptively address potential disruptions before they impact critical operations. 

Technical Application Management services 

With an observability solution like Dynatrace, our customers gain deep insights into their business-critical applications. But what if you lack the time or expertise to tackle detected performance issues? That’s where we can support you through our Technical Application Management (TAM) services. Our dedicated specialists not only monitor your application performance proactively, but also act on those metrics when they deviate from your service level objectives. 

We have a team of 100 specialists with deep expertise ranging from applications to networks, infrastructure, and middleware. They know how to interpret Dynatrace’s metrics for efficient identification of performance issues. They also know how to translate those metrics into appropriate technical questions for third parties. For example, if a group of end users encounters issues with your mobile app, our TAM team can pinpoint this as a problem with a specific network provider and contact that provider with a question about its infrastructure. Additionally, the TAM team can propose or implement optimizations proactively. 

Thanks to their expertise, our Technical Application Management team can support you in using an observability solution not only as a monitoring tool, but as a strategic instrument in your organization, for example for cost optimization and compliance. 

A powerful combination 

Together, Dynatrace and TAM provide a comprehensive solution for application monitoring and management that not only detects issues but also resolves them instantly. If you depend on business-critical applications and seek maximum reliability, this is invaluable. Our TAM team continuously monitors your application’s performance and proactively improves it, allowing you to focus on delivering value to your users.