Using IBM Rational Performance Tester: monitoring applications, part 1th

Introduction: Learn why application monitoring is important in performance testing and how to use ibm®rational®performance Tester for application monitoring. This article is part 1th of a three-part series that describes the following technologies: Application monitoring, End-to-end business transaction Application Response Measurement (ARM) standards, and how to configure Ibm®websphere®application The environment for server or BEA WebLogic application server. The remainder of this application Monitoring series details application monitoring, how to use numerous visual interfaces in Rational performance Tester when analyzing application test results, and importing data from ibm®tivoli® products.

Application Monitoring Overview

Applications running in your production environment need to be managed to ensure that you meet service level agreements (agreements, SLAs) and ensure availability, capability, and reliable performance. This is especially important for an application that is necessary for business operations. Monitoring End-to-end transactions is critical to discovering and analyzing problems in an enterprise-class service environment, as these environments are constantly becoming more complex. A deeper understanding of how a particular transaction works during a load test or functional test in a distributed environment can make it easier for application developers to fix problems. In addition, integration with IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager (ITCAM) products can diagnose problems in other product environments, so that application developers can access product data in a format they understand during development.

End to end distributed business transactions

Monitoring applications are not simply profiling them (profiling). The current reality is that different combinations of applications and services are called composite applications that are used to achieve a business goal or to handle a process. These composite applications may include a large number of applications and operating systems, as well as different kinds of hardware, all of which work in a geographically distributed environment (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Complexity of a distributed computing environment