What is application monitoring?

If I tell you “application supervision” what do you think of?

The word “supervision” originates from a concept that explains that supervision has as its objective professional and personal development and the learning of psychosocial skills. In the case of supervision, the supervisee will be asked to question a set of traits: attitudes, perceptions, actions, emotions, words, etc. In other words, the way he functions on a daily basis. All this under the guidance of the supervisor.

For application supervision, it is the same thing. Except that it is transposed to the IT domain, more precisely to computer applications.

😊 Definition of application supervision

Application supervision is a kind of “guardian” of application tools (website, mobile applications, software, etc.) The role of this “supervisor” is to check that the applications we use on our devices (mobile, tablets, computers) are working properly and that they do not generate any problems or damage.

🎯 TASK 1: MONITOR THAT THE APPLICATION IS WORKING PROPERLY

The first mission of application monitoring is to monitor and manage the performance of IT applications. This is achieved by monitoring the key performance indicators of the applications, namely :

  ▪️ availability

  ▪️ response time

  ▪️ performance

Monitoring all of this data serves to ensure that applications are running optimally.

🎯 MISSION N°2: DETECT AND RESOLVE APPLICATION INCIDENTS

The second role of application monitoring is to detect and resolve incidents that applications may encounter. These include:

  ▪️ service interruptions,

  ▪️ code errors

  ▪️ bugs

As you can see, application monitoring is the essential method for ensuring that computer applications function correctly, reliably, and efficiently for users.

What is user experience monitoring?

We saw earlier that application monitoring is an essential method to ensure that computer programs work well and optimally for the end users. The user is the central point of any application, the one who must be satisfied at all costs, as the first user of any IT solution.

User-feeling application monitoring is a distinct approach to monitoring the performance of an application.

The first group of “technical” users, which refers to system administrators, DevOps engineers, for example, will use application monitoring to keep an eye on the efficiency of the tools. They diagnose problems by examining metrics and looking at log data. They are more in the back office.

The second group of “functional” users, which we will call the end users, for instance, an Internet user or the customer service of a company, are those who will use the application tool in their daily life or in their work.

The aim of the user experience monitoring method is to put ourselves in the shoes of the end user by monitoring the applications. From a front office or functional point of view, it implies monitoring the following indicators inherent to users’ expectations:

  ▪️ response time

  ▪️ error rates

A third group then intervenes, which includes the developers, functional testers, or the quality team, whose task is to monitor the performance of the application on the user experience side (thus the second group).

In summary,

  ☑️ Application monitoring focuses on monitoring the performance of the application from a technical point of view,

while

  ✅ User-feeling application monitoring focuses on the user experience to assess the quality of the application from a usage perspective.

It is to meet the objectives of all these parties that monitoring is an essential method to be implemented in the management of applications in an information system.

In what concrete cases is application monitoring used?

In a tangible way, application monitoring is implemented in the information system of a company for several reasons:

  ▪️ We want to identify errors before they affect users.

  ▪️ We want to improve the quality of service by detecting problems before they occur.

  ▪️ We want to anticipate resource requirements to ensure application availability

  ▪️ Need to monitor the response times of the tools used, and error rates to ensure that users can access them reliably.

Web applications, thick client applications, mobile applications, VDI and IVR, application monitoring is used on all types of technological solutions.

What benefits can I expect after implementing user-oriented supervision in my company?

In addition to the many advantages listed below, the benefits of using a monitoring system are numerous and long-lasting. Overall, you will be able to better understand your users and consequently gain productivity.

There are many reasons why IT decision-makers integrate a user experience monitoring system:

  ▪️ You detect outages before they are experienced by your users.

  ▪️ You reduce your downtime

  ▪️ You optimize your incident management

  ▪️ You reduce the loss of productivity of your users when they are faced with incidents. You offer them optimal performance.

  ▪️ You increase your turnover thanks to a better-performing and more reliable site for your customers. You improve the image of your company, which becomes more attractive.

The real benefit of application monitoring is that it supports the performance and growth of your company in the long term.