Ali Hedayati, president and COO at Coradiant
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — For any web-facing application, performance is critical. But not every organization operating a web application has a full understanding of its performance, and the factors that influence it.
There is a wide variety of application performance monitoring and management solutions out there, and several methods for measuring, reporting and managing performance.
Coradiant (www.coradiant.com) is one of the providers operating at an end-user performance monitoring level, which the company says is key to understanding precisely how customers or users of a site perceive its performance. It also enables site operators to pick up on problems as they occur.
In an email interview with the WHIR, Ali Hedayati, president and COO at Coradiant discusses some general ideas about how application performance management works – and how it can impact the business of web applications – as well as some of the specifics of how Coradiant’s solutions function.
WHIR: Why is it so crucial to monitor application performance at the end-user level?
Ali Hedayati: The end-user is the key to effective performance management. Knowing what is delivered to end-users – and the quality of that delivery – removes the complexity and difficulty out of pinpointing the real sources of problems. Monitoring real users allows web operators to detect every error as it happens.
This user-centric approach to managing web applications has a number of compelling benefits. Who are my users? How well are we treating them? How well are we treating groups of users? Are there any problems facing users? Are individuals affected by problems, or are groups of users affected? Is the problem with my application or is it with the network or with my back end?
It’s important for any online application or online business to understand how every page and every object within an application performs – for every user.
End-user based Web Application Performance Management answers the most commonly-asked questions in any web problem scenario: “how well are we performing?” “What just happened?” “Who is affected?” and “Where do problems originate?”
Most importantly, organizations can easily answer the question; “what is the impact on our revenue and on our business?”
WHIR: Can TrueSight determine approximately what an application looks like to end-users across different combinations of location, hardware, ISPs, and other factors?
AH: TrueSight Web Application Performance Management can determine precisely the performance delivered to end-users across the full range of delivery scenarios, no matter what makes up the delivery network, or combination of end-devices. Coradiant TrueSight even measure performance across for content delivered to end-users across application delivery acceleration from Akamai.
Monitoring real users allows web operators to detect every error as it happens. Immediate access to full data on all user sessions means that there is a record of any problems. That end-user information makes it significantly easier to understand and diagnose problems and then quickly fix them. Organizations know what each user’s experience was like, as well as how the site really performs under production conditions.
WHIR: Given the dependency of various services working together to deliver a complete website, how can Coradiant determine which element is the cause of the problem?
Approaching web performance management from any other vector has proven difficult at best. While strategies that include device monitoring and synthetic testing have certain merits, they are unable to provide a holistic view of the user experience.
Coradiant’s unique, open approach includes the ability to monitor traffic from the origin site, traffic from application delivery networks through our partnership and development activities with Akamai, rich internet application traffic, as well as an open approach to viewing the underlying back-end performance through our Open Application Visibility architecture.
WHIR: I’d imagine sometimes online businesses don’t realize their applications are not ready until they are hit with an unexpected event (or an expected event in cases such as Cyber Monday for online retailers)?
AH: Most organizations have learned to effectively prepare for rollouts through adequate pre-deployment testing. Our tools help in this area as well. Testing from the end user perspective provides visibility into performance to make sure that your site can handle the traffic peaks that occur, and that the site navigation and logic works as designed.
Prior to putting new applications in service, site operators must make sure that the applications have been tested with real end-user traffic data and also ensure that effective end-user monitoring capabilities are in place.
One of the most important steps is to ensure that you can always see the performance your site delivers, in real-time, to all users. Ensure that the IT operations organization has real-time access to real time data so they can quickly respond to incidents which could cause slow down and blackouts.
It’s essential to know the performance that you deliver to actual users across the site, and be able to react quickly and effectively to any site slowdowns or problems as they occur.
End-user experience management capabilities have proven to be the only effective means to accomplish that goal. With these solutions they can proactively manage applications as the traffic storm hits and proactively take action to ensure that the performance is always optimal.
WHIR: How can organizations prepare for unprecedented traffic volumes?
AH: Fortunately, end-user web performance tools are very easy to deploy and are non intrusive. They can be deployed quickly and simply without any risk to the infrastructure. Benefits become apparent from the very first day.
Any online organization, including e-commerce retailers can deploy them in different stages and gain tremendous benefit every step of the way. E-commerce retailers can even deploy these tools after the so-called “holiday lockdown,” period with no risk.
Pre-deployment testing, if accomplished using realistic scenarios, helps ensure performance under actual load. End-user visibility into performance is the key to make sure that your site can handle the traffic peaks, and find errors that may be related to load.
End user performance management on the live site is one of the most significant steps an online organization can accomplish to ensure that full performance visibility, in real-time – to all users, is available. When the IT operations organization has real-time access to live performance data they can rapidly take action to mitigate any incidents usually before site-wide problems occur.
WHIR: What opportunities are there for businesses in the web hosting space to partner with Coradiant?
AH: The web isn’t “one thing.” Coradiant’s approach is to include the ability to monitor and measure the performance of actual end-user interaction with traffic that comes from the full range of delivery mechanisms. These include close integration and partnerships with application delivery network partners, MSPs, hosting companies, and Cloud vendors as well as with the full range of back-end providers.
Coradiant has created an architecture for tight integration between its end-user experience monitoring solution and the application performance management solutions of the industry’s most innovative providers.
This best of breed approach to end-user and application visibility solutions ensures the ability to have a unified solution. Organizations can deploy end-to-end solutions that provide visibility into the end-user experience with business-critical applications on the front end, while gleaning performance visibility on the back end, and inside the application stack.
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