APPDYNAMICS USER GROUP, LOS ANGELES CA

Paul Pantazis, Manager IT/OPS

Introduction: Speaker

17 years of IT experience Started as a DEV but saw the light ( Then DEVOPS

ruined the whole thing for me) Pure ops [ well define pure ] last 10 years Different industry verticals same problems [ DoD,

DoE, Entertainment Industry ] Can be reached via e-mail:

apostolos.pantazis@gmail.com Currently employed as a IT Manager in the

Entertainment Industry sector – specifically production services & software – employer to remain anonymous as to keep the attorneys out of this …

Our situation

Well, its slow they said.. The idea of slow also changed depending on the

individual you spoke to ( perception vs. reality) Dev to ops ( some mumbling about the effect

of a hypervisor on “nice Java apps” ..) OPS Dev what a mess as you can imagine.. Either way customers usually pay the price We had to do something…

Our stack

Java, .NET some C Jboss, Mule ESB, MQ, Citrix Multiple Relational backend technologies:

SQL Server, DB2 etc. Java Swing, Spring, EJB’s, Adobe Air Linux, windows Multi-tiered/”distributed” apps (multiple

intersystem integrations )

What we needed was ..

Ability to triage and pinpoint bottlenecks (High Level )

Ability to “dig-deep” really identify Root Cause and facilitate remediation's from there – Also do it fast.

Stop finger pointing and actually solve problems

Incorporate groups in the problem solving process typically not able to contribute (more information on the escalations)

What we needed was ..

Track and Troubleshoot specific Transactions end to end

Alerting ( not the usual OPS “stuff” )

Generate response time, load, % normal, slow, stall

Error reports for monthly products ops review meetings

Dig into the database Daily transaction analysis to gage general health

of the app, especially after major releases or when users complain of slow system performance 

How we ended up here..

Started a RFP to look at Market leaders in the space Needed something that was easy to setup and

install Needed immediate “fix” Needed a vendor who will strategically partner with

us Needed a tool that did not have a basic level steep

learning curve Needed a platform that was intuitive to both

DEV/OPS and Business folks alike (in other words views of the data can be abstracted and represent at the various levels of understanding)

And so after 3 months of looking

We Bought the product!

( if you are interested we looked at a number of other APM tools but seriously nothing really compared or came close )

The typical DEV/IT interaction over a performance issue

E-mail chain around 200 messages deep Kids crying in the background (not really

but I think you get it) You typically end up with something like

this

A typical DEV/IT interaction in the app_dynamics world

Because we are working on solving the problem not pointing fingers …

Lets Look at some pretty pictures

WTF!!!

The end result…

““Measure twice; cut once” is a phrase carpenters say to prevent mistakes. The same is true with our App_D experience. By measuring the performance

of our applications in development, make adjustments and then continue to do so in

production, we used App_D to directly impact customer satisfaction in a positive way. App_D is our tool we use to measure performance, analyze

the results and in a closed-loop manner take immediate action to continuously keep

performance high. Ensuring applications remain available and fast is a great way to keep customers

happy.”

Challenges

Monitoring endpoints that are shared between applications

Application using multiple Databases on the same instance ( particularly with SQL server )

You will need to spend sometime setting up and configuring the tool to your exact needs – even though you will get useful and intuitive data of the gate

Questions?? > /dev/null