Apps Behaving Badly? How Would You Even Know?

Well, the summer driving season is upon us (again). And once again, the oil companies have us over a barrel—a $100 barrel of crude. Sigh. So I recently bought this handy gauge that plugs right into my car’s onboard computer to tell me all sorts of things: instantaneous fuel consumption, average miles per gallon, cost per mile and a bunch of other stuff. Using this information, I should be able to “tune” my driving habits and save a bit on gas this summer.

Whether you’re talking fuel efficiency or IT efficiency, information is the key. That’s why companies deploy Novell Operations Center into their IT environments. This WorkloadIQ™ product allows IT staff to monitor, map and measure the business services they deliver from end to end. Think of it as a sort of real-time dashboard that helps IT departments ensure that they’re meeting their service levels and commitments to the business units they serve.

The real-time aspect is crucial. A fuel gauge that tells you you’re out of gas after the fact isn’t really much help, you know.

Adding NetIQ AppManager to Novell Operations Center isn’t that different—or much more difficult—than me plugging my nifty new fuel-economy gauge into my car. However, AppManager monitors and manages applications and dependencies—behaving more like the embedded circuitry that auto manufacturers now include in their engines to collect and analyze vast amounts of performance data.

AppManager plugs right into Novell Operations Center to provide real-time information about the applications running in an IT environment: performance, response times, issues that warrant attention, and more. Using this information, IT staff can easily determine what the end-user experience is across all their various applications and fix any problems that might be keeping employees from efficiently and effectively doing their jobs.

Unfortunately, when I was buying my fuel-economy gauge at the auto parts store, I experienced just the opposite. The cashier was attempting to ring up my purchase, but the register’s software wasn’t responding. The cashier was fussing around and making phones calls. Customers behind me in line were rolling their eyes, checking their watches and giving me “the look.” Like it was my fault!

Needless to say, the better your business services run, the more efficiently your company runs, the better user and customer experience you provide, and the happier everyone is.

All the added visibility has a great side effect, too. With a clear view of bottlenecks, you can also keep from overspending on high-end computers, switches or connections that you may not actually need. That way, you can focus your spending where it will do the most good for your business services.

If you’d like to learn more about what Novell Operations Center and AppManager can do for your business, come see these two cool products in action at BrainShare 2011. You can also learn how Novell Operations Center simplifies business service management at with this short chalk talk.

Well, I’m off—with my nifty little fuel-consumption gauge leading the way. “Kids, we’re going to Disneyland!”

–Richard