End to end monitoring

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End to End Monitoring ( E2E Monitoring ) means the cyclical monitoring of the performance of business-critical applications from the point of view of the users who work with the applications. End-to-end monitoring aims to ensure the quality of IT services from the user perspective.

concept

The concept is based on the premise that a quality acceptance of an application can only take place at the place of use - and not in a quality control of the individual components of the IT service chain such as B. database, network, web server, etc. exhausted. Even if these individual components do not generate an error message in isolation, it is often not possible to work effectively with the application, as the smooth interaction of the individual elements is not guaranteed.

End-to-end monitoring solutions simulate typical user behavior ( active monitoring or synthetic monitoring ) or record activities of real users ( passive monitoring or real user monitoring ). At the same time, objective data on the availability and response times of individual application transactions are collected at defined measuring points . The Application Response Measurement Standard offers a suitable programming interface for measuring response times .

For example, it measures how long it takes for a defined content to be displayed after opening a web browser or how long it takes for an email to actually be sent after clicking the Send button.

By means of end-to-end monitoring, companies gain valid data on the performance of the applications, which significantly support the company's internal business processes. It is therefore an essential element of IT service management or business service management .

application

This monitoring technology is widely used in IT networks of large companies and corporations, but also in municipal data centers . Here, a network of several thousand end users is supplied with office applications such as SAP , mail programs and php-based web applications from one or two central data centers .

In large, international companies, the end users are often spread across ten to several hundred locations around the world. The challenge for the IT departments of the companies (whether internal or external) is that the end users (employees of the company) at all locations are provided with sufficient performance (availability and response time) of the critical applications so that the workflow is not slowed down, and so that the company does not suffer any loss of revenue.

Advantages and possibilities

  • Proactive accident avoidance The continuous quality check at regular intervals enables weak points and system bottlenecks to be identified in advance. If critical threshold values ​​are reached, an automatic alert informs the responsible experts about such impending performance restrictions or even failures of the monitored services. Ideally, proactive countermeasures can then be initiated before the end users are affected. Permanently available and powerful IT services increase user satisfaction and productivity.
  • Service level monitoring A comparison of the objective data collected by end-to-end monitoring on the performance of the IT services with the key figures defined in the service level objectives provides information on compliance with or breach of contractually agreed service level agreements . End-to-end monitoring supports IT service providers in avoiding SLA violations and the resulting contractual penalties . End-to-end monitoring serves service customers as a quality assurance tool that validates the services of outsourcers or service providers.

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