It’s the busiest online shopping week of the year, and to mark it Gomez has launched a novel way to show how well retail websites are performing from a user’s viewpoint. This is a noteworthy first. Called the Compuware Gomez Retail User Experience Index (UX Index for short), this new report is much easier [...]
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The June 30, 2010 Apdex webinar material is available. Download the presentation here. It is difficult to choose an APM tool that really helps your enterprise manage application performance. With more than 30 application performance management (APM) tool vendors with scores of product offerings, buyers face hundreds of confusing choices. This confusion is compounded [...] I’m writing a series of posts about Generalizing Apdex. This is #7. To minimize confusion, section numbers in the current spec are accompanied by the section symbol, like this: §1. The corresponding section numbers in the generalized spec, Apdex-G, are enclosed in square brackets, like this: [1]. In my previous post, I reviewed the Apdex specification systematically, asking Which Apdex Features Can Be Generalized? That exercise showed that creating a general version of the spec involves more than generalizing the rules for implementing the features of Apdex; the language describing those features must be generalized too. The current spec is grounded in a conceptual model of a specific measurement domain. Its language refers to users of an application being productive based on the responsiveness of a human-computer interface. We encounter this as soon as we begin reading Section §1, shown in the left-hand column below. In the new generalized specification documents, that terminology belongs in the domain-specific addendum, Apdex-R, which will deal with how to apply the Apdex method to response time measurements. In Apdex-G we need abstract language describing only the properties of a metric. If more concrete language is needed to clarify an explanation, if must appear in an illustrative example. The only exception is text in Apdex-G describing the origins of Apdex. I’m writing a series of posts about Generalizing Apdex. This is #5.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.” – Through the Looking Glass, Chapter VI, Lewis Carroll Specifications need to be precise. Therefore, to create a more general version of the Apdex spec–and before that, to discuss what the spec should contain–we need to define our terminology precisely. This is especially vital in the “Looking Glass” world of information technology, where people like to make words mean so many different things. This post is my attempt to master the meanings of the words I need to use, to make them mean just what I choose them to mean — neither more nor less. The solution, of course, is to create a glossary. The Apdex spec already contains one, in Section 7, but since we’re working on generalizing the spec, we need to generalize the glossary too. At this stage in the process, I can’t predict all the additional terms we’re going to need, but I can already see some obvious omissions in the current glossary. So I’m going to post an extensible glossary here, and update it whenever necessary. That way, by the time we complete the process of rewriting the spec, we’ll have the new glossary for that spec already written. Date: Wed June 30, 2010 Now available: Recording and Slides With over 30 application performance management (APM) tool vendors offering scores of products, buyers face hundreds of confusing choices. Compounding the problem, the lack of a common taxonomy, or standard APM nomenclature, makes cross-vendor product comparisons especially challenging. To address this challenge, NetForecast has developed an APM tools framework anyone can use to define APM requirements and map them to vendor offerings. The APM framework is a comprehensive description of application management functions and features. Building on essential infrastructure management concepts, it provides a common nomenclature that makes it easy to compare APM tools. The framework also places Apdex elements in their appropriate contexts. Good performance is delivered with tools that directly support APM processes and best practices. The APM framework lets you describe and prioritize the functions and features appropriate for your environment, and helps guide your APM strategy. Continue reading Webinar: Choosing Application Performance Management (APM) Tools In recent years, much has been written about the value of use cases and scenarios for capturing functional requirements; by comparison, their usefulness for performance management has received scant attention . An application scenario defined for performance management purposes:
Because standard application scenarios are application/program instances with defined behaviors, their use of computing resources is also (relatively) predictable. In a sense, they are “benchmark” programs, since they perform a similar function. Normally however, performance benchmarks are designed to mimic a particular type of workload on a component or system, and are used to measure system capacity and throughput when processing a typically broad mix of applications. Standard application scenarios, in contrast, can be designed to measure a system’s responsiveness for a single precisely-defined set of processing needs. New Relic hosted a fast-paced webinar where Peter Sevcik, founder and executive director of the Apdex Alliance, provided an overview of Apdex. New Relic consultant Steve Hudson followed with real-world examples of how to measure Apdex scores in production Rails or Java web applications using RPM. Click here to see the [...] Apdex is dead simple. It is a standard way to convert many response time measurements into a single numerical value that always stays within the range of 0 to 1 where 0 is a disaster and 1 is perfect performance delivery. Dozens of vendors measure response time, so you [...] At a Gomez users’ meeting held after Web Experience Forum on October 16 in Boston, users provided great commentary about how they use Gomez services to ensure good performance-including how they are using Apdex. Imad Mouline, Gomez’ CTO, described where all of the Gomez application performance measurement services fit into an application management maturity [...] |
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