What to look for in a virtual application monitoring tool
Poor virtual app performance makes users unhappy and unproductive, which hurts an organization's bottom line. IT can fight problems by monitoring virtual app performance.
With the right virtual application monitoring tool in place, IT professionals can resolve any problems users are experiencing much faster.
The tools IT can use to monitor virtual applications are not all the same. A quality tool allows IT pros to monitor all aspects of their application virtualization deployment. As a result, traditional server monitoring software is not enough, so specialized monitoring software is crucial to the success of supporting virtual app deployments.
To find the right virtual application monitoring tool, IT must keep the following considerations in mind.
Virtualization deployments are complex
Application virtualization makes updating the apps users work with easier, because IT can update the base image, and the changes apply across the deployment. However, the overall server architecture and software can be complex, because IT may have to manage the app across several different servers.
For example, a critical business application may run across hundreds of servers. In this example, it's still fewer installs than deploying the app directly to the desktops, but an effective virtual application monitoring tool will simplify what it takes to troubleshoot an issue across all the different servers.
Consider, for example, an application that stopped printing altogether for some users. Without an effective virtual application monitoring tool, an IT pro would have to approach this problem manually. It would likely take a long time to analyze all the servers the app runs on -- probably an hour or more. With the right monitoring tool, this now becomes a task that takes minutes, because the tool can show him which instance of the app on a particular server is having the problem.
Resolve incidents faster
The right virtual app performance monitoring tool can allow IT pros to proactively identify where problems lie.
Reducing the time it takes IT pros to fix problems is one of the main objectives of a virtual application monitoring tool. If a user is unable to perform his job because of a problem with a virtual app, getting him back up and running as quickly as possible is of the utmost importance, because when users can't work, it leads to lost productivity, which costs organizations money.
As a result, when evaluating what they need from an app virtualization monitoring tool, IT pros should consider the risk associated with the downtime for specific applications, the need to keep those apps available and how long it takes IT to resolve a problem.
The right virtual app performance monitoring tool can allow IT pros to proactively identify where problems lie by allowing them to set specific performance benchmarks and alerting them when an app is not meeting those standards. This ability to pinpoint and quickly resolve issues helps IT pros increase business productivity.
Taking virtual applications to the cloud
When evaluating tools that can successfully monitor virtual applications, IT pros must also consider if the tool is compatible with the most common cloud-related platforms.
Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform should be on this list, among others. Ensuring they can monitor any virtual applications they deploy from cloud-based infrastructure provides IT pros with the ability to monitor their virtual applications, while still using one centralized tool.
Using one tool set to monitor all virtual applications streamlines the problem-identification process and ensures faster time to resolution for the user.
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