Deliver application service excellence with Vantage

Address performance problems before they affect end users

	Address performance problems before they affect end users
	Prioritize problems based on business impact
	Improve the problem resolution process and solve problems quickly
	Manage infrastructure costs while maintaining excellent application service
	Assure performance and service levels prior to deployment

End users expect consistent performance and rapid resolution of problems, but they typically do not report performance problems until after a significant period of time. In this situation, IT groups are not notified before or at the beginning of a performance slowdown. This not only allows bad service to linger, it puts IT in the unenviable position of not knowing that problems are occurring. Silo-oriented monitoring tools have proven to be ineffective early warning solutions for application service because they don't measure end-user response time or provide any cross-domain intelligence.

Through end-user experience monitoring, Vantage measures response times of critical business transactions on a 24x7 basis for all types of applications (web, client/server, 3270, Citrix) that span the infrastructure (workstations, networks, servers and databases), all from one interface. Triggered by pre-set thresholds, Vantage notifies the right people through paging, e-mail or SNMP alerts. Performance degradations can be resolved quickly, even before they impact the business and end users. IT can proactively manage incoming help desk calls and obtain the data needed to prove that business-critical applications are performing well. The result: a high rate of customer satisfaction.

Prioritize problems based on business impact

Many IT organizations are left in the dark when it comes to determining the scope of a performance problem. It is difficult to find out how many people are affected, where the problem is occurring, how serious it is or its duration. And since the severity of the problem is unknown, it is hard for IT management to determine the resources needed to solve a particular problem.

Vantage provides management views to determine what applications and locations have problems. For example, the Performance Summary reports show which applications and locations experience the most problems, while the Heat Chart report shows which particular transactions have been affected and for how long. This information lets IT managers and staff quickly assess the business impact of performance problems and apply the right amount of attention and resources.

Improve the problem resolution process and solve problems quickly

The process of resolving a performance problem becomes difficult and time-consuming when a technician must manually correlate data from multiple, non-integrated sources. Even if it were easy to correlate data, it would be impossible to understand where the problem is without seeing what was abnormal during the time of the problem. Vantage provides response time metrics, integrated with end-to-end performance analysis, to help technicians quickly identify and resolve tough performance problems. Having the ability to isolate performance problems in all tiers of an application (client, network, server and database) helps IT organizations improve their troubleshooting processes and become more efficient.

Using the most accurate technology (transaction-based Active Latency Detection^TM) in the marketplace, Vantage determines where time is spent processing business transactions—whether in the client, the network or servers. When a service-level degradation occurs, managers can use the Client-Network-Server (CNS) Exception report to see where a poorly performing transaction has spent most of the processing time. This report compares the results of a poorly performing transaction with a baseline transaction to quickly determine where the transaction lags. This powerful data helps IT staffs quickly figure out who "owns" the problem, reducing the time it takes to resolve it.

Drilling down from the CNS Exception report, Vantage provides the ability to see data within the context of the application, client, network and server. For example, the Thread Analysis report shows which application processes are sensitive to network latency.

Manage infrastructure costs while maintaining excellent application service

With tight funding for IT operations, IT managers are repeatedly asked, "How can you reduce infrastructure costs to save operating expenses without compromising application service?" To develop an informed answer, managers need to evaluate whether the infrastructure serves business-critical applications first, whether there is excess server and network capacity, and whether non-business activity steals vital resources from those key applications. This evaluation requires knowing which applications use the network and servers, who generates the traffic, and the times when this activity occurs. With information such as Top Servers for an Application, to drive server consolidation decisions, or Top Apps for a WAN Virtual Circuit, to evaluate WAN subscription investments, managers are well prepared to properly balance the cost savings of reduced infrastructure with the risks of impacting application service.

The CNS Trend Report lets you view performance over time to see where application service is degrading. By managing applications at the business, transaction and infrastructure levels, Vantage delivers the vital information you need to improve application service and maximize value from application and infrastructure investments.

Assure performance and service levels prior to deployment

The hallmark of an exceptional IT organization is its evolution from reactive application management to proactive service assurance. In the midst of fluid, dynamic business requirements, every IT organization finds itself driven by new application requirements, continual changes to existing applications and increased end-user expectations on application availability and reliability. To make the transition from reactive to proactive, IT organizations require a level of end-to-end application insight and analysis that is attentive to business requirements and accurate in predicting performance levels before deployment.

Vantage enables IT organizations to assure predictable service levels before applications are deployed in several ways.  First, using an easy-to-use predictive analysis feature, Vantage allows you to see the impact of various performance adjustments on a transaction's response time from a lab or production snapshot.  This cost-effective "what if" approach allows you to tune parameters such as network bandwidth and latency, server load and application turns so you can make necessary performance adjustments before application deployments - or validate corrective actions in production.  Second, by using enhanced integration between Compuware Vantage and Compuware QACenter, IT organizations can definitively characterize the ability to meet service expectations by driving production level workloads into an instrumented pre-production environment. Performance assessment allows IT organizations to accurately determine expected production service levels for specific application, server and network configurations. 

For more product-specific details about Vantage, please visit the Product Preview pages.