iPEP: An off the shelf software solution that employs high performance deep packet inspection.

Application Performance Management and
Service Level Agreement Enforcement

Many Network Service Management & Control (NSM) products on the market claim that they can manage real time performance and availability of web based applications. In reality this is not the case. In fact these products either make assumptions based on information available then extrapolate this to draw a conclusion regarding the performance and availability of those applications.

A different class of NSM product monitors web based applications in real time, or by examining application and system logs. In these cases, they may possibly be able to simply identify that a problem exists. Alternatively, when using, application log reporting tools, they may not even know there is a problem, meaning that there is nothing that can be done to control and manage the situation.

Yet another class of Web application performance testing products performs synthetic transactions from a known location and then compares the result to normal site visitor behaviour. Whilst this class monitor will tell you whether the application is available, it will not generally indicate that the visitor has an acceptable performance. Again, this class of products assumes that if the application is available for a single visitor or static visitors, then it is available for all visitors.

Web Application Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are written using the above type of information, using assumptions and extrapolations that do not provide an accurate picture of application performance and availability, the practical level of Quality Control for the visitor. It is for this reason that SLAs are fundamentally worthless and enterprises are now losing faith in them. (Enterprise Management Associates - February 2007). The reason they are not confident in SLAs, is that the information used to define the agreements is limited, there is no way they can be enforced, or provide the necessary flexibility that is required in real world situations.

NetPrecept’s iPEP Technology is able to manage Web Application Availability using meaningful metrics in a valid SL A, providing IT Management and Operation staff with:

• Real-time views of the usage of the web based application
• Reports in real-time on the performance of both applications and the visitors
• Valuable usage metrics on the visitor session
• Access management for the application from the aspect of:
  • Current application performance characteristics
  • Performance that will be provided to the end user

The actual state of the applications availability and its performance characteristics are available in order to make intelligent decisions regarding how to manage the application usage. All of this is done in real-time.

A further product feature is that both visitors and applications can be categorised into priority groups, each with different performance criteria. The application is managed according to the limits defined in the SLA. Warnings can be sent when the limits are being approached, however, when limits are at risk of being exceeded the action can be taken to ensure the applications defined SLA is not exceeded.

The applications are then being managed to their defined SLA. Real-time enforcement which is unique in the industry.

This works through iPEP inspecting all traffic destined for the managed application. These packets are organised into application data flows, and managed as an Application Flow. iPEP tags all visitors as they access the application and then monitors them as they move through the application.

There is a large amount of information available upon which performance decisions can be made, however the primary point of enforcement coincides with the capacity planning criteria – “what is the maximum number of concurrent users that can access this applications?”

This information is externalised and made available to other NSM products. Using the bi-directional command interface, the performance characteristics of the applications can be modified in real-time.

Applications are managed to defined criteria relating to the number of concurrent users of an application or group of applications. Additional information that can be made available to influence this decision or to change the current application performance includes:

• Application response time
• Changes in response time
• Number of session requests
• Amount of time visitors spend in the application(s)
• Number of page requests for the application(s)

iPEP technology is unique in managing application availability to a defined Service Level Agreement.

When combined with other NSM products, a complete SLM solution for Web Application availability is delivered; guaranteeing application performance and availability and a greatly increased user satisfaction.