1. The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company – Milwaukee, WI Application Monitoring Jeremy Kalsow

2. Why Application Monitoring Majority of all corporations Northwestern Mutual Total 1,000+ servers Team is 6 people Team uses 16 servers Average 50 applications per server Need a way to know status fast

3. What is it? The ability to monitor performance and availability Gather metrics Show trends Pretty pictures for management

4. Why? Trends predict future problems Solve application issues faster Uptime relates directly to profit for many companies View all applications, servers, databases and other items being monitored with a single dashboard.

5. Types of Monitoring Fault Performance Configuration Security Accounting

6. Fault Detects major errors Easy to implement Examples – Network loss – Database Connectivity Very Important

7. Fault Type of MonitoringWhat to MonitorWhen to monitor Hardware CPU utilizationCPU loadLoad > 99% for x minutes Memory utilizationMemory loadLoad > 99% for x minutes Storage SystemAvailable spaceSystem out of Space Applications Application availableApplication workingWorking or Error Application LogsError Log monitoringIf error occurred Databases Database onlineDatabase is onlineDatabase is up/down Network Latency Latency > acceptable range

8. Performance Slow Performance Service Level Agreements Metrics Old and New Metrics Visual Display

9. Performance http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/library/techarticles/0304_polozoff /polozoff.html

10. Configuration Configuration variables Connectivity Speed Performance Proactive Servers and Applications

11. Configuration Why would the configuration change? Hardware Storage Service packs Hot fixes Windows Updates

12. Security Attempts to access the system Open ports Inventories Firewall Packets System events Blocked Exploits

13. Accounting Monitors Usage Generally used for fees Profit/Loss Example – Electric Company – Northwestern Mutual

14. Types of Monitoring Recap Fault Performance Configuration Security Accounting

15. Types of Monitoring Recap Historical data Baseline test Current test Performance disagreements

16. Types of Monitoring Recap Allows for trends to be seen Modifications can be made Trends over multiple releases

17. Types of Monitoring Recap Monitoring is important Not enough time is given Implemented After discovery of an issue Monitoring only in areas of known problems Adding monitoring requires time and money

18. Challenges of application monitoring Various types of systems Shared Clustered Virtualized Production logging

19. Shared Systems 1 server / Multiple applications System resources are shared Tracking individual usage is difficult Many applications may be impacted Server without access (production)

20. Clustered Systems Applications on more than one server Avoid single point of failure May be hard to target the issue

21. Production Logging Generally Limited Most errors repeated in test Application downtime Use of company resources

22. Implement Application Monitoring Plan Early Monitor Proactively Create a Recovery Plan Create and use SLAs

23. Plan Early Planning stage Add monitoring during development Late additions cover known issues

24. Monitor Proactively Harder to implement Issues are dealt with before end user knows

25. Monitor Proactively Tools based approach Easy and relatively fast setup No code Multiple applications

26. Monitor Proactively Logging is directly in the code Less efficient More specific Developers have less time

27. Create a Recovery Plan Fast resolution Knowledge management

28. Recovery Plan Template

29. Service Level Agreements What percentage of time that the services will be up (uptime) How many people can use the application at once without performance issues Performance metrics and benchmarks to be used with performance monitoring alerts The rules for notification announcements What statistics will be monitored and when and where they will be available Acceptable response time

30. Service Level Agreements

31. Using the Statistics Visual display Alerts Tickets

32. Visual (Dashboard) Easily view statistics Comparison results Trend comparison Cross Platform Auto-generated management reports

33. Dashboard

34. Alerts and Tickets Auto-generated alerts Tickets for queue system Vital information in each

35. Alerts and Tickets Most common: Email Text, popup, printout, recording and more Tickets: auto-generated Knowledge databases Common fixes and resolutions

36. Application Monitoring Maximize application uptime Higher end user satisfaction Higher Profit

37. References Polozoff, A. (2003, April 9). Proactive Application Monitoring. IBM - United States. Retrieved October 20, 2011, from http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/library/techarticles/0304_polozoff/polozoff.html Choice. (2009, December 20). Application Monitoring. Adminschoice - Unix Made Easy. Retrieved October 31, 2011, from http://adminschoice.com/application-monitoring Application Monitoring Software - uptime software. (n.d.). Server Monitoring Software - IT Systems Management, Capacity Planning, Application and Server Monitoring Tool by uptime software. Retrieved October 31, 2011, from http://www.uptimesoftware.com/application-monitoring.php Marko, K. (2005, December 30). Proactive Application Monitoring. Processor.com: Data Center IT Equipment at Processor, Routers, Storage, Rackmount Servers, Computer Room Cabling and Flooring. Retrieved October 29, 2011, from http://www.processor.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles%2Fp2752%2F43p52%2F43p52.asp "IT Service Level Agreement Templates | ContinuityPlanTemplates." ContinuityPlanTemplates | Free Business Continuity Plan (BCP) Templates. ContinuityPlan Templates, n.d. Web. 30 Oct. 2011. http://www.continuityplantemplates.com/it-service-level-agreement-templates

38. XML

43. Upcoming events with Dashboard Ability to display visualized graphs and other pertinent information Ability to click a failed component and have the system auto generate a ticket Ability to Alert others of the issue found Performance monitoring as well as fault