#application visibility

The business networks as well as the consuming public have definitely benefited from the growing number of smart devices that come along with bundled software applications and cloud hosting platforms. Businesses have capitalized on these bundled software applications to leverage the running of their different business functions. The instant connectivity provided by the proliferation of these smart devices have also ushered in the dawn of the Internet of Things (IoT) that makes it possible for various smart devices to communicate with each other, making business transactions quick and easy.

This growing network of users and the increasing number of smart devices that demand better and increased bandwidth from network service provider further increase the need for network service providers to upgrade and enhance their network infrastructures. Hence, network service providers continuously work hard to increase the bandwidth of their networks to remedy the usual traffic congestion within their networks. These demands for added bandwidth, however, put a strain on the resources of network service providers and create new management issues that need to be resolved immediately. Such issues include the need for Application Awareness and Application Visibility. Moreover, it engenders a need for application's performance monitoring and control over net usage that would enable consumers to enjoy better and superior network experience. Application visibility and control is therefore imperative for network providers to see how each application—that is being utilized by their users—fares well during its utilization.

The Difficulty of Having Data Analytics on Application Visibility and Control

It is not easy for network service providers to obtain data analytics on how each application fares well during its usage. There are thousands of applications at hand, and there are millions of subscribers to monitor. A network service provider, devoid of the necessary expertise on this matter, will surely fail to gain the needed data on application awareness and visibility.

There are, however, some managed service providers that can readily provide the necessary knowhow and expertise on how to gain access to these mine of data about how each of the applications fares well when used by a specific subscriber. These mines of data or data analytics on applications will surely enable network providers to identify and classify the different applications, monitor how each of these applications functions, and figure out the level of quality of each application. These manage service providers can provide network managers and owners with the needed metrics on these applications.

The Benefits of These Metrics on Applications’ Performance

There are myriads of benefits derivable from having a reliable data analytics on the performance of various applications. First, with these data analytics at hand, network service providers can readily improve the experience of users by optimizing the network for the use of each of these applications. Moreover, network providers can create better network management and planning system. Additionally, network providers can lower their operating costs by espousing better and more integrative solutions to their network issues. Lastly, with better application visibility and control, network service providers can lessen the downtime, experienced by network users, and they can readily troubleshoot any network problem encountered by their network subscribers.

In the past the solutions available for monitoring application performance and a Service Level Agreement (SLA) have been incredibly complex and also incredibly costly.  Not all too long ago software agents would need to be integrated and/or hardware probes would need to be inserted into every application server in order to gain any level of visibility.

 Thanks to recent developments, this is no longer the case.  Now you have the ability to deliver a commitment level of an application service because there are solutions which allow enterprises and communication service providers to easily gain application visibility and control.

  Why Application Visibility Matters More Today Than Ever Before

The number of enterprises which are hosting their applications outside of their local networks and in the cloud are growing by the day.  This means that communications service providers are under the constant strain of trying to maintain access and the performance of these off-site apps. Even with SLAs and the use of other performance monitoring tools, many enterprise customers will still complain that the application quality is unreliable.

 This is why application awareness and visibility matters so much to communication service providers.  This means being able to provide enterprise customers with the ability to closely monitor the performance of their own business critical applications right down to a single user.  At the end of the day, enterprise customers are empowered with valuable and insightful information about their applications.

  Choosing The Right Application Visibility Solutions

The goal of every application visibility solution should be to provide enterprises and managed service providers with clear visibility of each and ever network transaction and application.  The solution should be able to give you an understanding of how well the cloud data centers and applications you use are handling an enterprise's workloads and how well it is supporting user productivity.

 ·       The solution should provide users with granular visibility.  The solution should provide granular visibility per user, application, endpoint, SLA and URL.

·       The solution should provide real-time reporting.  Users should be provided with up to the second analytical data about their applications and network.

·       The solution should allow you to track important networks.  Users must be able to follow top applications, most popular endpoints, access utilization, and other metrics which may be important to you.

·       The solution must allow for continuous SLA performance measuring.

·       The solution must allow you to customize usage reports so that each report provides users with relevant information.

·       The solution should automatically create and distribute reports.  Relevant audiences should be able to receive reports on a regular basis.

Each and every day businesses like yours rely heavily on secure and dependable information delivery.  But to ensure outstanding application performance across your enterprise, you must be able to identify issues and resolve problems before they can have a noticeable impact on data security and the user experience.

The problem with the distributed networks of today is that they are so complex that they can actually obscure your ability to view performance problems.  Unlike ten years ago, it is no longer so easy to tell if an application is slow because of relocated servers, bandwidth congestion, traffic or a network attack.

Common Issues Businesses Are Unable To Diagnose

Businesses must be able to deliver critical data to users quickly and reliably.  For example, even a short amount of website or email downtime can result in diminished customer service, interruptions in your supply chance, and a loss of business.

Some of the most common issues which outdated monitoring tools may not be alerting you to include:

·         That recreational traffic is slowing your applications (this includes P2P downloads, instant messaging, web browsing, Internet radio, etc.)

·         That your network is suffering form ongoing security issues involving DDoS attacks and malware

·         That converged video, voice and messaging applications are causing applications to become sluggish or inoperable

Gaining Application Visibility And Control

In order to identify the cause or causes behind your performance issues, you will need in-depth and insightful information about your applications, such as:

·         Service levels

·         Performance metrics

·         Response times

While there are network management products on the market today, many do not provide the level of detail an enterprise needs to take action.

You need to have total application visibility and control, and today there are a handful of vendors which offer actionable application delivery.  Businesses who use these tools are able to:

·         View all applications and users, and how they behave on the network

·         Speed up mission-critical applications, SSL, streaming video and other enterprise traffic

·         Protect your organization against performance degradation, data leaks and malware

·         Leave users with a productive, efficient and reliable end-to-end user experience

Through the use of these tools, IT mangers should be able to discover all network traffic running across the WAN.  By being able to do so, you will then be able to identify application traffic and know how certain activities affect network resources.

Another benefit is that these tools allow you to monitor all aspects of your applications.  You can monitor things such as response times, bandwidth consumption, and how well applications are performing.  Organizations can manage their bandwidth allocation all over the WAN and Internet while also being able to block malicious traffic.