Monitoring the Amazon.com customer experience

Computerworld - Because many Web applications are potentially revenue-generating, it's not surprising that e-businesses are turning to application performance management (APM) software to measure customers' experiences when they place online orders or search for items.
One of the best-known Internet businesses is relying on the technology as it tries to keep transactions moving along smoothly. Amazon.com Inc. measures the performance of every critical application involved in an online transaction, using APM software from Precise Software Solutions Inc. in Westwood, Mass.
The software "gives us a granular level of detail, so we're able to break down to the lowest level of performance within each application or session to see what's happening," says Matt Swann, director of database systems and engineering at the Seattle-based online retailer.
Amazon monitors application performance through its Oracle database environment, which feeds all the content to its Web site. It can track the speed and performance of each step in a transaction, including placement of an item in a cart, completion of an order and e-mail notification to the customer. "We can see how each particular software application is working as the data goes through the pipeline, and measure the response time," Swann says.
The APM software collects performance data from databases that support multiple terabytes of data and run thousands of transactions per second, Swann says. It provides real-time alerts when problems occur and allows Amazon to analyze the cause of the problems.
Performance data is stored in a data warehouse maintained by Precise. Trending features in the software provide Amazon with more exact evaluations of how systems are performing so it can avoid bottlenecks during peak-demand times such as the holidays, Swann says.
Dennis Drogseth, vice president of consulting firm Enterprise Management Associates Inc. in Boulder, Colo., says APM is particularly useful for managing Web applications. "The changes in application traffic patterns are less predictable with Web-based applications," he says. "You can have [usage] changing frequently at different times of the day for different reasons."
Violino is a freelance writer in Massapequa Park, N.Y.