Sidebar: Monitoring Tools: The Next Step

Computerworld - Predeployment testing obviously isn't the last word in ensuring the performance of an application. After deployment, many organizations turn to monitoring tools to keep track of system performance and pinpoint problems faster.
"Five years ago, none of them had monitoring. With the advent of Web applications, people realized they could monitor how they work under real usage," says Arthur Povlot, business development manager at Tescom Software Systems Testing.
Many companies that sell testing tools also offer monitoring products. Mercury Interactive sells its Diagnostics and Monitoring (formerly Topaz for J2EE), Empirix has its OneSight Web application performance management product and FarSite Web monitoring service, Segue Software has the SilkCentral Performance Manager, and Compuware sells its Vantage products.
"Instead of having to wait for someone to report a problem, we catch it very, very quickly with the monitoring tool," says Idriss Mekrez, senior software quality architect for NASA's Peer Review Services, which uses Empirix to monitor its grant management application. "It gathers statistics on the performance of the system," he says, noting that downtime can have serious repercussions.
AXA Financial uses a monitoring tool, Topaz from Mercury, in addition to testing tools. "It helps us monitor how these applications perform every hour of every day," says Dave Wollin, managing group director of IT at AXA.