Application Analysis Meeting User

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Application AnalysisMeeting Userand
CIOExpectations
J. Scott Haugdahl CTO, WildPackets, Inc.
A WildPackets Web Seminar September 7, 2006 9
am PDT
Toll free 1 [phone]Toll 1 (719)
785-4460Participant code 833800
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The Need

• Service Level Agreements stipulate consistent
  Quality of Service
• Uptime
• Performance
• Availability of specific applications
• IT services must support business objectives
• Difficult to quantify user satisfaction and
  efficiency
• Response time or network utilization numbers are
  not enough

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Solution Application Analysis

• WildPackets Expert Systems
• Built-in intelligence for network application
  events
• Packet Visualizer
• Conversation-oriented analysis and graphs
• "What If" view, and other configurable monitors/
  thresholds
• Apdex New for OmniAnalysis Platform 4.0!
• Apdex is a numerical measure of user satisfaction
  with the performance of enterprise applications
• Reduces many measurements into a single number
• Uniform 0-1 scale, 0 no users satisfied, 1
  all users satisfied
• It is a comparable metric across all applications
• Based on an opening specification produced by an
  alliance of vendors (www.apdex.org)

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Apdex Rating is Applicable for Many Uses
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Characterizing Response Time

• Satisfied User
• User can focus on task, process not hindered
• Tolerating User
• User notices slowdown, productivity is impaired
• Frustrated User
• User unhappy with slow response, may stop working
  on a task

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How Apdex is Computed

• Collect hundreds of stop watch samples of a
  task
• 10.3 seconds, 7.1 seconds, 22.7 seconds, 3.0
  seconds,
• Each of the samples put into the three
  performance zones
• Satisfied is a process completed under task time
  T seconds
• Tolerating is 4 x T seconds
• Frustrating is everything else, including
  abandoning a task
• Thus if our task threshold is set to 4 seconds,
  10.3 seconds would be a tolerating sample, 22.7
  seconds a frustrated sample, and 3.0 seconds a
  satisfied sample

The Apdex formula gives full weight to satisfied
samples, half that to tolerating, nothing for
frustrated and divides into the number of
samples. The result is a value between 0 and 1 as
shown in the next slide.
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Apdex Rating Example and Scale
Tolerating count
8 Tolerating
47 Satisfied
Satisfied count
2
ApdexT
.78 (Fair)
Total samples
65 Total Samples
Excellent
Good
Fair
Poor
Unacceptable
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WildPackets OmniAnalysis Expert Identifies Cause

The user is experiencing dissatisfaction due to a
combination of packet loss and a periodically
slow web server
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Real World Example

• VP remarks that the network is slow
• Internal monitoring systems show that all
  resources are performing within acceptable
  thresholds
• IT engineer reports back that network appears
  normal
• As the CIO, what do you do?

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Why WildPackets Application Analysis

• Fully integrated with other features and expert
  systems
• E.g., Enhanced Application Response Time (ART)
  analysis
• Extensive filtering allows focused Apdex analysis
  by user, subnet, application, port, specific
  end-points, etc.
• More expert events every release
• Real time or post event analysis
• Ratings summary by application, server, or user
• Easily extendable for specialized monitoring and
  notification

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Thank You!

• For more information
• www.wildpackets.com
• For other Web seminars
• www.wildpackets.com/smarter/