A quick solution of problems permits you to implement a dynamic business strategy and to bealways more attentive of clients' needs.
Antonio Capobianco, Business Monitoring, e-commerce, Fata Informatica, Sentinet3
09/10/2015
Edited by Antonio Capobianco, CEO Fata Informatica
When we are speaking of monitoring there coexists within the same company two distinct and separate visions: on the one hand we find the vision of the technicians that take care of the operation and maintenance of the IT Infrastructure, and on the other hand that of the business manager whose principal concern is the operation of the business. Although the two visions may seem opposed they are tightly linked and interconnected.
Implementing analysis tools that correlate the needs of the business with the monitoring of the IT infrastructure is in fact fundamental as explained even by the famous analyst Gartner Pankaj Prasad in his article "IT Operations leaders must use a structured approach when deploying server monitoring tools".
Let's take for example an e-commerce service based on a web portal in which the web servers are two and they are in cluster: here the difference between the two visions is evident, and at the same time intuitive. What would happen in fact if one of the two web servers stopped functioning? On a business level absolutely nothing, the sites cluster feature would guarantee in fact the perfect functioning of the service even if one of the two servers wasn't working; but at the infrastructure level the IT technicians would have to be informed of the situation to execute the necessary actions to promptly restore the malfunctioning server.
In fact to work correctly at full throttle, the e-commerce system needs a web server, database, application servers and network servers, all a series of fundamental IT services that are all perfectly operating. Each one of these systems must function regularly to allow the e-commerce site to invoice, so the basic business rule is that all the underlying IT services are working.
According to the data released by the research and analysis company Aberdeen Group, delays, even minimum ones, in response times of the site can have a considerable impact on the client's satisfaction and on the number of pages visited, as well as on conversion rates and of the abandoning of the site itself. A second delay in the response of the site is equivalent in fact to a loss of 11% in terms of page view, of 16% of client satisfaction and of 7% of conversion towards the purchase. Let's take Amazon for example: a second delay in page loading would cost annually 1.6 millions of dollars in sales. Even a worldwide and independent research conducted by Vanson Bourne and commissioned by Bordland, a company that is part of Micro Focus, evidences how 88% of the internet browsers are scarcely inclined to visit a web site after a negative experience and therefore, having a passive approach towards the performance of ones own site means running serious risks in terms of reputation, and for e-commerce sites in terms of income. This demonstrates how a web site with high ratings represents a competitive advantage because it permits you to offer a positive experience to the consumer, helps him win the loyalty race and acquire new clients.
In light of this new data it becomes even more evident the importance of carrying out a constant monitoring that, in the case of an e-commerce portal, is articulated on three different levels:
1. Server: monitoring the machines physically (Ram, CPU, network card, etc...)
2. IT service: monitoring the service provided by the server (Web, Email, application server, etc...)
3. Business service: monitoring of the e-commerce system so that it is working and allows the customers to carry out their purchases on line.
Today monitoring application systems exist that permit us to implement analysis instruments that correlate business needs with IT infrastructure monitoring.
Among these SentiNet3 has asserted itself in a short time as the only Italian product able to compete with the major international companies operating on the market because it is easy to use, it has a quick speed of commissioning and the use of a pattern that permits you to check contemporarily hundreds of parameters whether of side end- user experience or application monitoring.
The 4.0 Sentinet3 version includes furthermore a specific module of Root Cause Analysis, the new control and alarm function for entire group services correlator events, that joins the vision of the business service level with the IT infrastructure level. Thanks to this module it is possible to create a new mapping of the systems on IT services level permitting you to set up the alarms on the basis of the level of the service supplied and not only of the availability of the server itself. Besides this function it is then possible to define the business services thanks to the definition of complex rules ad lib, used by the booleani operators AND and OR, that join the underlying IT services.
Providing your company with application monitoring instruments that permit you to intervene quickly on the problem doesn't mean not only avoiding the lose of a potential client – like in the specific e-commerce case we used as an example – but in a wider perspective it means providing yourself with a dynamic business strategy that is always more attentive to the clients' needs.
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