Why Monitoring Your Application is Important?

İlyas Özkurt
5 min readFeb 15, 2023

When you deploy an application, it becomes essential to ensure its performance and availability. Application performance monitoring (APM) tools provide real-time insights into the performance of your application, allowing you to quickly identify and troubleshoot performance problems.

In this article, we will discuss the importance of monitoring your application and the top 10 APM tools you can use.

Key 15 Reasons to Monitor Your Application

Early Detection of Performance Issues

The first reason for the monitoring is that it allows for the early detection of performance issues. When your application is down or slow, it can result in a loss of customers and revenue. By following the health of your application, you can detect performance issues early on and fix them before they become serious problems.

Ensure High-Quality User Experience

The second reason why monitoring your application is essential is that it ensures a high-quality user experience. When your application is slow or not working correctly, it can negatively impact the user experience, resulting in a loss of customers and revenue. By monitoring your application, you can ensure that your users have a seamless experience, which helps build brand loyalty and improves customer satisfaction.

Identify and Resolve Issues Faster

The third reason is that it helps you identify and resolve issues faster. When your application is down or slow, time is of the essence. By watching your application, you can quickly identify and troubleshoot performance problems, which means less downtime and reduced costs.

Track Performance Metrics

The fourth reason for monitoring your application is essential is that it allows you to track key performance metrics. With monitoring, you can track metrics such as response times, error rates, and throughput. This data can be used to identify areas for improvement and optimize your application.

Code Profiling

The fifth reason is that it allows for code profiling. With code profiling, you can identify performance issues at the code level, which can help you optimize your application and improve its performance.

Optimize Resource Utilization

The sixth reason is that it helps you optimize resource utilization. Monitoring helps you understand how your application uses resources such as CPU, memory, and network bandwidth. This information can be used to optimize resource utilization and reduce costs.

Dependency Mapping

The seventh reason is that it allows for dependency mapping. With dependency mapping, you can identify dependencies between different application components, which can help you troubleshoot issues and optimize performance.

Detect Security Threats

The eighth reason why monitoring your application is essential is that it helps you detect security threats. Monitoring your application can help you detect security threats such as brute-force attacks, SQL injection, and cross-site scripting.

Ensure Regulatory Compliance

The ninth reason is that it helps ensure regulatory compliance. Monitoring your application can help ensure that you comply with regulatory requirements such as HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and GDPR.

Predictive Maintenance

The tenth reason is that it allows for predictive maintenance. With monitoring, you can predict when your application will require maintenance, which can help you plan and budget for maintenance activities.

Capacity Planning

The eleventh reason monitoring your application is essential is that it helps with capacity planning. By monitoring your application, you can understand how it’s performing under different levels of load. This information can be used to plan for capacity and optimize performance.

Real-time Monitoring

The twelfth reason is that it allows for real-time monitoring. Real-time monitoring enables you to detect performance issues as they occur so that you can take action

Real-time Monitoring

Real-time monitoring is the twelfth reason. With real-time monitoring, you can detect performance issues as they occur, allowing you to take action immediately and prevent downtime. By monitoring your application in real time, you can quickly identify the root cause of issues and resolve them before they affect your users.

Understand User Behavior

The thirteenth reason monitoring your application is essential is that it allows you to understand user behavior. By monitoring, you can track user interactions, such as clicks, scrolls, and form submissions. This information can be used to optimize the user experience and improve your application’s performance.

Diagnose Root Causes

The fourteenth reason why watching the health of your application is essential is that it allows you to diagnose the root causes of performance issues. With monitoring, you can identify the root causes of problems, such as database connection issues or network latency. This information can be used to resolve problems quickly and effectively.

Competitive Advantage

The fifteenth reason why monitoring your application is essential is that it can give you a competitive advantage. You can provide a superior user experience, reduce downtime, and optimize performance by monitoring your application. This can help you attract and retain customers, improve your brand image, and outcompete your rivals.

Top 10 APM Tools

Now that you understand the importance of monitoring your application let’s take a look at the top 10 APM tools that you can use:

  1. Datadog APM — Datadog APM provides real-time monitoring and full-stack tracing, enabling you to identify performance issues quickly. They offer a 30-day free trial.
  2. New Relic — New Relic offers cloud-based APM solutions, including real-time monitoring and code profiling.
  3. AppDynamics — AppDynamics provides full-stack APM solutions, including real user monitoring and performance metrics.
  4. Dynatrace — Dynatrace provides cloud-based APM solutions, including code-level visibility and dependency mapping.
  5. SolarWinds — SolarWinds provides APM solutions for Java and .NET applications, including real-time monitoring and code profiling.
  6. Zabbix — Zabbix is an open-source APM tool that provides real-time monitoring and alerting.
  7. Stackify — Stackify provides APM solutions for .NET and Java applications, including real-time monitoring and code profiling.
  8. ManageEngine — ManageEngine provides APM solutions for web applications, including real-time monitoring and code-level visibility.
  9. Raygun — Raygun provides real-time APM solutions for web and mobile applications, including error tracking and performance monitoring.
  10. SmartBear — SmartBear provides APM solutions for web and mobile applications, including real-time monitoring and code-level visibility.

In Summary

In conclusion, monitoring your application is essential for maintaining a high-quality user experience, detecting and resolving issues quickly, and gaining a competitive advantage. By using APM tools, such as Datadog APM, New Relic, or AppDynamics, you can monitor your application’s performance metrics, track real-time performance, and optimize resource utilization. With early detection of performance issues, high-quality user experience, faster issue resolution, and other benefits, monitoring your application can help your business thrive in the digital age.

Originally published at https://ilyasozkurt.com on February 15, 2023.

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