As our digital world expands and becomes more dynamic, the expectations of users and customers simultaneously expands and becomes more complex. Perhaps one of the most universally common expectations of users is the performance of web applications. Regardless of its purpose, visitors and users expect and demand applications to run at optimum levels from beginning to end. In fact, based upon the latest research, one of the most powerful ways to lose a customer or visitor is via under-performing web applications and slow website loading times. While there are many issues and errors that may affect the performance of a web application, engaging in web app monitoring best practices helps reduce user-experienced errors. Ultimately, by catching errors before your customers/visitors do can save your reputation and client base.

Monitor the Application and Network Performance

For most web app developers and administrators, monitoring application performance through an APM solution is a common approach. While application performance monitoring solutions are able to continuously monitor all levels of an application to ensure its processes and communication between the browser and server is seamless. The majority of enterprises should not only monitor an application, but also its network to ensure optimum performance and to catch errors as soon as they happen (or ideally immediately before they occur through established alerts and triggers).

Monitoring the experience users have on the application-level is essential to provide a granular view of experience quality; however, if you only rely on application level performance monitoring you’re only catching problems after they occur at the network-level. In fact, the most prominent challenges an enterprise can experience aren’t at the application-level, but at the enterprise-level. Because applications are at a near-constant state of flux, network-level processes are far more consistent, which makes its monitoring for potential errors far easier and effective than application-level-only monitoring.

Business Service Management Solutions

Due to the importance of catching errors before your customers/visitors do, many enterprises are moving away from application-specific monitoring and shifting into business service management solutions. While business service management is often more difficult and complex than APM solutions, its ability to catch errors on the network and application-level is far more superior than application only monitoring. There are also a number of services and standalone products that offer free web application monitoring. For example, the service Uptime Robot offers 50 free monitors at 5 minute intervals for no cost. Everystep Automation offers a free downloadable software package that monitors web applications at no cost, although they also offer a more robust paid package.

Perhaps one of the most effective approaches to BSM initiatives is through monitoring key service operation processes, which tend to deal with the most essential aspects of a digital environments, such as: access management, request fulfillment, incident management and event management. Once a monitoring tool has been established for each of these processes, the monitoring processes can be automated. This frees up IT department resources and effectively catches errors at the network and application-level before it has time to alter user experiences.