Businesses invest heavily in APM (Application Performance Monitoring). It is because they need to gain visibility inside enterprise applications. By doing so, they can know how well applications are performing. Are they performing the tasks they were intended to? Is there a need to upgrade or replace an enterprise application? All such questions can be answered via application performance monitoring. However, enterprises are realizing that APM is not enough to offer customers/end-users a better experience. For the same rationale, they are investing in DEM (Digital Experience Monitoring) tools. Read on to understand how business can evolve beyond APM with the help of DEM.

Comparing DEM and APM

Application performance monitoring is concerned with the internal state of an application. It focuses on increasing the visibility inside the applications for concerned IT teams. You will get to know the transactions with an application, its architecture, and more with APM. One must not confuse application performance monitoring with application performance management. Application performance management involves some actions to manage the internal states of an application. With performance monitoring, one can get to know the usage of an application. If the performance standards are going down, the application needs some fixing.

Does APM focus on the user experience? The answer is yes because APM continues when someone is using the applications. When someone is using an application, you get a real picture of its performance. However, APM does not strictly focuses on monitoring the user experience. It does not measure how the end-user feels after using an application. It sees how the application is performing under different scenarios.

DEM can be considered a superset that contains APM, end-user monitoring, and synthetic monitoring. DEM paints a complete picture of end-user experience on enterprise applications. Notice how APM focuses more on finding performance errors. Performance errors can hamper the end-user experience. Since they are related to the end-user experience, DEM also finds common performance errors. However, it moves beyond the performance errors and detects anything that results in a poor digital experience.

DEM ingests data sources from multiple sources, like synthetic transactions, devices, and webpage snippets. It continuously monitors the behavior of applications under different scenarios. It also measures the usage of IT resources for different enterprise applications and services. Whenever an end-user or a group of end-users interact with applications/services, DEM comes into the picture. Let us see how DEM and APM can work together to offer an unmatchable digital user experience.                                           

How DEM augments APM?

Let us understand how DEM augments APM with an example. Let us say there is a large organization with many end-users support tickets. Here, a support ticket is an issue faced by the end user. Most end users say that their enterprise application is running too slow. The concerned IT teams use the available APM tools to find the cause of slowness. Upon inspection, they find that the application has a healthy response time of 200ms. Also, the APM tool is showing error rates as low as 0.1%. In such a case, the concerned IT teams cannot determine the reason for the slowness. At the same time, end users are reporting speed bumps and have poor digital experiences.

APM alone cannot help IT teams to boost service reliability. The same IT teams switch to DEM tools to find the reason for slowness. DEM tools tell that too many graphic implications on the application are causing the slowness. It means IT teams must indulge in technical optimization to reduce the speed bumps. They might have to cut down on the graphics on their applications to satisfy customers. This entire example shows how DEM and APM together can help restore service reliability.

Let us take another example to understand why enterprises need a combination of DEM and APM. Let us say an enterprise receives complaints of bad user experience. The IT teams check the APM platforms, and everything is up to the mark. The IT teams then switch to DEM tools and find that some end users are facing connectivity issues. Let us say the enterprise’s website contains too many images and videos. Since some end users live in territories with slow internet speeds, they are facing connectivity issues. Even if there is nothing wrong with the website, the end users are still not having a better digital experience. In such a case, the IT teams can optimize the website to load quickly, even with a weak internet connection. In areas with a weak internet connection, the IT teams can direct the website to load without images.

One cannot ignore the effectiveness of APM tools. If there is an issue on your end, APM tools will let you know. However, APM tools will offer only a single point of view. For a complete view of the end-user experience, you need DEM tools. DEM tools will identify anything that deteriorates the digital experience of end-users. If there is an issue within the application, you can rely on APM tools to determine the root cause. Together, DEM and APM tools will help an organization achieve unmatchable standards of service reliability.

AIOps for DEM and APM

Organizations have now started investing in proactive application monitoring. They do not wait for end-users to report performance issues or speed bumps. They monitor their applications continuously and determine issues before they disrupt the user experience. To become proactive with DEM and APM, organizations need the right tools. Traditional DEM and Application Performance Monitoring tools cannot handle the increasing complexity of digital channels for end users. Not to forget, customers use your services from different geographical areas, thus increasing the challenge for APM and DEM tools.

Organizations need an AIOps-enabled solution to merge the capabilities of APM and DEM. AIOps platforms monitor the user experiences across applications and produce alerts in real time. An AIOps-enabled platform will also provide the concerned IT teams with the root cause of a poor digital experience. An enterprise does not have to use multiple tools for APM and DEM. Install an AIOps-enabled solution for APM and DEM now!