AppFirst recently revealed an enterprise-grade version of its monitoring platform for applications and infrastructures. The AppFirst platform takes its place in the realm of “appops” applications that provide analytics and performance optimization services not only with respect to servers and virtual machines, but also regarding application performance and its intersection with infrastructure. The AppFirst platform creates a time series that enhances the insight had by application owners and IT administrators regarding application and infrastructure performance. Based on the theory that you cannot control what you cannot see, AppFirst aims to expand the capture of events such as “every application call, system event, log file entry, configuration change, third party application or custom code event, and data from thousands of plug-ins.” The AppFirst platform delivers a sub-millisecond timeline of events that it subsequently transforms into actionable business intelligence as illustrated below:
The graphic above illustrates topologies and interdependencies within an environment that morph as the infrastructure and constituent applications themselves change in relation to incoming data feeds and user behavior. Importantly, AppFirst introduces little to no latency to existing applications and can operate within on premise, cloud and hybrid infrastructures via an unobtrusive installation. In conjunction with the news of this week’s release, AppFirst also revealed a partnership with Accretive that enables it to deliver predictive analytics regarding the Big Data collected by its platform with respect to application and infrastructure performance. The partnership with Accretive empowers AppFirst customers to identify trends related to analytics such as cost, performance, types of users and resource consumption. The key point worth noting about AppFirst’s technology platform, however, is the granularity of the data collected by its proprietary data aggregation technology that, in conjunction with its data visualization functionality, and predictive analytics, deliver a degree of insight into application and infrastructure performance not provided by vendors who limit their scope to machine data analytics. Moreover, AppFirst’s ability to manage on premise, public and private cloud environments renders it a key player within the space of platforms dedicated to monitoring infrastructure and application performance in hybrid cloud environments.
Cloud Computing Today 