Symantec i3 8.0 Application Performance Management

August 7, 2007

In the news today, Symantec announced their latest release of Symantec i³ 8.0 Application Performance Management (APM) suite that monitors, analyzes, and diagnoses performance and availability bottlenecks that can impact mission business critical applications.

If you are not familiar with an APM solution, it is simply a solution that focuses on the monitoring and management of software applications. An APM solution is a set of tools that can monitor, detect and prevent performance issues that can hurt your very critical business transactions. For example, a high dollar web site such as Amazon would benefit with such a solution because a tenth of a second equates to loss of revenue.

“Organizations choose multi-tier applications for their modularity, extensibility and scalability, but many performance management solutions don’t extend the same level of flexibility to build customized views to detect, diagnose, and correct performance, for custom or legacy applications,” said Brian Babineau, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “ Symantec i³ 8.0 provides customers with a standard tool across all applications to quickly identify the source of application problems and recommendations on how to best address these issues reducing the risk that the problems will reoccur or significantly disrupt accessibility.”

Using an APM that can monitor issues across multiple platforms and technology and address bottlenecks and potential problems is what Symantec i³ is all about. They can do this with a new SDK that allows you to customize i³ to monitor, detect, and diagnose potential problems.

"The demands on data centers have never been greater - data volumes grow dramatically every year and information and applications must be protected and available at all times, with no window for downtime," said Sateesh Narahari, senior product marketing manager for APM at Symantec. "Symantec i³ provides the comprehensive, end-to-end performance management necessary for an organization to keep its infrastructure up and running without sacrificing access to critical information. Our application performance management solution compliments this effort by ensuring optimal performance of the application environment and helping to manage cost and complexity across the multiple tiers of the IT infrastructure."

Narahari goes on to say that "the version delivers a new Software Development Kit (SDK) to enable our partners and consultants to build value added solutions, enabling customers to integrate monitoring of their legacy systems with Symantec APM. This allows our customers to use one tool to monitor their applications."

For many businesses, downtime of 60 seconds or more could spell disaster to their stock price. The amount of lost revenue in 60 seconds can be prevented my using a product such as Symantec i³. By providing an IT staff with the tools to properly monitor and analyze bottlenecks, you allow them to master complex environments and resolve slowdowns to prevent loss of revenue bottlenecks.

“Symantec i³ helps us ensure the availability and performance of our critical applications, allowing IT to better support our business and customers,” said Luis Morales of Financial Security Assurance Inc (FSA), which provides financial guaranty insurance for asset-backed securities, municipal bonds and other structured obligations in the global markets. ”With i³ 8.0, we will be proactively notified of potential issues, enabling faster resolution of application performance problems and allowing us to put our IT resources toward other business-critical activities.”

With the delivery of Symantec i³ 8.0, you are introduced to a number of new features such as the ability to perform the following:

• SmartLink Technology Improvements that allow you to quickly seek out and define rapid identification of performance related issues.

• New Support for Microsoft SQL Server and .NET included in SmartLink and SmartTune technology. This includes a top-level view of J2EE SmartTune data from the Symantec APM Application Service Dashboard.

• An expanded J2EE knowledgebase in the SmartTune Library.

• A SDK that provides an expanded view of application performance and better integration with legacy applications.

• Easier deployments by using the command line interface (CLI) included with the product offering as well as improved scalability and role based administration. This new CLI allows an IT administrator to apply system-wide updates easily.

• The Application Service Dashboard included in i³ provides a “pit stop” view of all relevant business metrics from monitored systems. New portlets will also be made available with Application Service Dashboard 2.0 to enable monitoring of Microsoft environments, including SQL Server and .NET, J2EE virtual machines, Oracle, and SAP.

Symantec is a global leader in infrastructure software, enabling businesses and consumers to have confidence in a connected world. The company helps customers protect their infrastructure, information and interactions by delivering software and services that address risks to security, availability, compliance and performance. Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Symantec has operations in 40 countries. More information is available at www.symantec.com.

Symantec i³ 8.0 is now generally available through Symantec’s certified value-added resellers system integrators and direct sales force. Pricing begins at $1500 per physical CPU. For more information, visit Symantec at www.symantec.com.

» See All Articles by Columnist Steven S. Warren