The Web APM Blog

Lies, True Lies and Polling (aka heuristics, manipulation and make-believe)

People will vote for Hillary because she's got Bill
People will vote for Barack because he’s got charisma
People will vote for Rudy because he was there on 9/11
People will vote for Fred because he looks like a president

With nearly a year to go before election day, the long running 2008 presidential saga is certainly going to be the most expensive, punditized, analyzed, polled, debated, spinned and boring race in history. While campaign hot air fills the dead air on the 24-hour news channels and talk shows, I doubt that the electorate is becoming better informed or more caring.  In fact, the people might become so bored after being hit over the head by all this rhetoric for such a long time, they might just stay home on election day.

Seems like anyone with a phone can become a pollster.  If you can randomly call a hundred people (out of a total US population of 303,315,297 presently) and ask some questions about this or that, you might even get invited to talk live with Lou Dobbs or Bill O’Reilly depending on the left or right leaning of the polling results. 

Does the constant drum beat of “insightful” polling really help the election process?   Not much.  Between the potential  for bias in the polling questions and the interpretation of the result, one can certainly make all sorts of conclusion about how America feels about the candidates or what matters in the ’08 election.  Is being a woman going to hinder or help Hillary’s campaign?  Does a serial monogamist have the moral fortitude to occupy the most influential bully pulpit in the land?  Good questions--but can one really expect true insight from asking random people random questions?

Which brings us to the issue of monitoring real user’s experience of Web application.  So often we are also guilty of expounding on complex performance issues by relying on gross generalization--just like these political operatives with their polling questions.  Since the dawn of the WWW, we have regarded results from synthetic monitoring services as the standard for performance measurement while overlooking the possibility that the scripts might be flawed or outdated, and the machine generating the make-believe transactions might have a high bandwidth link to the Web -- or perhaps it's not even running a mainstream browser. 

Are we comfortable with relying on limited data to predict that Aunt Betsy in Des Moines can successfully refill her prescription using a shared computer at the local library?  Furthermore, do we have the visibility to determine what’s wrong, or how to tune the application or infrastructure to make them run better?   The answer is no, no and definitely no. 

The only way to deal with this challenge is to measure performance directly with each real user running real transaction in real time.  No heuristics, no fancy statistics and no make-believe.  That is why we still have an election day when each voter is being asked directly to make a definitive choice for president.  That’s what counts.

Sensible Monitoring for Sensitive Areas

How do you monitor “performance” as experienced by the end user?  In an earlier blog, we examined Mississippi State Ordinance §19-5-103 which essentially holds the adult entertainment industry responsible for certain biological reactions patrons might experience whilst appreciating "the show".

Without revisiting the details, the unanswered question is this: how can the law monitor audience response to “adult entertainment” without affecting the show itself? Such a monitoring system must be somehow individual, invisible, anonymous and yet painstakingly accurate—reputations are on the line here. 

Monitoring these events certainly poses a thorny challenge akin to the problem facing web operations as they attempt to monitor the end-user experience. The monitoring capability has to meet competing objectives:

1) Provide an accurate measure performance experienced by individual end-users under the thousands of different ways Web applications are delivered

2) Do so in a way that is individual, invisible, anonymous and accurate – in short, in a way that never impacts delivery of the application (unlike changing the source code or downloading monitoring agents onto the user’s PC).

You can easily appreciate the difficulty of this challenge for the Magnolia state adult entertainment establishments.  How do you detect (and document) customer response in a dimly-lit strip joint or massage parlor where the “action” might be obscured behind partitions or booths?  If enforcement required powering-up the house lights or rearranging the layout it would alter the “operating environment” and change the experience dramatically — akin to changing source code in the Web arena.  It seems unlikely that the law require patrons to wear a “turgidity” detection device (somewhat like downloading an agent onto the user’s browser for Web apps).

Luckily enough, the problem has been solved — for Web applications anyway. Our company, Symphoniq, has developed a deceptively simple solution that allows IT to monitor performance based on TRUE (the real user experience) for any Web application delivered by the F5 BIG-IP appliance. 
The lightweight, downloadable TrueView Express product is integrated with BIG-IP to measure application performance directly from the every browser without requiring client-side agents, changes to the code, or the purchase of additional appliances.  It can monitor millions of Web users located anywhere in the world without burdening the BIG-IP.  All told, a very simple to use solution to tackle a difficult challenge. Check it out at www.symphoniq.com.
 
Now if the law in Mississippi could have something to monitor “discernible turgidity” in an adult entertainment establishment, the law enforcement establishment in Mississippi would have a much easier time of it.

Mississippi Sex Shows & The Real User Experience

On a swing (so to speak) through the Southern States to preach the virtues of understanding TRUE (The Real User Experience) in the Web environment, I came upon this unexpected scene somewhere in the fields of Ol'e Miss.  Could it be legal to offer schools field trips to adult entertainment establishments down under (meaning the Mason-Dixon line not Australia)? 

While Yahoo didn’t give me an exact answer, I did get some enlightenment from Mississippi State Ordinance §19-5-103 entitled “Regulation of massage parlors and public displays of nudity.”  Interpreting this, such establishments in Mississippi can be fined for the expected stuff like too many of certain uncovered body parts.  But, the really interesting part is that in essence the State holds clubs accountable for the user experience as well.

That’s right.  Gentlemen's clubs can be punished if they create an environment where by “the covered human male genitals (are) in a discernibly turgid state.”   Now, let’s interpret the above: §19-5-103 stipulates that the establishment can be punished for the state of undress of the entertainer AS WELL AS the effect said entertainer has on the clientele (if they’re men anyway).

This is what I call legislating for TRUE (the real end-user experience)!   For example, even if the entertainer is fully clothed, but arouses the clientele through action alone, the State can still evoke the wrath of law upon the establishment.

TRUE enlightenment -- with lessons for us IT-types as well.  Why?
 

While 5-nines (99.999%) server-up-time is sexy in IT circles, TRUE -- the real user experience -- is what really matters.  Before you can rest assured that your application is running to spec, you need to know if those 5-nines are really delivering the user the experience he/she needs to fully appreciate the application... good performance so to speak.  And while nudity is considered the sexy part of adult entertainment, the reaction of the clientele (i.e., the end-user) has legal importance. 

In a world filled with complex, sexy Web apps., all the green lights flashing on servers can’t ever really predict that the end user is getting the desired level of application response time.  The service level threshold for a Web application must be determined solely on delivering the desired level of application response time — or in the case of an adult entertainment, the level of “satisfaction” as perceived by the end user. 

I ask you, what is the purpose of delivering the application if not to satisfy the desires of the end user?  With all that said, should one ever decided to frequent such as establishment, can one be allowed to claim any bills he or she might hang onto Sweet Lola’s G-string as a legitimate business expense?

Religious Wars and Web Performance Management or Many Waters Cannot Quench Love

“Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it”
                                                                         Song of Solomon 8:7

King Solomon’s “Song of Songs” provides unexpected though useful lessons about Web APM (application performance management). 

To describe his eternal love for Pharaoh’s daughter Solomon observed: “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it”.  Drilling into this quote reveals two useful insights for those of us who study Web application performance management.

The first insight has to do with data.  In managing Web performance King Solomon reminds us that more data doesn’t necessarily translate into more relevant insight when problems occur.  When outages occur IT needs access to the right data — that is, only the slice of data that sheds light on the problem.  The first requirement is notification that indeed a problem has occurred. Then they need the ability to correlate the problem to the components or devices that are involved in the problem.  And finally they must fix the problem.

It sounds logical, but with existing tools the path towards achieving such a goal is often overly cumbersome or awkward.

The second observation lies in the different was various religions derive meaning from King Solomon's words.  Specifically, different religions make different interpretations of the same words. For example, Jewish scholars might argue that the “Song of Songs” take us beyond Solomon’s word of affection towards his wife to reflect the love of God towards his Chosen People.  And while a Christian interpretation might suggest that the Songs articulate the relationship between Christ and His Church, scholars of Islam will argue that the “praised one” in the Songs is not Christ, but rather Muhammad.

Unlike Web performance management, religion is a matter of faith.  And given that religion is a matter of faith, it is fine to have different religions make different interpretations.  The problem is that differing faith-based interpretations of religious texts have given rise to centuries of wars waged against “infidels” even among those who worship the same monotheistic God and honor the same patriarch Abraham.

Web application performance management must be an endeavor of logic and science, must not become a religious war. Yet, the wise King Solomon taught us two important lessons in his Song of Songs:

Ø      While no data is no good, more data is not be much better.

Ø      When trying to find problems you will need to sieve a sea of data through the prism of your own discipline.  However, keep your eye on the end result:  Do you want to fix the problem, or argue and lay blame.  The higher goal is to separate meaningful information from noise to help fix the problem.  However satisfying, persecuting infidels ins’t very useful.  Not unless you relish a religious war.

So, in the interest of world peace, bear that in mind the next time you tackle a difficult Web performance problem.  Use the data to find problems not to wage a religious war against one function group (like DBAs, server administrators, developers etc.) or another. 

We Hold These Truths ....

   “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” So proclaims the US Declaration of Independence—that poetic political statement published 231 years ago in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

And it comes to pass after all these years, that while men are slightly more equal, not all Web applications are created equal.  That over 1 in 4 Web applications are created with performance deficiencies (Forrester), and 1 in 5 SOA deployments are so mired in complexity that they fail to deliver on the promise of cost savings and agility (Ovum).  And that the unfortunate minions who are using these applications shall suffer in silence the consequence of lost productivity, failed transactions and sub-par experience.

Is this an over dramatization? (Yes)  Is this the cost of deploying new technology? (Yes, if you are living on the edge…live by the sword, die by the sword.)  Can something be done? (Yes)  How?

Just like the designer of hard goods who has to design-in quality and manufacture-ability, application architects and developers must design with service level assurance and production management in mind.  It should be a matter of common sense that a certain percentage of the development budget be devoted to tools to assure that applications can be deployed smoothly into production, and more importantly, effectively managed thereafter. 

Gartner reported that 30% of developer’s time is spent fixing production problems.  So even if one devotes 20% of the development budget to assure that quality is baked into the application, the investment will still yield a great ROI (see the calculator if you haven’t already done so at www.symphoniq.com/go/?465.

If the founding fathers of the United States had devoted a measure of their combined intellect to defining the form and organization of government in 1776, they could have avoid the chaos during the Constitutional Convention in 1787 that prompted Ben Franklin to wonder whether the half sun carved on George Washington’s chair was rising or setting. 

Similarly, if application architects and developers design-in performance and manageability, they don’t have to wonder whether the application will run and meet service level when it enters production.  With all fairness to the founding fathers, any discussion regarding the form of government when threatened with the world’s then strongest military can only be considered as traitorous stupors of gallows ghosts.  I hope no such threat hangs on the heads of application architects and developers.