IHS experienced the raw power of AppDynamics upon their first installation by immediately gaining insight into their applications problems in production. With the help of AppDynamics, IHS was about to increase collaboration between the operations and development teams in an effort to fix performance issues. The various IHS teams were able to benefit from having tangible evidence and metrics to pinpoint the exact root cause for clearer communication on performance problems.
In this talk, you'll learn how IHS:
- Built a bridge between the operations and development workflows
- Used custom dashboards for multiple teams throughout their organization
- Reduced confusion across teams on performance root cause
- Monitors multiple environments to filter potential problems early
This deck was originally presented at AppSphere 2015.
3. My Career
- 25 years in the industry working with .com’s and Fortune 500 Companies.
- I have done everything from C, C++, Java programming to Systems Administration
work.
- My Career found me I don’t believe I found it.
- Degree is in History not IT.
- Always have found myself in a Smoke Jumper role.
- Drop in - fix it - get the heck out!
- No better way to learn than Baptism by Fire!
- There is nothing in life I would be rather be doing that what I am doing now.
5. About IHS
IHS offers a unique combination of information, analytics, and expertise. Our solutions
and capabilities are augmented by a professional team of subject matter experts, analysts,
and consultants.
These thought leaders provide you with actionable intelligence for expedited and improved
decision making. Customers, prospects and the media outlets alike rely upon IHS thought leaders
for analysis, forecasts, and perspectives on topics, events, and issues that impact the global
business landscape.
6. Industries IHS Provides Services Too
- Academic and Education
- Aerospace and Defense
- Agriculture
- Automotive
- Chemicals
- Electronics
- Energy Oil and Gas
- Power and Utility
- As well as many others
- Maritime
7. IT TAKES A BRIGADE NOT AN
INDIVIDUAL TO PUT OUT A FIRE
8. Initial Jump Into the Fire
- First day I realized I had dropped into an OH S*&T moment
- I guess I missed in the interview the gravity of sheer amount of applications that I was
going to support
- Function of the AppSupport team was pretty primitive
- History had dictated trust issues between the teams
- Proponent for change had to build trust between the Development and AppSupport
teams
- Root Cause Analysis took hours sometimes days to determine
11. Pulling together a Brigade
- Battle to gain trust.
- Dev Team = Deployments
- Become a proponent for change.
- Went from the fire being 10% contained to 75% in a relatively short amount of time.
- Can Tools Help.
12. Core Requirements to Choosing an APM
- Time to Value – Deep visibility out of the box.
- Ease of use.
- App to App correlation for multi-application interaction.
- We needed a partner, not just a vendor.
- We need a tool that delivers data not emotion.
13. What AppDynamics Provided that Dynatrace Didn’t
- Immediate results right out of the box.
- Detailed Information for All.
- Finally the good fight was starting to pay off
- DevOps was starting to become a reality not just a word being thrown around
- DevOps only works if all teams buy into it not just individuals
- Functionality to see the application as a whole.
- Collaboration was set in motion.
- Resolution was finally on track.
16. What we Learned In Order to Become a Brigade
- Better insight and communication were key.
- Finger pointing stopped and collaboration began.
- Solid Bridges were built.
- Time to resolve was reduced by 72%. What took days now only takes minutes or
hours
- With valid results and effective communication application, infrastructure or database issues
are resolved with releases.
- Complete turn around from 2 years ago.
- The word DevOps now has meaning.
23. Looking Forward
- By Mid January 2016 we are looking to mature our usage of AppDynamics.
- We will be implementing Deeper and more thorough use of AppDynamics by the PDD Team
for upstream, pre production tuning and optimization for code and applications.
- This will allow us to flip the 80/20 balance of reactive/proactive post production Operational
troubleshooting to be 80/20 proactive vs. reactive.
- This will ensure tighter collaboration between PDD and Application Support during load/
stress testing and pre-production testing to ensure applications are optimal and consistent
between pre and post-production releases.
- Proactive analysis and trending against baselines to detect and alert on deviations with
sufficient time to collaboratively engage and analyze the cause prior to any customer impact.
26. Pulling together a Brigade
- At first it seemed like an uphill battle to gain trust.
- Started with a simple task in regards to the Dev Team – Deployments.
- Never gave up and kept fighting the good fight – Became a proponent for change.
- Went from the fire being 10% contained to 75% in a relatively short amount of time.
- Started to gain trust and build a team of jumpers to fight the fire.
- After awhile we started to look into tools to help fight the good fight.