The Role of Monitoring in Controlling Data Center Operations, An IT Manager’s Guide

In our prior blog in this series on effectively managing application delivery, we discussed how to track application uptime and health. We’re now turning the focus on additional visibility IT managers should have into their datacenter operations. One of the key datacenter management goals is to run efficient operations. To achieve this, IT managers should be able to control load and performance of all devices in the datacenter. Having overused devices struggling to process all the traffic while other devices in the same datacenter are almost idle can lead to unnecessary spending on additional devices. When it comes to application delivery controller devices, it boils down to traffic on the specific device. Why is traffic so important? Because, BIG-IP devices are licensed by modules and by traffic limitations.IT managers able to review traffic per device are the ones able to manage licenses in a smart and effective way. And when you do, you end up saving significant amounts of money on licensing. Running efficient operations also means knowing the value of every single application in the datacenter. That’s important because IT managers have the goal of protecting the most valuable applications and user experience with those applications before anything else.

What is the best metric to identify the most valuable applications?

One simple, yet powerful metric is the number of connections your applications have. The applications that have the most users are typically the ones with the biggest exposure and even if they are not the ones driving the most revenue. The major problem, as we know, is that problems with those applications can significantly damage your brand. Another key metric to consider, when it comes to serving applications to end users, is the number of problems with application availability. Simply put, the more problems there are, the bigger the danger for your application to be unavailable. This is something any IT manager should carefully monitor to be able to act and protect applications.To track the important metrics, you can use the report or the dashboard. If you use a dashboard, it must be self-service and available for all the modern devices specifically without installing any specific software. Here’s an example of our free Squared Up dashboard.

In the next in our blog series, we will discuss why load balancing is so important in maximizing application performance. If you’re interested in learning more about how we manage application delivery for F5 BIG-IP users, check out our Comtrade Management Pack for F5 BIG-IP for a free evaluation.