Broadcom DX Application Performance Management Review

A new concept (APM) to be introduced in our workplace which was never there before. Never had visibility into application (layer) performance. Prior to this our main focus was on server and network hardware monitoring. Having visibility into app performance and backend layer has been quite an eye opener in putting together the entire picture for management. We've put together a complete portrait from an ESM (Enterprise Systems Management) perspective with Broadcom/CA Tools.

We are introducing 10.1 in our dev environment and then prod down the road. APM is a new culture here so we are working with customers in getting them introduced to the product. Want to show them how deep dive provided by APM can help them with DevOps lifecycle as well as proactive monitoring. The previous version v9.5.3. we've had for about a year since we introduced a the product in our environment has been a good hands on experience for our users. Now looking forward to getting hands dirty with 10.1 and utilizing the additional capabilities. Will continue to show customers the usefulness of this tool and how they can use it to generate reports on performance of their app as well as the service it provides. There has also been reactionary situations where we have used APM and pin point the issue or able to narrow down the focus.

Updated - 08/29/2018

We now have v10.5.2 SP2 running in our Dev & Prod environment since June 2018. So, far we've had a really good reception for APM by our internal app owners. The key is now for ESM Tools to be adapted by app owners (physical, network and app layer).

Updated - 2/3/2020

We now have upgraded to v10.7.0_SP3 which has provided yet another set up stability and more capabilities for our app environment. APM Command Center (ACC) has a more features and stability from a admin and maintenance perspective.

The next upgrade (v11) changes a lot of things as Broadcom has decided to go to Kubernetes platform as for as APM upgrade and/or rollout of v11 is concerned. It will be interesting to see how customers react to this and whether it pushes them to take a look at SaaS model.

Deep Dive and Transaction Analysis Triage capability. The AppMap feature is very very helpful in visualizing. Also ACC is a huge help with agent maintenance/management (life cycle).

User Experience is a BIG one. Integration of all of APM components into one swift deployment. Can't emphasis the above two more.

About 5 years.

On Windows Platform, it’s not great and/or stable (from previous experience). We had lots of challenges on that platform back then. But with the current employer we start things off the right foot with RHEL platform :)

Agent metric containment is a VERY BIG challenge for us. Constantly have to normalize the agents to reduce the number of metrics and/or metric explosion.

Customer Service:

4 out of 5

Technical Support:

4 out of 5

There was no application performance management solution prior to the introduction of CA APM. Thus, we are still in infancy from a culture perspective. Customers are still learning as they use it often as possible.

It was complex due to our network architecture. It tool much longer than anticipate with all the firewall hurdles and design iterations.

Implemented through CA (the vendor) with their Services Group.

not yet determined

If you can get a SME to architect and install then definitely go that route vs the vendor itself. There are upside to having the vendor due to the fact that they have access to unlimited resources for assistance.

N/A

It’s a great product and provides a lot of in-depth data. Focus and leverage this product as a deep dive one and have another layer above it (another high-level view product etc..)