Get Ahead of Microservices and Container Proliferation with Robust App Monitoring
Containers and microservices are growing in popularity, and why not? They enable agility, speed, and resource efficiency for many tasks that developers work on daily. They are light in terms of coding and interdependencies, which makes it much easier and less time consuming to deliver apps to app users or migrate applications from legacy systems to cloud servers.
What Are Containers and Microservices?
Containers are isolated workload environments in a virtualized operating system. They speed up workload processes and application delivery because they can be spun up quickly; and they provide a solution for application-portability challenges because they are not tied to software on physical machines.
Microservices are a type of software architecture that is light and limited in scope. Single-function applications comprise small, self-contained units working together through APIs that are not dependent on a specific language. A microservices architecture is faster and more agile than traditional application architecture.
The Importance of Monitoring
For containers and microservices to be most effective and impactful as they are adopted, technology leaders must prepare a plan on how to monitor and code within them. They also must understand how developers will use them.
Foundationally, all pieces and parts of an enterprise technology stack should be planned, monitored, and measured. Containers and microservices are no exception. Businesses should monitor them to manage their use according to a planned strategy, so that best practice standards (i.e., security protocols, sharing permissions, when to use and not use, etc.) can be identified, documented, and shared. Containers and microservices also must be monitored to ensure both the quality and security of digital products and assets.
To do all of this, an organization needs robust application monitoring capabilities that provide full visibility into the containers and microservices; as well as insight into how they are being used and their influence on goals, such as better productivity or faster time-to-market.
Assessing Your Application Monitoring Capabilities
Some of questions that enterprises should ask as they assess their application-monitoring capabilities are:
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How can we ensure development and operations teams are working together to use containers and microservices in alignment with enterprise needs?
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Will we build our own system to manage container assignment, clustering, etc.? Or should we use third-party vendors that will need to be monitored?
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Will we be able to monitor code inside containers and the components that make up microservices with our current application performance management (APM) footprint?
Do we need more robust APM to effectively manage containers and microservices? And how do we determine the best solution for our needs? To answer those questions and learn more about containers and microservices—and how to effectively use and manage them — read Getting Started With Containers and Microservices: A Mini Guide for Enterprise Leaders.
This mini eBook expands on the topics discussed in this blog and includes an 8-point plan for choosing an effective APM solution.
Go to the guide.
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