Fortune-100 Energy Company Selects Tevron for its APM Requirements

Nashua, NH. USA - December 22, 2010 - Tevron, the leader in IT performance and availability monitoring solutions, announced today that one of the nation’s largest combination utilities providing electric and natural gas service to over 7 million customers, deployed a 575 desktop configuration of CitraTest APM (http://www.tevron.com/citratest-apm.asp) for the monitoring and testing of their call center SAP infrastructure hosted via Citrix.

Tevron was selected based on its powerful & flexible IT monitoring technology that fully supports their very complex SAP and Citrix environment. Having one solution that intelligently supports this environment is invaluable. Unlike the products from other vendors, Tevron offers a tightly integrated, simplified and scalable solution that meets the needs of their business.

About Tevron (http://www.tevron.com):

Tevron is a global software company that develops and delivers the most powerful and comprehensive suite of End To End performance, Application Monitoring Solutions, SLA (Service Level Agreement) and Automated Testing Solutions available in the world today. Tevron has successfully delivered enterprise APM & Testing solutions that support every IT enterprise application to hundreds of customers worldwide.

Tevron, CitraTest APM, and the Tevron logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Tevron, LLC. All other company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

© 2010 Tevron, LLC. all rights reserved.

For more information:
North America (HQ)
Tevron, LLC
Phone: +1 702.518.7435

EMEA
Tevron, LLC
Phone: +44 (0) 2089 066 591

Germany
Tevron, LLC
Phone: +49 (0) 800 664 6695

Ensure that your monitoring system has these components

A strong monitoring system is required for all the businesses which deliver their products and services through applications. Constant and consistent monitoring of all applications in your organization will ensure that service level agreement conditions are upheld. If you are looking for a monitoring system for your business applications, you need to ensure that all your business requirements are met with. Some important components of a good monitoring system are as follows:

• Monitoring from the end users’ perspective
  
  A good monitoring system considers all the factors which affect the end users’ experience from not only within the firewalls but from outside them as well. The IT team can not only ensure that end users have a smooth experience by eliminating all problems in applications, they can also meet service level agreement conditions through such a monitoring system.
  
• Monitoring from end to end
  
  Your monitoring system needs to not only point out that there is an error in applications, it also needs to guide the IT team to where the problem lies exactly. Look for an appropriate monitoring system which monitors all processes from end to end. This will make the process easy for your IT department and help you with fulfilling the service level agreement terms. You should also support your monitoring system with a good performance testing tool, which will help you improve the performance of your applications.
  
• Ease of use
  
  Ensure that your monitoring system is easy to use, so that it doesn’t take up a lot of time of your staff in deployment and analysis. If the tool you deploy is too complicate or time consuming, it will fail to serve its purpose as an independent tool.
  
• Reliable
  
  If you want a monitoring system for the long run, look for an experienced service provider, which provides customized solutions. Getting a reliable tool from the beginning will ensure that you are able to meet end user expectations and are well equipped for future performance problems as well. The combination of a strong monitoring system with regular performance testing will ensure that you meet all service level agreement terms with ease.

There are a lot of service providers in the market today which provide reliable monitoring systems for small and mid-sized businesses. Search for a reputed service provider who will become your long term partner in solving application performance issues.

Tevron's APM Solutions Directly Address the Critical IT Issues Identified in Aberdeen's Recent End-User Experience Monitoring & Management Research

Nashua, New Hampshire, September 14, 2010 - Tevron’s APM solutions directly address the key critical IT needs identified in Aberdeen’s End-User Experience Monitoring & Management Research

Some of the key findings from this Aberdeen research include:

• 53% of application issues were uncovered through end-user experience monitoring
• 48% improvement in mean time to repair application performance issues found through end-user experience monitoring
• 42% increase in visibility into critical business transactions
• 15% decrease in the number of end-user complaints about application performance

"Best-in-Class companies discovered more than half of application issues before end users were affected. Leveraging solutions like Tevron's CitraTest APM for end-to-end monitoring of applications on the desktop, the Best-in-Class enjoyed an average of 15% reduction in user complaints" says Russ Klein, VP and Director of IT Research, Aberdeen Group. This solution delivers unmatched proactive monitoring, transaction monitoring, real-time alerting, real-time monitoring, application availability, application performance, IT Service Management, Business Service Management (BSM), and SLM. Every environment, every business process, and every application is supported. Compared to the legacy management products available on the market, this solution is more scalable, more flexible, supports all environments with a single technology, more cost effective, and easier to maintain and deploy.

To learn more about Tevron’s automated testing & monitoring solutions or to request additional information, please call +1.702.518.7435, email sales@tevron.com or visit www.tevron.com.

ABOUT TEVRON

Tevron® is a global leader in APM and Automated Testing. Through our all encompassing customer-centric vision and advanced technology, our APM & Testing Solutions allow the unique flexibility of supporting every application across the enterprise with one methodology delivering the ability to test, monitor, enforce SLAs, and optimize performance with confidence and ease. Founded in 2001, Tevron® is a global organization and is privately held. Our vast and diverse ranges of customers are global leaders and include companies such as Alcon Labs, Alverno, Northrop Grumman, Xerox, Hewlett Packard, Siemens, and Lucent Technologies, to name a few.

TRADEMARKS

Tevron, the Tevron logo, and CitraTest are registered trademarks of Tevron, LLC. All other product references herein are either trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Performance testing: Importance and objectives to keep in mind

Organizations which depend on applications for mission critical activities are increasingly turning to performance testing to overcome bottlenecks. Through effective performance testing, such small and mid-sized businesses can evaluate whether their application performance is up to the established standards. It also helps them in avoiding down time which affects bottom lines of their business. Such a defined performance testing process ensures that all service level agreement conditions are met. The following are some importance and objectives of performance testing to keep in mind.

Importance of Performance Testing

• If mission critical activities depend on applications, performance testing improves the overall quality of services which are provided


• Performance testing is needed to make sure that all applications are running on time so that end users do not face any problem and have a smooth and satisfactory experience


• It also helps in meeting the terms of the service level agreement


• Clients can be satisfied by providing them with a fast and reliable application through performance testing of all important applications

Objectives of Performance Testing

• Helps when IT teams need to compare the performance of multiple applications


• Performance testing minimizes application costs


• Enables faster response time of applications


• Is useful in spotting application bottlenecks and solving them


• Helps in meeting service level agreement terms


• Through performance testing, IT teams can meet application criteria set by a company and its clients

The importance of performance testing in a business setup cannot be over stressed. Most of the small and mid-sized businesses have started using customized packages from experienced vendors for testing their applications. Spotting the need for custom performance testing solutions, a lot of APM vendors have also entered the market. A customized performance testing solution will not only help in spotting and eliminating application performance issues, it will also help with service level agreement conditions.

Performance testing: Importance and objectives to keep in mind

Organizations which depend on applications for mission critical activities are increasingly turning to performance testing to overcome bottlenecks. Through effective performance testing, such small and mid-sized businesses can evaluate whether their application performance is up to the established standards. It also helps them in avoiding down time which affects bottom lines of their business. Such a defined performance testing process ensures that all service level agreement conditions are met. The following are some importance and objectives of performance testing to keep in mind.

Importance of Performance Testing


• If mission critical activities depend on applications, performance testing improves the overall quality of services which are provided


• Performance testing is needed to make sure that all applications are running on time so that end users do not face any problem and have a smooth and satisfactory experience


• It also helps in meeting the terms of the service level agreement


• Clients can be satisfied by providing them with a fast and reliable application through performance testing of all important applications

Objectives of Performance Testing


• Helps when IT teams need to compare the performance of multiple applications


• Performance testing minimizes application costs


• Enables faster response time of applications


• Is useful in spotting application bottlenecks and solving them


• Helps in meeting service level agreement terms


• Through performance testing, IT teams can meet application criteria set by a company and its clients

The importance of performance testing in a business setup cannot be over stressed. Most of the small and mid-sized businesses have started using customized packages from experienced vendors for testing their applications. Spotting the need for custom performance testing solutions, a lot of APM vendors have also entered the market. A customized performance testing solution will not only help in spotting and eliminating application performance issues, it will also help with service level agreement conditions.

Thinking of undertaking performance testing for your applications? Some tips to help you out

Performance testing may seem a simple enough task, but it troubles a lot of businesses. When a business owner is asked the reason of undertaking performance testing, he/she might be unable to point to specific reasons. However the main objective of performance testing is to determine application performance in some pre-determined conditions. It helps track the performance of an application, so that the IT department can overcome problems, if any. It can also help IT managers undertake business service management effectively. Performance testing has different purposes for different businesses. They may be:

• Identifying problems in application performance


• Making sure that all applications are of a certain standard


• Comparing application performance of different applications

Some tips for effective performance testing are:

Set specific performance criteria for your applications

Keep your end users in mind when you are setting application performance criteria. You need to meet the expectations of your end users, so keeping them in focus while setting the criteria is very important. Inquire about the problems end users face and the kind of expectations that they have. That way, you will know what your applications need to achieve at the end of performance testing experiments. Most businesses undertaking performance testing have two goals: to meet customer expectations and to meet IT service management goals.

Database is very important for performance testing

Performance testing is usually undertaken by stimulating user sessions and then noting the response times of applications. Load testing is also a part of application performance testing to check the effects and problems, if any, of multiple user sessions. This is especially true in case of businesses which give importance to IT service management. The database has a very high impact on the end user experience. For example, an end user may complete a transaction fast if it is inserted in and empty table, but the response time will be slow once the table grows. The database is hence very important for the performance testing objectives.

Plan for performance testing

If you want the performance testing to be successful, you need to plan in advance. For instance, application performance can be ensured by getting scalable architecture, hardware resources etc. with such strong resources, IT managers can see to it that all applications are performing as per the standards established. A lot of vendors offer custom performance testing solutions, which can help ensure that applications across the organization are working well. Such solutions also help in meeting business service management goals. You should also get to know from end users which applications they use frequently so that you can save time on performance testing of applications which are rarely used.

Looking for a monitoring tool? Some questions to ask

While the need for a strong monitoring tool for your business is justified, you need to ask a lot of questions in order to determine that it is the right one for you. After all, your IT budget needs to be judiciously spent, and the monitoring system that you bring in should justify the spending. The number of APM solution providers in the market has increased exponentially, so you need to tread carefully while looking for one. So in addition to keeping your requirements in mind, ask the right questions before signing an agreement for a monitoring tool. Following are some of the questions you should ask:

1. How detailed is the monitoring tool? Many products out there only pinpoint the problem, but will not identify the root of the problem. A good monitoring system should not only identify the problem, but also its cause so that the IT team can take appropriate steps to solve the issue. Only if the problem is identified quickly will the bottlenecks be solved and service level agreements met.
2. Does it cover all applications? There are a lot of elements in the business infrastructure which can affect the performance of applications. If your monitoring tool cannot monitor all such infrastructure, it at least needs to be able to pull in data so that the IT team can get the true picture of all the applications. An effective monitoring system hence has to become the eyes of the IT team, so it can spot and prevent problems in applications.
3. Is the monitoring system easily manageable? Some monitoring tool available today are very efficient, but require constant tracking. Also check whether the tool requires any element to be installed on your production environment. Vendors now offer totally non-intrusive monitoring systems, which will help ensure that there is a reduction in down time. This also ensures that he promises made in the service level agreements are delivered.
4. Does the vendor offer support with the monitoring tool? An elaborate monitoring system may be very complex and you will require proper support to unravel it and put to use. Be sure to match find a monitoring tool which fits your requirements best. If there is no support provided with the system, go for one which provides less features but comes with full support. A simple monitoring system would be much more helpful than one which is complicated and requires expensive assistance.

Due to the popularity of monitoring tools and their importance in maintaining service level agreements, many APM solution providers have come forward with innovative solutions. Look for a monitoring system which matches your requirements closely, so that it can help you reduce downtime of all applications within your business.

Reduce application performance issues through strong monitoring tools

When a business provides web services or relies on applications for delivery of services, end users react as soon as there is a problem in application performance. The business will receive calls and emails from end users complaining of lost productivity and depleting revenue as soon as application performance falls below the expected threshold. IT and network managers generally struggle to handle complaints from end users and alerts from monitoring tools at the time of application failure. The main reason for this problem is the deployment of multiple tools within the organization to measure application performance; when applications fail, all of these monitoring tools generate alerts, and IT and network managers struggle to find the root cause amongst so many tools.

Multiple tools for gauging the application performance is a complication that IT and network managers can do without. That is why an end-to-end monitoring tool is required to ensure that downtime can be avoided. Even if applications are down, an end-to-end solution ensures that the root of the problem can be identified quickly and downtime can be minimized. Such a tool can be combined with regular performance testing to ensure that all applications are monitored and end users have a consistent and satisfying experience.

In addition to being an end-to-end solution, a monitoring tool also needs to generate real time alerts so that optimum application performance can be ensured at all times. IT managers can know the performance of all applications through the real-time alerts related to application availability and their response times. Such a monitoring system generally allows managers to establish certain thresholds. When these set thresholds are crossed, the system generates an alert so that IT managers can stop end users from being affected by any problem in the applications. This technique, along with performance testing, can ensure that application performance is up to the par.

The monitoring tool also needs to be consistent and proactive for successfully measuring application performance. Such proactive measures will ensure that any issues with the application can be resolved as soon as possible. Proactive monitoring also means that small problems can be prevented from becoming huge issues, and application performance is optimized. This way, all business-critical applications can function 24/7 without a problem.

Having a monitoring tool which gauges application performance in all the above-mentioned ways helps IT and network managers in making sure that they reduce the number of irate calls from end users about application downtime.

Tevron's solutions have been certified by Citrix Systems and are "Citrix Ready"

CitraTest, CitraTest VU, and CitraTest APM have been certified by Citrix Systems and are "Citrix Ready".

Nashua, New Hampshire, June 25, 2010 - Tevron today announced that its APM and Testing solutions are "Citrix Ready". These solutions include CitraTest, CitraTest APM, and CitraTest VU. Citrix Ready™ is a Citrix Systems program that allows users to quickly and easily find solutions recommended by Citrix that are trusted to enhance Citrix offerings. The Citrix Ready program saves IT buyers’ time, money and hassle when it comes to making a purchasing decision. With the latest releases of CitraTest, CitraTest APM, and CitraTest VU, Tevron again is taking the lead role in the APM & Testing industry in providing full support for every Citrix environment including MetaFrame®, NFuse®, SecureICA™, WinFrame®, XenApp™, XenCenter®, XenClient™, XenDesktop®, XenServer®, and XenEnterprise. "For the past decade, Tevron has been & will continue to be the clear leader in providing Monitoring and Testing solutions for all Citrix based technologies. When using Tevron’s solutions, IT managers will spend less time dealin with crisis issues, and fighting costly fires and more time delivering efficiencies and new services to their customers, further adding value to their business. If you are working with Citrix products, you should be speaking with Tevron," says Jay Labadini, Vice President.

To learn more about Tevron’s automated testing & monitoring solutions or to request additional information, please call +1.702.518.7435, email sales@tevron.com or visit www.tevron.com.

ABOUT TEVRON

Tevron® is a global leader in APM and Automated Testing. Through our all encompassing customer-centric vision and advanced technology, our APM & Testing Solutions allow the unique flexibility of supporting every application across the enterprise with one methodology delivering the ability to test, monitor, enforce SLAs, and optimize performance with confidence and ease. Founded in 2001, Tevron® is a global organization and is privately held. Our vast and diverse ranges of customers are global leaders and include companies such as Alcon Labs, Alverno, Northrop Grumman, Xerox, Hewlett Packard, Siemens, and Lucent Technologies, to name a few.

TRADEMARKS

Tevron, the Tevron logo, and CitraTest are registered trademarks of Tevron, LLC. Citrix, Citrix Ready, MetaFrame®, NFuse®, SecureICA™, WinFrame®, XenApp™, XenCenter®, XenClient™, XenDesktop®, and XenEnterprise are registered trademarks of Citrix Systems. All other product references herein are either trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Tevron Solutions Fully Support all Eclipsys Applications

Nashua, New Hampshire, June 17, 2010 - Tevron today announced the addition of support for all Eclipsys environments to its suite of APM & Testing solutions. Eclipsys (Nasdaq: ECLP) is a leader in delivering advanced healthcare IT solutions that make a tangible difference in quality, safety and cost-effectiveness. With the latest releases of CitraTest, CitraTest APM, and CitraTest VU, Tevron again is taking the lead role in the APM & testing industry in providing support for every Eclipsys application including Sunrise Clinical Manager, Access Management, Revenue Cycle Management, HealthXchange, PeakPractice EHR/PM, and more. As many hospitals, healthcare systems, clinics, and physician practices move toward Eclipsys, Tevron’s APM & testing solutions will continue to offer the industry lead for application monitoring, load testing, and general automation for those critical deployments.

To learn more about Tevron’s automated testing & monitoring solutions or to request additional information, please call +1.702.518.7435, email sales@tevron.com or visit www.tevron.com.

ABOUT TEVRON

Tevron® is a global leader in APM and Automated Testing. Through our all encompassing customer-centric vision and advanced technology, our APM & Testing Solutions allow the unique flexibility of supporting every application across the enterprise with one methodology delivering the ability to test, monitor, enforce SLAs, and optimize performance with confidence and ease. Founded in 2001, Tevron® is a global organization and is privately held. Our vast and diverse ranges of customers are global leaders and include companies such as Alcon Labs, Alverno, Northrop Grumman, Xerox, Hewlett Packard, Siemens, and Lucent Technologies, to name a few.

TRADEMARKS

Tevron, the Tevron logo, and CitraTest are registered trademarks of Tevron, LLC. Eclipsys is a registered trademark of Eclipsys. All other product references herein are either trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Service Level Agreements: Some features and advantages

A Service Level Agreement (SLA) is an important step for establishing a business engagement. When a Service Level Agreement is signed between a vendor and a client, it contains the parameters which will guide the business relationship. A SLA defines the deliverables, priorities, responsibilities and guarantees/warranties associated with the services provided. Service Level Agreements are particularly important for IT service vendors, as buyers specifically look for vendors who define the terms and conditions and roadmap for achieving the deadline of the project from the start. Having established standards and procedures to follow will also allow effective IT service management and performance testing for all business applications. Vendors who wish to get outsourcing projects from IT companies need to have a strong Service Level Agreement to convince them to outsource to them. Forming, tracking and managing SLAs is also an important aspect of the business engagement.

The IT service industry gives particular importance to a Service Level Agreement in all its contracts. Critical business functions depend on softwares and a single malfunction in IT operations can severely damage the bottom line and business functionality. It is hence very important to have a defined process and strict rules to ensure that the promised IT services will be delivered. A Service Level Agreement helps define these processes and regulated the business engagement. It not only helps in IT service management, but is also a good tool for performance testing.

Features of a good Service Level Agreement

A Service Level Agreement is generally customized according to a client’s requirement and hence differs from client to client. However, an effective SLA has some common key aspects. 5 of the most important aspects an SLA should include are:

• Definition what services are being provided


• What the measurement criteria for services will be


• Method of delivery of services


• Action to be taken if the provider fails to deliver as promised


• What the quality standards of the services will be

Advantages of having a SLA

The vendor and the client both benefit from having a Service Level Agreement in place before the start of the project. Some of the important advantages a SLA are:

• Documented evidence of business engagement


• Defines what the quality expectation will be


• Defines the implementation of the agreement


• Becomes a referring point in case of disagreement between both parties


• Gives a standard against which the quality of the services can be measured


• The goals and methodology are clarified from the start

Look for a Good Transaction Monitoring Tool to Help your Business Grow

With the web becoming an important means for businesses to deliver their products and services, there has been a steady increase in the number of transactions taking place online. Due to this increase in online transactions, it has become of utmost importance that businesses undertake transaction monitoring, so that they can ensure that the end users have a smooth experience in all transactions. In the whole process which the users undertake, there are various points at which a transaction can break down. In case of an e-commerce website, stocks may run out, the page may fail to load or credit card validation can fail. In such a case, a strong transaction monitoring tool can help in ensuring that such failures do not happen. The IT team can use the transaction monitoring tool to actively monitor all transactions.

With a monitoring tool all for transactions, businesses can ensure that all users have an error-free experience and are able to complete all online transactions smoothly. A business with no transaction monitoring tool, risks losing its clients to a competitor providing a better web experience. Actively monitoring all transactions for errors is hence of vital importance for those businesses which depend on their website for revenue.

If you are looking for a transaction monitoring tool for your business, the following are some features you need to look for:

• Transaction monitoring for a smooth user experience

Your transaction monitoring tool needs to consider all the elements affecting the user’s experience, whether they are from within firewalls or outside them. It should be able to undertake proactive transaction monitoring from the user’s perspective, so that the IT team can eliminate all bottlenecks resulting in an error-free transaction for the user.

• End to end transaction monitoring
  

There may be multiple pages of the website that the user uses for completing one transaction. In turn, each page of the website also undertakes a transaction. The IT team hence not only needs to know about the problem in the process, but also where exactly the problem has taken place. A strong transaction monitoring tool has to be able to monitor transactions from start to end, so that all bottlenecks can be identified and eliminated quickly.

• An easy-to-use transaction monitoring tool

Your IT team should be able to use and deploy the transaction monitoring tool with ease. With such a tool, active transaction monitoring can be undertaken so that bottlenecks can be identified and eliminated and end users have a smooth experience.

• Dependable

You need to find an experienced and trustworthy service provider who can provide you with a robust transaction monitoring tool to meet all business requirements. You need to be able to undertake active transaction monitoring so that any problems can be solved before the end users are affected.

Due to the popularity of transaction monitoring, a lot of service providers have started offering customized solutions in the past few years. Look for an experienced service provider who can give you a customized monitoring tool so that all the transactions related to your business pass without a problem.

Tevron Solutions Fully Support all Cerner Applications

Nashua, New Hampshire, May 6, 2010 – Tevron today announced the addition of support for all Cerner environments to its suite of APM & Testing solutions. Cerner is a global supplier of healthcare solutions. Working together with more than 8,000 clients worldwide, Cerner is solving healthcare's many challenges by making sure the right people have the right information at the right time. With the latest releases of CitraTest, CitraTest APM, and CitraTest VU, Tevron again istaking the lead role in the APM & testing industry in providing support for every Cerner application including Millennium, PowerWorks, LifeSciences, and more. As many medical groups, hospitals, pharmacies, and integrated healthcare organizations move towards Cerner, Tevron’s APM & testing solutions will continue to offer the industry lead for application monitoring, load testing, and general automation for those critical deployments.

To learn more about Tevron’s automated testing and monitoring solutions or to request additional information, please call +1.702.518.7435, email sales@tevron.com or visit www.tevron.com.

ABOUT TEVRON

Tevron® is a global leader in APM and Automated Testing. Through our all encompassing customer-centric vision and advanced technology, our APM & Testing Solutions allow the unique flexibility of supporting every application across the enterprise with one methodology delivering the ability to test, monitor, enforce SLAs, and optimize performance with confidence and ease. Founded in 2001, Tevron® is a global organization and is privately held. Our vast and diverse range of customers are global leaders and include companies such as Alcon Labs, Alverno, Northrop Grumman, Xerox, Hewlett Packard, Siemens, and Lucent Technologies, to name a few.

TRADEMARKS

Tevron, the Tevron logo, and CitraTest are registered trademarks of Tevron, LLC. Cerner is a registered trademark of Cerner. All other product references herein are either trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Want to undertake performance testing for your business applications? Importance and objectives you should know

Performance testing is being increasingly undertaken by organizations which depend on applications for critical business activities. Such performance testing of applications can help evaluate how the applications are performing and are crucial for avoiding downtime in mission-critical applications. IT teams can ensure that all applications being tested are available on time so that the bottom line of the organization is not affected by outages. Such availability can also ensure that all service level agreement conditions are met. For you to test the performance of your business applications, you need to know why you require it and what objectives performance testing can achieve for your organization.

Performance Testing: Importance


• Performance testing of all business critical application is important as it helps in improving the overall quality of services provided


• It is only through performance testing that you can ensure that all applications are available so that the end users have a smooth and satisfactory experience when buying your products or services


• Testing is also important if you want to meet all the terms mentioned in the service level agreement


• You can also avoid facing bottlenecks which hamper your business growth. Testing of applications ensures that all problems are solved before the applications go into the production stage


• Performance testing of applications helps meet the expectations of clients for a fast and reliable application
  

Performance Testing: Objectives


• Comparing the performance of two or more applications


• Analyzing the bottlenecks in applications and creating a plan for solving them


• Minimizing the costs through performance testing


• Reducing the response time of applications


• Meeting service level agreement conditions


• Ensuring that all applications meet the criteria set by the organization and its clients


• Eliminating any error or malfunctions in all applications before they go into the production stage

A majority of organizations which use applications for revenue-generating activities have realized the importance of performance testing and are using the appropriate tools which help them maintain the heath of their applications. Until a few years ago, multiple testing solutions were required for different applications. But with the rising popularity of performance testing, APM solution providers now provide integrated tools which cover all applications across an organization. There are many professional APM solution providers which can provide a customized performance testing tool for your organization, with which you can optimize the performance of all applications. This will not only help you meet service level agreement conditions, but will also prevent downtimes in critical applications.

Tevron Solutions Fully Support all Epic Applications

Nashua, New Hampshire, April 26, 2010 - Tevron today announced the addition of support for all Epic environments to its suite of APM & Testing solutions. Epic makes integrated software for mid-size to large medical groups and integrated healthcare organizations. One database spans clinical, access and revenue functions and extends into the home. With the latest releases of CitraTest, CitraTest APM, and CitraTest VU, Tevron again is taking the lead role in the APM & testing industry in providing support for every Epic application (EpicCare) covering Ambulatory EMR, Practice Management, Beyond your Walls, Inpatient EMR, Hospital Billing/ADT, and more. As many medical groups, hospitals, and integrated healthcare organizations move towards Epic, Tevron’s APM & testing solutions will continue to offer the industry lead for application monitoring, load testing, and general automation for those critical deployments.

To learn more about Tevron’s automated testing & monitoring solutions or to request additional information, please call +1.702.518.7435, email sales@tevron.com or visit www.tevron.com.

ABOUT TEVRON

Tevron® is a global leader in APM and Automated Testing. Through our all encompassing customer-centric vision and advanced technology, our APM & Testing Solutions allow the unique flexibility of supporting every application across the enterprise with one methodology delivering the ability to test, monitor, enforce SLAs, and optimize performance with confidence and ease. Founded in 2001, Tevron® is a global organization and is privately held. Our vast and diverse ranges of customers are global leaders and include companies such as Alcon Labs, Alverno, Northrop Grumman, Xerox, Hewlett Packard, Siemens, and Lucent Technologies, to name a few.

TRADEMARKS

Tevron, the Tevron logo, and CitraTest are registered trademarks of Tevron, LLC. EpicCare is a registered trademark of Epic. All other product references herein are either trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Does your monitoring tool have these 4 features?

A good monitoring tool is very useful for businesses which conduct their business-critical activities with the help of various applications. It helps in knowing whether their application’s performance is up to the mark or not. However, many business owners and IT heads struggle to find a monitoring system which is suitable to their business and meets all their requirements. Ideally, any monitoring tool which helps in preventing bottlenecks in the applications and prevents losses should be enough for monitoring applications within the organization. However, there are some features which your monitoring tool should have, which will make it a strong one. The following are some of them:

1. It should support all applications within the business

Until some time ago, application monitoring tools were created specifically for only a few popular applications. This required businesses to deploy multiple monitoring systems for them to be able to monitor all applications that were in use. This was an expensive and tedious task. There was a demand for a single monitoring tool, which would cover all applications across the organization. As a result, APM vendors have now come up with a single tool, which would reduce costs as well as efforts. Such a monitoring tool will help in ensuring that service level agreements are met and the business is managed efficiently.

2. The monitoring tool should be able to give real time alerts

Does the monitoring system you are considering provide real time alerts related to the availability and performance of your applications? If the answer to that question is no, then you should consider some other monitoring tool. In case of business-critical applications, you require real-time alerts if the application has a problem or if the response time is high. A good monitoring system will not only help IT managers in establishing a threshold, it will also provide real-time alerts in case those thresholds are crossed. This will also help in IT service management of your business.

3. It should provide proactive and consistent application monitoring

Monitoring of business-critical applications should be a proactive and consistent activity. A monitoring tool which helps in proactively monitoring applications can help in spotting as well as overcoming bottlenecks before they start affecting end users. Such a monitoring system will help in ensuring that all applications are available 24/7, so that the bottom line is not affected by application downtimes. Businesses can also avoid breaches in service level agreement conditions with such a monitoring tool.

4. The monitoring tool should not intrude on the business environment

The best monitoring system for an organization is one which is non-intrusive to the production environment. When you are looking for a good tool, inquire about one which excludes installation of any element on the database servers. Not only will such an independent monitoring tool help in reducing down time and improving application performance, it will also make IT service management easier for the system managers.

Thinking of undertaking performance testing? Some objectives to keep in mind

Performance testing helps businesses and IT departments to ensure that their systems perform optimally under particular loads. This is especially useful in cases where the applications are critical to the bottom line of the business. Through performance testing, IT professionals can determine how applications perform in certain pre-determined conditions. They can also solve bottlenecks which hamper business service management goals. Performance testing is hence vital in ensuring that all applications are available, stable and speedy when put under load and that service level agreement conditions are met.

Since testing is vital for IT service management, it is crucial to keep its overall objectives in mind when testing your applications. Various performance testing objectives to keep in mind are:

• Improving application performance


• Solving application bottlenecks


• Ensuring that business applications uphold certain standards


• Comparing application performance for two applications


• Minimizing response times of applications


• Assessing the stability and performance of applications


• Ensuring that end users have a smooth experience


• Conforming to the established service level agreement conditions


• Minimizing organization costs through performance testing

Businesses which depend on various applications for revenue-generating activities have increasingly started using performance testing tools to ensure that all applications are fully functional at all times. Performance testing is also included in the business service management goals of all such businesses. Until recently, a business required many testing solutions in order to cover all applications used by it. However, now many APM vendors provide performance testing solutions which cover each and every application across the organization, which makes the process uncomplicated and affordable.

Keeping the above-mentioned performance testing objectives in mind will not only help you get clarity while testing your applications, it will also help you in selecting a testing solution which meets all your testing goals.

Tevron announces the launch of the German version of the Tevron web site

Nashua, USA, March 25 - Tevron, a leader in the application performance and monitoring solutions, announced the launch of the German edition of its main site. Customer can now visit “www.tevron.de” for information about its solutions and services for the German market.

Tevron is a global leader in providing application performance and monitoring solutions and is headquartered in Nashua, NH. The company’s flagship products include CitraTest APM for application performance monitoring and CitraTest VU for performance testing. Tevron’s monitoring solutions are used by companies to ensure that all applications across the organization are up and running optimally. Tevron has successfully delivered monitoring solutions that support every IT enterprise application to hundreds of customers worldwide.

To learn more about Tevron and its solutions, please visit www.tevron.com for the English version and "www.tevron.de" for the German version.

ABOUT TEVRON

Tevron® is a global leader in APM and Automated Testing. Through our all encompassing customer-centric vision and advanced technology, our APM & Testing Solutions allow the unique flexibility of supporting every application across the enterprise with one methodology delivering the ability to test, monitor, enforce SLAs, and optimize performance with confidence and ease. Founded in 2001, Tevron® is a global organization and is privately held. Our vast and diverse range of customers are global leaders and include companies such as Alcon Labs, Alverno, Northrop Grumman, Xerox, Hewlett Packard, Siemens, and Lucent Technologies, to name a few.

TRADEMARKS

Tevron, the Tevron logo, and CitraTest are registered trademarks of Tevron, LLC. Microsoft Dynamics is a registered trademark of Microsoft. All other product references herein are either trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Developing a Service Level Agreement? Some Steps to Ensure it is an Effective One

Service level agreements are an important part of business engagements between a client and a service provider. They establish the levels of services that the client expects and the service provider delivers. A service level agreement is especially important for businesses which use applications for business-critical activities. A single malfunction affecting the application performance can have a direct impact on the bottom line of the business. A SLA basically sets the expectation for quality of service which is deliverable and creates a roadmap on how to achieve it. In the later part of the service contract, a SLA can help in IT Service Management as well.

That said, establishing a service level agreement is a complicated process, which needs to be handled properly. Some steps for developing an effective SLA are as follows:

Get the Basic Info Right

The first step to developing an effective service level agreement is gathering the basic info. This needs to be done by both the client and the service provider. Both parties need to ensure that the client’s expectations and the service provider’s deliverables match. If this basic information is not collected properly, the service level agreement is meaningless.

Define the Process for Working Together

This is the most important step of developing a service level agreement. There are bound to be differences in the communication style, expectations and working methods between the client and the service provider, which need to be solved at this stage. Only when there is a defined process of overcoming differences, can an effective service level agreement be chalked out. On the basis of the agreed terms, the client can then go ahead with Business Service Management for his/her business.

Consensus

In many cases, the clients and service providers may have a varied viewpoint on what the service level agreement can achieve. Don’t let the negotiations break down due to your strong viewpoint; keep the possibilities of discussion open so you can develop an effective SLA and meet IT Service Management goals. At this stage, iron out all differences of opinion and develop the SLA further.

Develop the SLA

Next comes developing the structure and content of the service level agreement. This will take up some time, as it consists of discussions and negotiations regarding the terms and conditions to be included in the SLA. After the first draft is created, the people who are responsible from the client and service provider’s side need to review and offer suggestions for it. After all the required revisions are made, the service level agreement can be finalized.

Apply the SLA

Once the service level agreement has been applied, its management is also an important aspect. The client and the service provider should elect a member each, who can be the point of contact in case of any problems related to the SLA. In addition to this, reviews of the SLA and modifications and enhancement in services provided should also be taken care of.

Why should you undertake performance testing for your business applications?

It might seem as a simple enough question, but many businesses have trouble answering it specifically. So why do we undertake performance testing? The answer to that is “To determine the performance of application in certain pre-determined conditions.” By undertaking performance testing for your applications, you can not only track application performance under certain conditions but can also perform IT service management successfully. With performance testing, IT teams can know how an application performs under a particular workload, and solve bottlenecks, if any. The purpose of performance testing may be:

• Identifying application performance bottlenecks
• Ensuring that all business application meet a certain criteria
• Comparing the performance of two applications

Some things to keep in mind while undertaking performance testing of applications are:

Setting precise application performance criteria

While setting application performance criteria, keep the end users in mind always. Performance testing is undertaken for the main purpose of meeting end users expectations; hence the end users’ perspective is very important for performance testing. Interact with end users regarding the problems they face and what their expectations are. Most businesses which undertake performance testing want to ensure that they meet customer expectations as well as meet their business service management goals.

The importance of database in performance testing

IT teams usually undertake performance testing by having simultaneous user sessions and noting the response times of applications. Load testing is also performed on applications to check the effect of multiple simultaneous user sessions. This is crucial for companies which give importance to IT service management. That said, the database has a drastic effect on the end user experience. As an example, a user can have a transaction very fast if it is inserted in an empty table; however, the response time may be slow once the table grows. IT teams hence need to give importance to the database for performance testing of applications.

Plan it properly

Performance testing needs some planning in advance. For example, you can ensure application performance by getting scalable architecture and strong hardware resources for your business. Only after this is taken care of, IT managers check whether all applications are available and working well. This can be done with a performance testing solutions from a trusted vendor. This will also ensure that business service management goals are met with. Interact with end users to get an idea of the applications they use frequently and the kind of problems they face. That way, you can save the time spent on performance testing of applications that are used rarely by users.

Tevron Solutions Fully Support all Microsoft Dynamics Environments

CitraTest, CitraTest VU, and CitraTest APM are the only single license, integrated solutions for conducting application performance monitoring, functional, regression and latency testing for every enterprise application that is accessible from a Windows based machine.

Nashua, New Hampshire, March 5, 2010 – Tevron today announced the addition of support for all Microsoft Dynamics environments to its suite of APM & Testing solutions. Microsoft Dynamics is a line of familiar, adaptable enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) solutions designed to meet almost any business need and help people make important business decisions confidently. With the latest releases of CitraTest, CitraTest APM, and CitraTest VU, Tevron again is taking the lead role in the APM & testing industry in providing support for every Microsoft Dynamics environment. As companies across the world move towards Microsoft Dynamics, Tevron’s APM & testing solutions will continue to offer the industry lead for application monitoring, load testing, and general automation for those deployments.

To learn more about Tevron’s automated testing solutions or to request additional information, please call +1.702.518.7435 or visit www.tevron.com.

ABOUT TEVRON

Tevron® is a global leader in APM and Automated Testing. Through our all encompassing customer-centric vision and advanced technology, our APM & Testing Solutions allow the unique flexibility of supporting every application across the enterprise with one methodology delivering the ability to test, monitor, enforce SLAs, and optimize performance with confidence and ease. Founded in 2001, Tevron® is a global organization and is privately held. Our vast and diverse range of customers are global leaders and include companies such as Alcon Labs, Alverno, Northrop Grumman, Xerox, Hewlett Packard, Siemens, and Lucent Technologies, to name a few.

TRADEMARKS

Tevron, the Tevron logo, and CitraTest are registered trademarks of Tevron, LLC. Microsoft Dynamics is a registered trademark of Microsoft. All other product references herein are either trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Important Components of a Strong Transaction Monitoring Tool

There is a tremendous increase in the number of online transactions has the web has become a medium for businesses to deliver their products and services. As the website becomes the main tool for businesses to conduct a majority of activities, transaction monitoring becomes an important component of ensuring that end users can use the website without problems. Despite the importance of smooth transactions, there are many points at which they can break down: validation of credit cards can fail, pages might fail to load or e-commerce websites may run out of stock. Such failures can be avoided with the help of active monitoring and transaction monitoring by the IT team. Through transaction monitoring, businesses can make sure that all users have a consistent experience when undertaking transactions. This, in turn, ensures that the users are able to conduct online transactions smoothly. If there is no active monitoring and transactions break down, the business risks losing clients to a competitor, whose website gives the user a better experience. Proactive application monitoring for smoother transactions is hence a must for businesses depending on their website for revenue.

Some Important components of an online transaction monitoring solution are as follows:

• Transaction monitoring from users perspective
  A strong transaction monitoring solution has to take into account all the elements which affect the users’ transactions from not only within firewalls but from outside them as well. Active monitoring of all transactions from the user’s perspective will help the IT team in making the user experience as smooth as possible by eliminating all bottlenecks.
  
  
• End to end transaction monitoring
  A user might use multiple pages of the website in order to complete a transaction. Each page, in turn, undertakes transactions in order to complete the transaction. It is not enough for IT teams to know that there was a problem in the process; they need to know exactly where the problem took place. A transaction monitoring solution monitors the transaction from end to end, so that a problem can be pinpointed easily.
  
  
• Easy to use
  A good transaction monitoring tool should be easy to use and deploy, and should make the work of IT team easy. The transaction monitoring solution should be able to undertake active monitoring of all transactions so that the users’ experience is made as smooth as possible.
  
  
• Reliable
  Companies looking for a transaction monitoring solution should look for an experienced service provider, which provides reliable solutions for businesses. The IT team should be able to undertake active monitoring with the help of such a reliable tool so that problems can be solved before end users are affected by them.

The number of service providers offering transaction monitoring tools for businesses has risen in the past few years. A customized solution from an experienced service provider can help businesses in undertaking active monitoring and application monitoring for smoother transactions.

4 Features of a Good Application Monitoring Tool

Businesses which rely in their IT infrastructure for business-critical activities need a strong monitoring system or monitoring tool for determining whether their applications are functioning properly or not. However, business owners and IT managers usually struggle to find an ideal monitoring tool for its IT infrastructure, which suits all its business requirements and helps prevent bottlenecks which affect the bottom line. In this post, we discuss some critical features your application monitoring tool should have, in order to become a strong tool for system monitoring.

A strong application monitoring tool should have the following four features:

1. Support For All Applications

Until a few years ago, monitoring tools offered support for specific popular applications only. This meant that businesses needed to deploy different monitoring tools to monitor various applications used by them. However, with the increasing requirement of a single monitoring system which can monitor all applications throughout the organization, new vendors have now come up with a single monitoring tool. Such an all-encompassing monitoring system eliminates the requirements of different tools as well as reduces costs.

2. Real Time Alerts

A strong monitoring tool is one which can provide real time alerts on application availability and their response times, which helps IT managers in knowing the performance of all applications. Such a monitoring system helps IT managers establish a threshold, and generate real time alerts in case those established thresholds are crossed. IT managers can then take the appropriate steps to overcome those bottlenecks before they start affecting end users.

3. Proactive And Consistent Monitoring

Application monitoring needs to be undertaken proactively and consistently by the monitoring system so that application health issues can be addressed as soon as possible. With such proactive application monitoring, bottlenecks can be prevented before they become bigger problems. Such a monitoring tool can help IT teams ensure application availability, so that all the business-critical applications function 24/7 without a hitch.

4. Non-intrusive

An ideal monitoring system should also be non-intrusive to the production environment. Find a monitoring tool which does not install any element on the database servers. Such a non-intrusive and independent monitoring tool will ensure that, all applications across an organization are monitored constantly and any bottlenecks can be avoided before they start affecting end users.

Solve Application Performance Bottlenecks Before They Affect End Users

Application performance is perhaps the most important aspect for small or mid-sized businesses which depend on applications for their business. Such businesses have fewer resources and need to make the existing ones work well. It is even more important for small businesses to undertake application monitoring so that bottlenecks in applications can be solved before they start affecting end-users. This is one way of ensuring that application performance is up to the par. Some strategies work really well when application performance needs to be improved before it starts affecting end users. The following are some of them:

Real time view of application performance
The first step IT managers need to take for ensuring application performance is have a monitoring tool through which they can analyze traffic, data flow, transaction details etc. This helps in knowing real time performance of applications as well as the network. If IT managers are able to understand the health of the application and the network, they will be able to pinpoint whether application performance problems are because of the network or due to some other issue. This will also enable proactive application monitoring within the organization. Such real time view of performance of applications will help small business owners in ensuring that business critical applications are always performing optimally.

Transaction monitoring
IT managers can help solve application performance bottlenecks quickly if they are monitoring application transactions. Having a detailed look into transactions can help IT managers know exactly what went wrong and solve the problem quickly, before the problem starts affecting end-users. Transaction monitoring also ensures that small businesses can meet the ever-demanding service level agreement conditions.

Real time alerts
Small and mid-sized businesses should consider using monitoring tools which give real time alerts in case of problems within the application. IT managers who want to improve application performance will need the help of a strong application monitoring tool. Through the monitoring tool, IT managers can establish certain thresholds of acceptable service levels. Establishing this threshold of performance is a very important step in ensuring that application monitoring is perfect. When application performance falls below this threshold, a real time alert is generated, which lets the IT team know that application performance is not up to the par. Such real time alerts pertaining to application performance can help the IT manager in identifying and resolving bottlenecks before end users are impacted.

For small and mid-sized businesses to survive in this tough market, it is vital that business-critical applications are monitored for performance and that application performance bottlenecks are solved before end users or business is affected. Business owners can choose from some of the many experienced APM service providers and select a strong application monitoring tool which can help them solve application performance issues before they affect end users.

Application Monitoring: Some Major Challenges Businesses Face

Application monitoring is a must for all businesses which use IT for business-critical activities. However, businesses face many challenges when it comes to application monitoring. Any down time in applications can directly affect the bottom line of businesses. In order to undertake active monitoring of applications, such challenges need to be identified first. Businesses face some of the following problems while monitoring applications.

Proactive Application Monitoring

Proactive application monitoring help in preventing or solving application bottlenecks before they start affecting end users. However, a certain threshold needs to be set before IT teams can ensure application availability. In case the established threshold is surpassed, the monitoring tool generates a real-time alert. Studying application performance for setting this threshold is a major challenge for almost all businesses. For overcoming this challenge, the IT department needs to determine the number of processes which need constant application monitoring, on basis of which they can set the threshold.

Application Monitoring for Multiple & Complex Applications

If the business has global users, the applications may be very complex because they have to support many locations, languages and cultures. Application monitoring of such complex applications becomes a major challenge for IT departments. Active monitoring of such applications can only be done after understanding the interconnectivity and flow of applications.

Application Monitoring for Shared Applications

Businesses often share applications in order to utilize resources optimally. Application monitoring of a single application is a simple task; however, a shared application creates the complication of constantly tracking logs, memory, disk resources etc. As an example, a single application using a lot of resources could affect the performance of other applications within the organization. Active monitoring of such applications can only be done through an effective application monitoring solution.

Application Monitoring for Clustered Applications

Many business applications are hosted in clustered environments with systems located at separate locations. This creates an application monitoring challenge for tracking failure logs, resources like disk, memory etc. Only by undertaking active monitoring of all the different components can an IT department track which application is causing problems.

A strong application monitoring tool can help overcome all the above-mentioned challenges for business organizations. There are a number of service providers in the market today who can help businesses ensure that service level agreement conditions are met. An experienced APM solution provider offers tools with which IT teams can undertake active monitoring of applications, ensuring end users are not affected by bottlenecks.