HPE launches AppTrace Pulse to monitor cloud apps

HPE street logoHewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has launched a service that developer clients can use to monitor their cloud app performances.

The HPE AppPulse Trace is intended for developers and DevOps teams to use for isolating and fixing problems. The new module fits into HPE’s Application Performance Monitoring (APM) software suite and is integrated with HPE’s analytics engine Vertica.

HPE claims it can pinpoint the exact lines of code and server location at the root of every glitch in the cloud. It achieves this by trawling massive volumes of data produced by applications and end user interactions. AppPulse Trace can find faults in user interactions, analyse crashes and measure resource usage, according to HPE. The intelligence can then be used by developers to fine tune apps, create new tools and rethink their approach to building applications.

AppPulse Trace works alongside two other modules already available, AppPulse Active and AppPulse Mobile. Active lets developers emulate real-user behaviour with scripts and synthetic transaction robots. This helps to model events and identify problems to fix before apps are put into production. AppPulse Mobile tracks the digital user experience of mobile apps in production, giving developers and DevOps teams real-user data so they can prioritise the issues affect users most. It also gives instant insight into the health of any application.

With developers under pressure to deliver apps at short notice this could be an indispensable tool according to Tony Sumpster, general manager of HPE’s IT Operations Management.

Beta test user Chris Trimper, Application Services Manager at Independent Health Association said it saved him nearly a whole week of work. “The worst way to monitor performance is to wait for someone to complain. With HPE AppPulse we saved 36 IT hours a month by reusing scripts and we reduced our average app response time from 12 seconds down to 4 seconds,” he said.