Mastering Code-Level Monitoring: A Guide for Developers

Production monitoring is key to the success of any application today. A developer needs to know the minute details of the code they worked on.

They need to know how their code behaves in production and the failsafe for it. This is why the blog below discusses how your developers can measure the performance of their code, which helps them resolve performance issues faster.

You should also keep an eye on your headless CMS as it makes editing quicker and allows managing content across numerous channels. It makes scaling simpler and gives developers the freedom to select their front-end tools.

1. Spontaneous Sampling

Spontaneous sampling is one of the best Application Monitoring features for every developer.

It allows developers to monitor their applications in real-time, identify potential performance issues, and take corrective action if necessary.

With the help of spontaneous sampling, developers can ensure that their applications are running optimally and avoid potential problems before they impact users.

To use this type of sampling, you first need to instrument your code.

This involves adding a unique code to allow the sampler to collect data. Once your code is instrumented, you can start the spontaneous sampler and let it run for a period of time.

The sampler will collect data about how your code is executing and will generate a report. This report will show you the most heavily used code paths, the average execution time for each code path, and other important information.

Spontaneous sampling lets you get a detailed picture of your code's performance and identify any bottlenecks. This can help you optimize your code and improve its overall performance.

2. Run-Time Issues

Application performance isn’t just about speeding up your code. It’s about how your code interacts with the environment and how it ultimately affects the user experience.

It’s about how fast your code responds to the user input and how much time it takes to load, along with the stability of your code and the way it behaves under load. 

Additionally, performance is also linked to the network, the hardware, and the operating system.

Typically, developers use a few measures to determine whether their program is dependable and performant.

Variations in performance, delay, or Apdex are typically significant indicators that you should explore further to rule out any potential performance issues.

Wouldn't it be convenient if you had a tool that informs you about serious latency issues and what is happening with your application?

3. Real User Application Persona Logging

What is the connection between a User’s Experience and Application Monitoring? The real experience of a user is always affected by the application's performance.

The experience is defined by the application's performance, the data quality, the app's speed, and how easy it is to use.

The User’s experience is defined by how the application is working, how it responds to the user’s actions, and how fast the application responds to these actions.

App developers can easily identify the precise functions and lines of code responsible for delayed app launches, jank, or any other issue that leads to a user deleting a mobile app using Profiling for iOS and Android.

Profiling is intended to provide programmers with in-depth, code-level knowledge about how their software operates in real-world settings on actual user devices.

4. Session Replay- Bridging The Gap between Code And User Experience

Session Replay can be one of the powerful Application Monitoring for Developers' features that allow them to go back and replay the steps leading up to a performance issue.

This can be immensely helpful in debugging as it can provide developers with a wealth of contextual information about what the user was doing leading up to the problem.

Additionally, session replay can also account for mouse clicks, and scrolling - providing even more information to help developers get to the root cause of the problem quickly.

What is an Application Monitoring Tool?

Application Monitoring Tools is an umbrella term for the different services used to keep track of and collect performance data from your applications.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) collects data from your application by instrumenting it or using a proxy that receives the data that has been collected.

Reporting, Alerting, and Monitoring (RAM) capabilities help you understand this data in a timely manner. Log management tools allow you to store and analyze your application data.

Best Application Performance Monitoring Tools you Can Try

Performance monitoring tools are the most important tool you need in your arsenal if you are a software engineer or an IT manager.

Without these tools, you don't have the right visibility of what's happening within your application. This means you can't prioritize your work or fix any bottlenecks.

As applications and app usage become more complex, you need the right tools to help you gain control and visibility of your application. In this blog, we will look at the best application performance monitoring tools in 2023.

1. Middleware

Middleware is an Application Process Monitoring software which your DevOps teams can utilize  for various functions such as

I) Log Monitoring

With the help of this, they can map and monitor various logs or records such as live logs, past logs, etc., which display data of application usage on web browsers, cloud services, etc.

This allows them to detect potential threats and repair or eradicate them before they cause problems to their host devices, along with optimizing the overall process flow. 

II) Infrastructure Monitoring

With the help of infrastructure monitoring, they can map various aspects of their entire overall infrastructure and add to it or modify it as per their needs. For instance, they can set up new AWS or Kubernetes-enabled configurations within their infrastructure etc.

Simply speaking, this tool follows the essential concept of observability with respect to developers as it essentially logs, tracks and analyzes the data passing within the portals of your system.

This proactive monitoring has quite a few benefits, as seen below.

Pros

• Identify errors in real-run time and improve upon them
• Overall application and infrastructure tracking and maintenance
• Allows for intra-system and inter-system-DevOps team communication

Cons

• Relatively High Setup Costs
• Does not cover some platforms in certain cases

2. SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor

Monitoring applications is an excellent way to ensure that the applications you've spent the effort and time developing adhere to performance and quality standards.

There are many different tools available for monitoring applications. But not all of them are up to the job. SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is one of the best application performance monitoring tools on the market today.

It's a lightweight application that can be installed on-premises or in the cloud; it's extensible, affordable, and has all the functionality needed by developers and administrators to keep applications fast and responsive.

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor provides comprehensive monitoring and reporting of server and application performance, including availability, performance metrics, and usage.

It also offers a wide range of features and options to customize the monitoring and reporting to meet specific needs.

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is an affordable, easy-to-use solution that can help organizations improve their server and application performance.

If you're looking for an application monitoring solution, check out SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor!

Pros

• Intended for use with large and corporate networks
• Has some of the greatest alerting features that strike a mix between usability and effectiveness
• Gives you greater control over tracking than similar tools since it offers both SNMP monitoring and packet analysis
• Leverages drag-and-drop panels to change the dashboard's appearance and experience
• Comprehensive reporting system with ready-made compliance templates

Cons

• Small networks might find this tool to be too feature-rich and complex

3. Datadog APM

Datadog is a cloud-based monitoring and analytics platform that provides robust application performance monitoring (APM) capabilities.

Datadog's APM tool is one of the most comprehensive and user-friendly on the market, offering a wide range of features and functionality to help you troubleshoot and optimize your applications.

Datadog's APM tool is designed to help you identify and resolve performance issues quickly and easily.

It provides detailed performance data for your applications, including request and response times, error rates, and slow SQL queries.

The tool also offers a variety of features to help you troubleshoot and optimize your applications, such as request tracing, application maps, and custom dashboards.

Datadog's APM tool is essential to any application performance monitoring strategy.

It is easy to use, offers a wealth of features and functionality, and provides detailed performance data that can help you troubleshoot and optimize your applications.

Pros

• Excellent, user-friendly, and customizable interface
• Without any server installations or onboarding expenses, monitoring is possible with cloud-based Services
• Provides a comprehensive picture of the performance and usability of the network
• Supports auto-discovery, which creates dynamic network topology maps

Cons

• No such mentionable cons were found

4. ManageEngine Applications Manager

The modern digital business demands innovation. As a result, the applications you run are always changing and improving, with the rate of change accelerating.

You need real-time visibility into how your applications are performing so you can deliver their value faster to your customers and remain competitive.

The rising complexity of applications and increased reliance on them has made it difficult for enterprises to detect performance bottlenecks and maintain the pace of their business.

The ManageEngine Applications Manager helps you keep a watch on the key performance metrics affecting your applications' deliverables, including latency, throughput, availability, and uptime.

A single-pane-of-glass view of the complete stack from URL to the line of code lets you quickly find issues that impact end users directly - eliminating the need for time-consuming manual testing or tedious log mining.

In addition to application performance monitoring, it also provides real-time access to rich insights across all layers of the application stack - including infrastructure components.

Pros

• Delivers both on-premises and cloud deployment solutions, providing businesses with additional installation alternatives
• Demonstrate how apps are interdependent to highlight how performance issues might very well affect business operations
• Provides log monitoring services

Cons

• Might be time-consuming to become proficient in all features and options

5. SolarWinds AppOptics

SolarWinds AppOptics is a powerful, AI-enabled app performance monitoring tool that provides you with the insights to troubleshoot your apps quickly and effectively.

AppOptics summarize service level & trace level metrics automatically to provide you with meaningful insights into your code's performance and help you prioritize issues for further investigation.

SolarWinds AppOptics monitors every layer of your app stack, providing service-level metrics aggregated based on unique application components.

It’s simple to pinpoint issues across your entire application and quickly identify the root cause of poor performance.

Pros

• Monitors the use of all key resources, including memory, and network
• Can keep track of platforms for Docker, Azure, and Hyper-V, giving it greater flexibility than alternatives

Cons

• No such mentionable cons were found

Wrap Up

Our X-level Application Monitoring for Developers service provides deep insight into application performance and availability.

It works by monitoring application traffic and transactions in real time and provides alerts and reports in the event of any issues.

We hope you enjoyed this article on XCode Application Monitoring for Developers. This is a topic that is important to all developers, and with this knowledge, we know that you will be able to take your application monitoring to the next level.