| Executive Summary | | | | pageso Reporting data in ways that provide insight into |
| The Internet and the Web continue to evolve to deliver | | | | Web 2.0 applications. |
| new customer experiences and increased application | | | | Getting the Right Data |
| utility. The label "Web 2.0," while imprecise, signifies the | | | | To sum up the importance of these issues, consider |
| newest and best examples of this evolutionary | | | | the popular saying coined by Tom DeMarco: You can't |
| process.Organizations are now adopting these Web | | | | control what you don't measure. Measuring the wrong |
| 2.0 technologies and design methods to enable the | | | | things, or basing key management decisions on reports |
| creation of richer and more responsive interactions. But | | | | that contain incomplete data, is as bad, if not worse, |
| to be effective, the resulting applications must also be | | | | than not measuring at all. So it's not wise to measure |
| significantly more complex than traditional Web sites, | | | | Web 2.0 applications using only the tools and |
| complicating performance management and imposing | | | | approaches developed for traditional Web sites. |
| new requirements on performance measurement | | | | Inaccurate data undermines the effectiveness of any |
| tools. | | | | program of systematic performance management |
| | | | and causes performance-tuning skills and resources to |
| The Internet and the Web have become the primary | | | | be applied in ways that are not optimal. It can also lead |
| vehicle for business communications, evolving to | | | | to unproductive interdepartmental conflicts and |
| subsume and replace older technologies. As software | | | | disputes over service-level agreements with internal or |
| technologies exploit steady advances in the Internet | | | | external service providers when staff question the |
| hardware platform, the Web continues to evolve to | | | | accuracy of the data, or discover discrepancies in |
| deliver new user experiences and increased | | | | data from different sources. |
| application utility. The most advanced example of the | | | | Keynote Web Performance Management Solutions |
| Web becoming a platform is the rich Internet | | | | Success in every one of these five performance |
| application (RIA), reflects the gradual transition of Web | | | | management activities depends crucially on an |
| applications from the simple thin-client Web browser to | | | | organization's ability to gather and report meaningful, |
| a richer distributed-function paradigm that behaves | | | | timely, and accurate measurement data with the focus |
| more like the desktop in a client/server model. | | | | on the right metrics. Since a key idea of Web 2.0 is |
| Measuring RIA Performance | | | | enhancing the user's experience, it is vital to measure |
| This architecture complicates performance | | | | actual customer experience proactively. |
| measurement, whose goal is to understand the | | | | Measuring the Diverse Customer Community |
| customer's experience. In an RIA, the time to complete | | | | On Web 2.0 sites, personalization options allow |
| a Web page download may no longer correspond to | | | | customers to tailor their experience of a site to their |
| something a user perceives as important, because (for | | | | individual preferences, and sites are carefully designed |
| example) the client engine may be prefetching some | | | | to download and display contents efficiently and |
| of the downloaded content for future use. Standard | | | | successfully in all major browsers. Because customers' |
| tools that measure the time for Web page downloads | | | | experience depends on their Internet connectivity, sites |
| to complete can record misleading data for RIAs. To | | | | may even adjust their content based on the browser's |
| implement RIAs successfully, enterprises must | | | | connection speed. Measurement data must reflect this |
| re-evaluate their approach to performance | | | | diversity. |
| management. Instead of relying on the definition of | | | | Measuring Upload and Download Performance |
| physical Web pages to drive the subdivision of | | | | In traditional Web applications, customers consume |
| application response times, RIA developers or tool | | | | content, so all performance measurement efforts |
| users must break the application into logical pages. | | | | have focused on download times as the key metric. |
| Measurement tools must recognize meaningful | | | | But as Web 2.0 applications add collaboration and |
| application milestones or markers that signal logical | | | | social networking features, customers also supply |
| boundaries of interest for reporting, and subdivide the | | | | content. To ensure the quality of a customer's |
| application's response time accordingly. | | | | experience, it's therefore necessary to measure and |
| The Importance of Web Performance Management | | | | report upload performance as well. |
| What does Web application performance mean to | | | | For example, the user of a collaborative application |
| you? Most business executives would evaluate the | | | | might navigate to a product or member directory, |
| success of a Web application by looking at business | | | | complete a login or authentication dialog,search for a |
| performance metrics such as revenue, costs, and | | | | certain subject or interest area, browse the results, |
| customer satisfaction. Because an application may be | | | | select a particular area of interest, proceed to an |
| created to serve customers, partners, members of an | | | | upload page or dialog, complete a browse dialog to |
| organization, or employees, the relative importance of | | | | select content to be uploaded from their laptop or |
| those metrics may vary. For any Web application, | | | | desktop, entering some additional descriptive metadata |
| effectiveness means simply fulfilling the planned design | | | | as appropriate for the application, and click the Upload |
| and delivery objectives, delivering online experiences | | | | button. Throughout this interaction download activities |
| that lead to satisfied customers, and so meeting the | | | | are minimal, and may respond rapidly. But if, after all |
| intended business performance goals. | | | | this work, the upload stage is painfully slow, or fails |
| Common Goals, Divided Responsibilities | | | | altogether, because of congestion at the server end, |
| In many organizations, responsibility for these four | | | | that customer may be lost forever. |
| aspects of effectiveness is divided among four groups | | | | For an organization needing to measure and ensure |
| or departments. | | | | the quality of its customers' experience when |
| Divide and Conquer: | | | | contributing content to a collaborative or social |
| Business - experts provide the content or specify the | | | | networking application. |
| behaviors that are the site's purpose (Utility). | | | | Conclusion |
| Design and usability - professionals specialize in making | | | | When considering the need for Web testing and |
| it easy for customers to navigate the site (Clarity). | | | | measurement, it can be tempting to view a Web |
| Site developers - build the site in ways that determine | | | | application simply as a collection of Web pages. |
| download speed (Responsiveness). | | | | Adopting that simplifying view makes performance |
| IT staff - manage the systems that keep the site up | | | | measurement and reporting tasks easier. But doing so |
| and running (Availability) and maintain a consistent level | | | | ignores the dimension of Web performance most |
| of performance (Responsiveness). | | | | affected by Web 2.0, and maybe the most important |
| Measurement Challenges of Web 2.0 | | | | feature of a Web application-the paths taken by Web |
| The characteristics of Web 2.0 applications highlighted | | | | users. For every Web application, a user's ability to |
| earlier-the network as a platform, collaborative | | | | navigate smoothly through a relatively small set of |
| environment, social networking, mashups, and rich | | | | business transactions-the "money paths"-is the key to |
| media interfaces-create several additional challenges | | | | business success. It is only by completing these key |
| for all measurement tools. In increasing degree of | | | | transactions that visitors are converted into customers, |
| complexity, these are:o Measuring an increasingly | | | | triers into buyers. Therefore, in addition to tracking key |
| diverse customer communityo Measuring the quality of | | | | performance indicators like conversion rate, most |
| collaborative interactions, in which customers both | | | | organizations consider it essential to identify, track, and |
| upload and download information.o Measuring | | | | measure their key business transactions. By doing so, |
| applications that incorporate a much richer variety of | | | | they can better understand and improve each |
| media and interfaces.o Measuring application phases | | | | application's conversion rate-the second key to site |
| that no longer correspond to one (or more) HTML | | | | effectiveness and therefore the health of the business. |