This is the second entry in a 10-Series Blog post every Wednesday in regards to Software-Plus-Services: Application Instrumentation, Stress Testing and Production Management.

Application instrumentation is the means to monitor and report the performance of an application. This instrumentation is done by using a combination of internal and external observation methods. Internal counters can be provided by the underlying operating system and by the application layer itself. External counters are typically used to measure end-user experience and other external environmental metrics. It is critical to combine internal and external measures into a single repository to maximize the business value of monitoring. Very rarely do organizations look at the operational and business needs during the initial phases of application instrumentation instead they look primarily at the needs of the software engineering team. This is a highly inefficient approach. Based on experience with a number of applications at various stages of development and deployment, a best practices approach has been developed that satisfies all three sets of requirements. A standard method for applying instrumentation allows engineering and operations to "speak" the same support language. This approach allows these groups to work in tandem to proactively resolve service problems much faster and provide better value to the business.