What is Business Transaction Management (BTM)?

Tracking the performance of a business transaction across its entire lifecycle is no easy task.  Business transaction management (BTM) solutions are the "next generation" of application performance management (APM) tools, specifically designed to isolate issues affecting transaction performance - anywhere along a complex transaction path - in real-time.

What is driving complexity within IT infrastructures and application environments?

• Increasing adoption of the cloud, especially heavily virtualized and automated private cloud technologies

• More complex service oriented architectures and distributed network architectures

• A new breed of modular, web-based applications, enhanced application functionality (ie: ATMs and POS terminals), and more customer service and loyalty options to support

• Higher volumes of electronic transactions, transaction message types and protocols

• Legacy migrations, application upgrades, new service roll-outs, mergers and acquisition activities that are resulting in fragmented intelligence and greater risk of service disruption

• Compliancy and increasing security regulations within the financial and payments industries

What are the shortfalls of traditional transaction monitoring tools?

Traditional "deep dive" application performance management and network infrastructure tools were not built to monitor emerging transaction and high performance application complexities. They were not designed to handle the increasing transaction volumes and fragmentation of data that is emerging…but business transaction management tools are.

The BTM difference – monitor end-to-end transaction performance instead of deep-dive application performance

Used as a precursor to "deep dive" APM diagnostic tools, BTM solutions step away from component based-monitoring to provide an end-to-end, customer-centric view into the performance of ALL mission critical applications, networks, third party services and back end connections.

BTM tools seamlessly “stitch” the end-to-end transaction path together, across physical and cloud-based environments, capturing real-time metrics to:

• Speed up problem resolution by isolating where bottlenecks are occurring, or identifying weaknesses in the IT infrastructure that supports your business applications
• Perform targeted transaction inquiries based on key customer experience and transaction performance metrics
• Optimize the performance of your business critical applications and networks

Providing a top-down level of visibility makes BTM a valuable communication tool for all IT executives, IT operations and applications support teams, first line support groups, and line-of-business managers interested in working together to improve operational efficiency and customer reliability through faster resolution of performance issues.

Interested in discussing how to apply a BTM strategy and improve visibility within your transaction environment?  Contact us.