Bernd Harzog

Analyst Virtualization and Cloud Performance Management

The Virtualization Practice
Managing Mobile Transaction Integrity
2014 The Virtualization Practice. All Rights Reserved. All other marks are property of their respective owners. 2
Abstract
Mobile devices like smartphones and tablets are the fastest growing end user computing device
in the history of the world. It is predicted that in 2014 more users will interact and transact via their
mobile devices than through any other device. What this revolution implies is that for any business
that generates revenue online, whether through a web browser or a smartphone application,
ensuring the integrity and performance of these mobile transactions is of paramount importance.
This paper discusses potential problems that can arise with mobile transactions, and how
Crittercism addresses these issues.
2014 The Virtualization Practice. All Rights Reserved. All other marks are property of their respective owners. 3
I. Growth of Mobile Commerce ............................................................................................. 4
II. What is a Mobile Transaction? ......................................................................................... 4
III. Why is Performance Management of Mobile Transactions Hard? .................................... 4
IV. Why Traditional (server-side) APM Companies Cannot Address
Mobile Transactions Well ............................................................................................... 5
V. The Crittercism Mobile Transaction Management Solution ............................................... 7
VI. Summary and Conclusions ............................................................................................. 9
VII. About The Virtualization Practice .................................................................................. 9
2014 The Virtualization Practice. All Rights Reserved. All other marks are property of their respective owners. 4
I. Growth of Mobile Commerce
Mobile devices like smartphones and tablets are the fastest growing end user computing
device in the history of the world, with 56% of the people in the world owning a smartphone.
50% of mobile phone users access their mobile phone as their primary way to browse the
Internet. 80% of the time that users spend on their smartphone is spent inside of apps.
According to the Federal Reserve, 48% of smartphone users have used mobile banking in
the last 12 months. Forbes has stated that 74% of smartphone users have used their phone
to help research a purchase with 74% of these making a purchase (which means that 58% of
smartphone users have used their phones to make a purchase.
Since a mobile app should deliver great end-user experience, and that user experience will
determine whether or not the app is chosen to perform a revenue generating transaction,
user experience and mobile revenue generation become joined at the hip.
As the end user community fips to smartphones and tablets as their preferred devices to
access the Internet and conduct online fnancial and shopping transactions, understanding
how mobile transactions are performing will become more important than understanding the
performance of server side
Java transactions.
II. What is a Mobile Transaction?
Transactions are user interactions that lead to a business outcome. There are a variety of
transactions that occur on mobile devices. Examples include:
Check-out transaction in an ecommerce app: user logs in, searches for item, puts item in
shopping cart, checks-out
Buy/sell stock in a fnancial services app
Order entry in an enterprise feld force app, where the employee enters an order to buy
or sell products
Each transaction is not as simple as it appears. Although a smooth experience makes
the process appear effortless, complex technology is involved where each transaction is
composed of multiple interactions. The success of each step determines the success of the
entire transaction.
III. Why is Performance Management of Mobile Transactions Diffcult?
Ensuring the integrity and performance of mobile transactions is a diffcult challenge for the
following reasons:
Transaction complexity: Each transaction is subject to many points of potential
failure. The transaction can span many mobile screens that the user interacts with.
The application itself or an application upon which the application is dependent could
crash or have an error. Any component in the transaction chain could experience a long
response time or latency and cause the transaction to be abandoned.
2014 The Virtualization Practice. All Rights Reserved. All other marks are property of their respective owners. 5
Mobile complexity: Transactions are executed across a very diverse hardware and
software environment consisting of many different devices, many different networks,
many different OS versions, and many different supporting services. Thus, the metrics
that need to be collected in order to measure transaction integrity and performance are
numerous and diverse. They come from every layer of the environment including the
hardware, the system software, the applications and the network.
User interactions complexity: Transactions occur concurrently with many other
processes on the mobile device and many other potential user actions including other
background (but still running) applications, background system processes, and the user
switching the application which is processing the transaction in and out of the foreground
while the transaction is executing. Users can also change wireless coverage during
mobile transactions (WIFI -> cellular 3G -> cellular 4G), creating additional complexity in
tracking metrics across all connection mediums.
Mobile scale: The scale of mobile and mobile transactions is unlike any prior
technology. By the end of this year there will be 1.75B mobile devices, not to mention
the additional wearable and other connected devices. This requires the systems used
to ensure the integrity and performance of mobile transactions must accommodate
demands unlike prior solutions.
IV. Why Traditional (Server-Side) APM Companies Cannot Address Mobile
Transactions Well
The single most important attribute of server based APM as it pertains to this paper is that the
work that is being managed occurs on servers inside of the data centers owned or rented by
the enterprise that owns the revenue generating application. Server based APM is therefore
principally concerned with the back end operation of the application system and its interaction
with its supporting middleware and database services.
It is also the case that server based APM assumed a browser as the end users client
application. Since relatively little of the work associated with the transaction occurs in the
browser, server based APM paid very little attention to the end user portion of the application
and the experience of the end user.
Mobile revenue generating applications are very different than their server based
counterparts. The principal source of the difference lies in the architecture of the application.
The client piece of the application (the part used by the end user) is now a full-fedged
application installed on the mobile device, instead of a browser which executes only a limited
portion of the application.
2014 The Virtualization Practice. All Rights Reserved. All other marks are property of their respective owners. 6
Mobile transaction management is about understanding the performance and operation of
each individual revenue generating transaction within a particular mobile application. It is
about understanding how multiple individual steps make up a compound transaction. These
steps consist of the complete cycle of activities which precede a transaction (like searching
for a good or service), the browsing of goods or services in a product catalog, the selection
of the desired product, the method of paying for the product, and the fnal checkout and
confrmation process.
Optimizing the revenue stream from mobile apps and activities can only be done if visibility
into how individual revenue generating transactions are performing and operating. And when
they are not performing well, the diagnostics process needs to span the entire mobile device
(operating system and hardware) as well as the network supporting the device.
Compound (true business transactions) vs. Atomic (web service calls) Transactions
Server based APM solutions typically focus upon atomic transactions that are simply HTTP
calls or web service calls. Mobile transactions are comprised of many different atomic
transactions making them true compound transactions. For example, even for the fnal
stage in an ecommerce purchasethe checkoutthere are often many screens and
interactions that must occur. These include confrming goods in the cart, determining a
shipping address, payment details, and fnally the order confrmation.
WEB
SERVICE
WEB
SERVICE
WEB
SERVICE
WEB
SERVICE
2014 The Virtualization Practice. All Rights Reserved. All other marks are property of their respective owners. 7
Therefore a true mobile transaction management solution must address compound
transactions which is outside of the scope of most server based APM solutions.
V. The Crittercism Mobile Transaction Management Solution
Every failed interaction (or mobile transaction) is not only a lost revenue opportunity, but
also a missed opportunity to engage with a customer. With integrated IT and business
transaction metrics, mobile teams can use business context to optimize experience and
operations of mobile apps to improve their bottom line. Although a smooth experience
makes the process appear effortless, complex technology is involved where each
transaction is composed of multiple interactions. The success of each step determines the
success of the entire transaction.
Crittercism transaction management solution is the industry-frst solution optimized for mobile
and connected apps. The solution enables companies to defne, monitor and manage in real-
time the transactions that have the greatest impact on bottom-line growth. Using Crittercism,
mobile teams can:
Monitor
Pinpoint the performance issue of the app and highlight revenue impact.
Prioritize
Mobile teams can prioritize and focus their efforts on issues that truly affect
the company bottom line. For example, teams can focus on revenue-critical
transactions rather than on low-value errors.
Troubleshoot
Identify root cause of issues from start to fnish. Use diagnostics to pinpoint
checkout and service calls in
the transaction.
Trend
Based on transaction metrics, identify ways to improve components of
the transaction.
Advantages of the Crittercism Solution
Built on Crittercisms highly scalable SaaS platform the new solution enables companies to
defne, monitor and manage in real-time the mobile transactions that have the greatest impact
on bottom-line growth. This feature set focuses upon the business implications of mobile
transaction performance including the breakthrough ability to calculate the revenue at risk for
each application, broken down by transaction.
The solution does this by integrating the complete set of mobile performance metrics such
as response time, errors, and crashes with the business context of start to fnish business
transactions. Because the solution is built only for mobile, it is able to account for the
complexity of mobile app interactions including app foregrounding/backgrounding and
network connectivity changes.
2014 The Virtualization Practice. All Rights Reserved. All other marks are property of their respective owners. 8
Crittercism Transaction Management is a unique solution that is:
Mobile transaction optimized
Mobile user interaction optimized
Mobile performance optimized
Mobile scalable
Leveraging Crittercisms mAPM solution,
troubleshoot mobile transactions down
to the user fow level.
Use the Transactions Summary to
quickly glance at mobile revenue at
risak and how key mobile business
transactions are performing.
2014 Crittercism, Inc.
About Crittercism
Crittercism provides the worlds leading mobile application performance management (mAPM) solution and enables enterprises to accelerate
their mobile business. The companys solution monitors every aspect of mobile app performance and provides a real-time global view of app and
transaction metrics across iOS, Android, Windows Phone 8, Hybrid and HTML5 apps. The companys investors include Google Ventures, Scale
Venture Partners, Opus Capital, Shasta Ventures, InterWest Partners and Accenture. Learn more at http://www.crittercism.com.
facebook.com/getcrittercism linkedin.com/company/crittercism @crittercism crittercism.com
VI. Summary and Conclusions
For any business that generates revenue from its mobile applications, understanding the
relationship between the performance and operation of the individual transactions is a
business critical issue. Poor transaction performance affects not only current generation of
revenue, but also long-term customer loyalty and retention.
VII. About The Virtualization Practice
The Virtualization Practice provides analysis, commentary and resources on current
Virtualization and Cloud Computing news, events, and community. We break virtualization
into topics, and feature a world class expert in that topic as the analyst for the topic. Topic
Analysts are responsible for writing original, objective, analytical posts in their area of
expertise, for writing and maintaining a white paper on their market and the vendors that
serve that market, and for assisting sponsoring vendors with marketing activities.
Bernd Harzog is an Analyst for Cloud and Virtualization Performance Management. Bernd
is also the CEO of APM Experts, a consulting and analysis frm focusing upon this market,
vendor strategies in this market and customer use cases in this market. Bernd was formerly
a Gartner Group Research Director focusing upon the Windows Server operating system,
CEO of RTO Software, VP of Products of Netuitive and has been involved in vendor and IT
strategy since 1980.