Why analyse performance?

Even today, the reality in most cases is that Application Performance Management (APM) is not integrated into the development process and is not rated particularly highly during development and integration. One reason for this is that the functional requirements of the application are always the focus of attention. Another issue is the (mistaken) impression that the organisational overhead and costs associated with APM and the tools required for analysis and monitoring are very high. In fact, it is not usually until an acute problem has to be dealt with that the decision is made to give the topic any thought at all. However, in such situations there is generally neither a suitable tool available, nor the skills needed to use it, meaning that the "firefight" can quickly develop into an expensive proposition. This is particularly true when the poor performance means that an application is unusable or cannot be released without lengthy delays.