Table of Contents Show
Narrowing It Down
The tech world is making life easier for everyone through apps, but this will require some management, and some observation of metrics. The truth is, different metrics will have different meaning for different apps depending on the varying purposes for the apps you use.
However, there are some common things to keep in mind as you go about designing apps, and this writing will explore them briefly to help you narrow down what will be most efficacious for your operation.
For example, you might want to take a close look at the level of traffic your app can handle, and what the ‘curve’or ‘slope’is pertaining to traffic increase over time. Ideally, you should have steady traffic increase at a predictable level of expansion. Keeping data on visitors, users, their length of use, and what demographic quotients they hail from, can help you project where needs will be in the future.
Tracking Traffic
Tracking your traffic can also help you determine where certain actions on the part of your business are more or less likely to initiate a spike in user traffic. If you’re about to approach an activity known to initiate a spike, then you can scale out accordingly in terms of the supporting components of your app.
For example, if you’re a relatively small operation, hosting the app on internal servers could be financially sensible for a while. But once you hit a certain point, transitioning to the cloud may make sense. In point of fact, going the cloud route initially can be the best option for a number of reasons.
Beta Testing
There are plenty of existing design apps on the cloud which can help you to design the app in an environment replete with greater computational ability, and hosting ability, than anything you could effect internallyâat least up to a certain level. (Certainly SMBs will have less reach than enterprise-level corporations operating internationally.)
Something else that’s very important involves logging. One reason ‘beta’versions of apps and other software are sent out prior a wide release is because it’s just not possible to eliminate all bugs from the get-go.
Logging
The truth is, you’re going to have operational issues with your software. The best programmers can’t escape it. You’ve got to have a logging framework in place to catch varying issues, allowing you to address them as necessary.
Using papertrailapp.com can help you really get an idea what’s important, what to focus on, and how to establish operational protocols which continuously help you better the apps you make available in the market.
Here’s the basic value: with Papertrail, you’re able to aggregate messages from a log4net appender that is native to your operation. The end result is a log that’s both live and searchable. When you’ve got that kind of visibility, it becomes easier to determine where operational errors are, and how to correct them.
Performance Testing
Traffic and logging are important to keep an eye on, but you also need to have performance tests which stress your applications in order to see where limitations are, and what performance looks like when things become saturated. Performance testing metrics can help you determine where hidden bugs are that wouldn’t be visible otherwise.
Technological Development
Something else to consider is that technological innovation comes at predictable, exponential intervals. That is to say: about every eighteen months technology doubles on itself. What this means is that differing metrics will develop which become essential to your operation’s highest optimization. You’ve got to keep yourself appraised of them.
Pillars Of Success
The most important metrics that matter for your app specifically will differ per organization and per application, but there are ‘pillars’which can help you build a software edifice that is strong and reliable. Strong metrics and reliability of operations have a close relationship.
