Wednesday, 1 February 2017
Pinterest begins rolling out search ads for keywords and shopping campaigns
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EU ready to hang up on mobile roaming fees by mid-June
The abolition of mobile roaming charges across the European Union by the middle of this year looks almost certain now, after the region’s executive body, parliament and representatives of the 28 Member States agreed a deal on wholesale charges. Read More http://ift.tt/2jCBKSi
Top 5 best application performance management solutions
Technology plays a major role in our everyday lives. Not only do we use it in domestic environments, but it’s even more important in the business world. Companies use computers and other technological innovations to streamline operations, improve efficiencies and speed up complex processes.
It’s safe to say that computers and other IT hardware are critical in business operations. If physical technology is slow or breaks down, then firms can end up missing deadlines and targets, causing a whole heap of trouble. And the same thing goes for software applications – companies need them to work effectively, as they rely on them.
Sometimes, amongst the chaos of huge workloads and strict deadlines, it can be hard to keep an eye on business software – problems can often slip under the radar, and even when they’re undetected only for a short time, they can still affect productivity greatly.
That’s why application performance management (APM) systems exist. A major area in the field of IT and systems management, these tools can monitor and manage the performance of software deployed within a business. The aim of APM solutions is to detect and diagnose application performance issues as soon as possible, enabling them to be solved more quickly, thus saving money in the long run. Here are some of the best APM offerings out there.
Correlsense is a company that offers a number of application performance management technologies, and SharePath is the firm’s leading product, designed for business and IT managers who use complex software on a daily basis.
The platform provides users with a complete picture of the service and performance levels of key enterprise applications. It can be used with applications split across areas such as mobile, SaaS, cloud, data centre and legacy platforms. SharePath monitors apps in real-time, so you don’t have to worry about issues being missed.
What’s great about this APM solution is that it analyses all user activity, meaning that issues accidently caused by employees can be addressed straight away. As well as this, there are dashboards that you can share with everyone on your team, and you’re provided with service level reports and alerts. To top it all off, there’s a ‘Lite’ version which is completely free to use (although naturally it’s feature-limited).
Loupe is an effective, feature-packed application performance management tool. Aimed at enterprises and IT administrators, this solution lets you trace events, performance and other metrics to work out the causes of issues affecting software negatively.
A good APM solution will help you find problems with apps straight away, and if you’ve got to hunt through a sprawling list of potential issues, then it’s going to be hard to do that. However, Loupe automatically groups log events so you can find and address performance issues with a minimum of fuss.
The system also gives you a visual understanding of your application usage and offers insights into bottlenecks that can subsequently be tackled. It’s easy to get up and running with this system, as you don’t have to install anything onto your servers – the setup process is very nicely streamlined.
Plenty of businesses use the cloud along with on-premise systems, and when you have a bunch of different apps – from cloud through hybrid to traditional software installations – monitoring them all can be very difficult. Traverse is an APM tool that aims to tackle these sort of scenarios.
It can automatically discover apps, networks, servers and systems, meaning you don’t have to dedicate time in order to configure things manually. Once it’s set up and running, Traverse will monitor each device and app to determine if there are any issues. If a problem is identified, it’ll fire up a troubleshooting process and try to resolve it before your business is affected.
You can also back up and restore changes across your applications, and you’re sent predictive analytics concerning their overall performance.
If you’re a developer or have a team of software engineers working within your company, then it’s obviously quite common to come across performance issues and other bugs. Stackify Retrace is a targeted ‘devAPM’ system, giving development professionals the tools they need to find and address problems effectively.
The platform alerts developers if any issues and bugs have been found, and it can be used to improve performance levels across test and production servers. Retrace has been designed so that it provides visibility, data and actionable insights into app performance and faults.
There’s a centralised dashboard that displays code performance and metrics, including errors and logs. Stackify can also be used with most common app stacks, and this is a highly scalable SaaS solution, so it’s easy to install and use.
Applications Manager is a tool which does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s being marketed as an enterprise-ready, usable and affordable APM. Businesses are provided with everything they need to ensure critical applications and systems are always in perfect working order.
This solution can find and address issues involving the end user, applications and important components such as databases, servers, ERP packages, web services, cloud platforms and virtual systems.
Applications Manager works with a single install and allows you to address issues easily, plus when looking further down the road, it’s highly scalable – indeed, it can scale to up to 50,000 applications.
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Slack takes aim at the corporate sector with Enterprise Grid, adds bots from SAP
Slack, the business app that lets teams of users communicate, share files from other services, and work on them with each other, has taken off like wildfire since launching three years ago, with 5 million daily users, 1.5 million of them paying today. Now, Slack is embarking on the next step in its ambition to be the go-to platform for all workplace collaboration, no matter how big the… Read More
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Paying your taxes online? Things are about to get simpler
We’ve heard about the government’s Making Tax Digital project before – whereby the tax system will change from a single annual return into a continuous assessment of what you owe which is carried out online – but now further details have been revealed about the scheme, which should come into play by the close of this decade.
Following a lengthy consultation with small businesses and self-employed folks across the UK, the government is making all the right soothing noises when it comes to assuring firms that transitioning to a new way of making a tax return won’t end up being a headache.
As City AM reports, those assurances include the fact that SMBs can still use spreadsheets to keep track of financial details like expenses and so forth, with these able to be linked to software which will automatically provide these details to the tax office. The government is underlining the fact that the software will be user-friendly, and indeed that free software will be available for those firms with ‘straightforward tax affairs’ (i.e. smaller operations).
Avoiding costly errors
The theory is, then, that going the continuous assessment route rather than having to handle one big unwieldy return should be more convenient for the taxpayer or small business in question, and on the government’s side, considerable savings are expected to be realised in terms of reducing the number of errors made in tax returns.
In fact, HMRC estimates that the new system could help to avoid errors which cost the government no less than £8 billion every year. No small sum indeed…
It’s aiming to introduce the digital tax return by 2020, although there will be some breathing room given for acclimatisation, with those filing returns getting 12 months grace to become familiar with the new method before any penalties are exacted for making a late filing.
As the government puts it: “At the moment most taxpayers cannot see a single picture of their liabilities and entitlements in one place – we are changing that. By 2020, customers will be able to see a comprehensive financial picture in their digital account, just like they can with online banking.”
Image Credit: Expensify
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Discovery channels stay on Sky, as satellite giant stands firm
The Discovery channels - including History, Eurosport and Animal Planet - will remain on Sky's platform, with the satellite giant sticking to its guns and getting its way at the 11th hour.
Discovery had tried to inflate the fee it receives for having its channels on the Sky platform, but its brinkmanship ultimately caused more confusion than affected change.
The decision to accept a deal offered a week ago means that Sky will not lose the channels, and that the blockbuster fee suggested by Discovery did not come to fruition.
Conclusion
“We are pleased that we will continue to carry the Discovery and Eurosport channels on Sky," said Sky’s CEO for UK and Ireland Stephen van Rooyen.
“The deal has been concluded on the right terms after Discovery accepted the proposal we gave them over a week ago. This is a good outcome for all Sky customers.
“We are also delighted to be announcing today a new deal with PBS America that will bring the best of PBS's factual programming to Sky, covering history, science, current affairs, arts and culture.
“We are also adding over 1,000 hours of programming to our On Demand service from channels like History and National Geographic. This means ours customers can enjoy the very best factual programming available.”
The PBS deal is an interesting one, with UK audiences now getting the chance to check out some of the United States’ less heralded factual programming.
Its big hitters include The Amish, History Detectives and, of course, Ken Burns' The Civil War.
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