Managing Business Risk Through Business Transaction Management

Business risk comes in many forms, but one of thetransactions for patterns that could indicate that a
most costly involves transaction delays. When a B2B"business abnormal" situation is developing. This saves
firm handles orders worth millions, orders that runa business considerable stealth waste, because many
slowly or are lost have the potential in any economy toof the inefficient transactions that are overlooked
put pressure on a business' solvency. This is whywithout a business transaction performance monitor,
business transaction management or more preciselybecome consistently addressable. Processes that are
monitoring (BTM) is such an important component ofoften considered impossible to address because they
any business risk management plan.aren't visible can be resolved because BTM provides
What is business transaction monitoring? Businessthe necessary visibility.
transaction monitoring, referred to by the GartnerBusiness transaction monitoring conserves resources.
Group in their APM Magic Quadrant as transactionWhile it is commonly believed that a shortage of
profiling, is the dimension of application performanceresources such as too little network bandwidth, a lack
management (APM) that focuses on the two types ofof memory, slow and/or undersized disk, or inadequate
transactions common in business-IT transactions andCPU are the cause of transaction problems, BTM
business transactions. Business transactions arereveals another story. Rather many transaction failure
comprised of a series of IT transactions.to execute correctly are due to a logic error or similar
How do typical business transactions work? The"normal accident". These errors can occur after a
transaction might be an order update. For that updatedata-cleansing event for example. The transaction
to execute correctly, the update order must occur in afollows a pathway that dead-ends. Mission critical
specific sequence across many Java,.NET, andapplications may fail.
database applications. As the update order interactsThe value of using business transaction monitoring
with each IT entity, the required function at that(BTM) is that these dead-ends are caught before the
endpoint must execute correctly.help desk is flooded with angry customers asking,
These transactions execute in micro-seconds, so"Where is my order?" There is no question that an
detection of any breaks in proper transaction flowangry customer will expend more energy tarnishing a
would be impossible to detect in the early stagescompany's business reputation that a happy one will
without software that has the power to track theseexpend in trying to help a company get more business.
transactions. In order for business transactionWith BTM in place, a business lowers its risk
monitoring to be truly useful, it must also give businessproactively.
the ability to evaluate business transactionA business that isn't transitioning immediately from one
performance (BTP).crisis to the next will find employees more productive
BTP, then, tells you what happened throughand customer confidence enhanced. These two
transactional monitoring, how the observedfactors alone will help conserve company resources.
performance compared to expectations described in aPreventing crisis events will also conserve resources
Service Level Agreement (SLA), and why it happenedby minimizing overtime costs to repair a problem that
through operational monitoring. It takes all three pieceshas "blown up." Business transaction monitoring for
of information to reduce business risk.performance of each customer and in-house
Business transaction performance monitoring providestransactions is a sound investment that will pay for
early warning. The sooner a business has actionableitself in the savings generated each year.
information that detects a potential problem in itsThe right BTM software provides both financial and
transaction flows, the more likely that business will bemanufacturing businesses with the information needed
able to deal with the problem before it begins toto remain competitive within the marketplace as well
impact their customer. When a problem arises in an ITas compliant to Government regulations for these
transaction flow, the IT department has the diagnosticsindustries. Learn how business transaction
already in hand to address the issue promptly andperformance software could help your business
efficiently.perform better in any economy. Nastel Technologies,
The reason the diagnostics are already in hand is thatInc. has prepared a white paper on this subject, BTP:
business transaction monitoring is a proactiveProactive Prevention & Visibility, which will help you
technology. Rather than waiting until problems blow up,make an informed decision about the value of adding
The complex event processing (CEP) engine scans allthis software solution to your business IT applications.