Desktop Application Check

The Desktop Application Check (otherwise known as a DAC check) is a Microsoft Windows Desktop Application monitoring solution that consists of these components:

1. A Desktop Application Recorder: A desktop application which records the actions and expectations of the targeted Windows desktop application and turns this into a scenario which can be uploaded into ASM as a DAC check.

2. A Desktop Application Check (DAC), which schedules the scenario in ASM for regular monitoring and reports back the results to the ASM portal for analysis.

3. A Desktop Application Agent, which is the private agent that executes the scenario and records the observed metrics for the targeted application.

Detailed information for DAC is located in this dedicated space.

Desktop Application Monitoring expands Apica Synthetic Monitoring beyond monitoring HTTP/HTTPS website applications and APIs. The DAC solution was specifically built for Windows desktop applications which cannot be monitored from the web. The product creates value by satisfying a rare use case - performance observability on legacy desktop applications. Using DAC, end users can capture whatever data they need. They can ignore metrics altogether and simply verify a user journey works as expected; track execution time of login steps, order processing, and more; even capture metrics data from the application to its API endpoints via WireShark.

WHAT PROBLEM ARE WE ADDRESSING?

The Monitoring Gap: Monitoring only networked applications and services with network protocol level (HTTP/s) or the browser level (e.g., Selenium) scripts overlooks applications that do not fit that model (I.e. those which were developed before the Browser-centric view, or use proprietary protocols or are just too complicated at the protocol level.

Examples

• Desktop-Centric Applications, with very advanced and sophisticated user interfaces and local processing, with lots of forms

  • SAP R3

  • Oracle Forms

  • AutoCAD

  • Legacy banking/financial applications

  • HR applications

  • Thick Clients

• “Thin” desktop clients

  • Terminal Emulators

  • Citrix

DAC MONITORING USE CASES

Based on Monitoring Desktop Application performance over time

• Ensure your User Desktop Apps Are Always Available

• Assure your SLAs for the desktop services and performance are up to user expectations and application design

• Refine the user experience

• Tune the application servers for optimum load and efficiency

• Correlate performance to infrastructure load

HOW THIS WORKS

• Record and script the user journey directly on the desktop

• Start the application, click on positions, buttons, images

• Enter text and complex key-commands

• Wait for the response and assert that it is the expected one

• See results presented in Interactive dashboards with

  • Waterfall graphs

  • Trend reports

  • Summaries providing reliable insights on performance and availability

Open

More information

• Please read the Apica Blog: Desktop Application Monitoring – Are You Doing it Right?

• Interested in getting Desktop Application Monitoring started for your company? Please contact Apica.

Apica Desktop Application Check & Recorder Demo

Click play to start the video, and fullscreen to view in fullscreen mode.

The above demonstrates a simple DAC use case in a graphical, easy-to-follow format.

Script MS Windows interactions with Apica's new Desktop Application Recorder, consisting of a Recorder, an Apica Synthetic Monitoring Check, and a Private Agent to run the application.

The demonstration covers:

• Selecting and starting a Windows Application

• Positioning the Windows Application for consistent execution

• Test execution of the recorded scenario

• Editing commands

• Asserting a graphical element/image

• Asserting a textual element

• Test Running from the Recorder Application

• Saving the scenario

• Executing the scenario in the Desktop Application Agent

• Examining the results

• Editing the script after Agent execution to re-select a better assertion image