Desktop Application Monitoring for Windows Desktop Applications, an MS Windows Desktop Application monitoring solution that consists of these components:

1. A DAC Desktop Recorder (Introduction): An Apica Desktop Application that records the actions and expectations of the targeted Windows desktop application and turns this into a scenario that can be uploaded in ASM as a DAC.

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, records the observed metrics for the targeted application.

Desktop Application Monitoring expands Apica Synthetic Monitoring beyond monitoring HTTP/HTTPS website applications and APIs. The DAC solution was specifically built for Windows desktop, non-web, applications. So now the DAC adds a long-term understanding of Windows Desktop Application performance and availability.

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

Next Steps

• Prerequisites: DAC Agent

  • DAC On-Prem Installation

• Desktop Agent (SaaS)

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.