Application Performance Monitor

An Analysis of Application Performance Data and Trends

SEPTEMBER 2011

The Gomez Application Performance Monitor provides impartial data and trend information about the current state of web, non-web, streaming, mobile, and cloud application performance. It analyzes many dimensions of application performance including user behavior, the composition of modern applications, and the adoption rate of new technologies. It provides insight into topics that are pertinent to any organization seeking to optimize their application performance. This inaugural issue is focused on key application performance trends that can have an impact on online businesses including page load times, the growing complexity of applications and how dependant they have become on outside sources like third-party providers, and the proliferation of multiple browsers and smartphones.

TREND: ITS ALL ABOUT SPEED

The average online shopper today only waits seconds before going to a competitors site. Customer experiences and associated behaviors including their satisfaction with your website, their impression of your brand and their likelihood of completing a transaction depend on performance. Intuitively we know that slow, inaccessible sites are not good for business, so we measured the impact of slow performance on both abandonment and conversions rates. If the average online customer is only willing to wait seconds before going to a competitors site, as our analysis shows, slow page load times have a direct, negative impact on revenues and profitability.

Figure 1: As page load time increases from 1 to 5 seconds, user abandonment rates increase by 40%

Figure 2: One second delay in response time reduces conversions by 7%

TREND: APPLICATIONS ARE HIGHLY-DISTRIBUTED

Applications are becoming increasingly more complex, comprising features and functionalities delivered from the datacenter as well as from other sources outside the firewall e.g., content delivery networks, advertising networks, video, shopping carts, Web analytics and ratings and review systems. Just one poorly performing service can cause an entire application to slow down, underscoring why its critical to proactively identify and address any weak links. To show just how dependant applications have become on outside sources, we looked at the average number of hosts accessed directly by the browser, per user transaction across dozens of locations across the globe. The number at each location represents the number of hosts needed to deliver content to that location (where the browser assembles it all into one coherent user experience) in order for a user to complete a typical transaction, such as make a plane reservation, buy a television or download an iPhone app.
Figure 3: An average of eight different hosts are accessed directly by the browser

TREND: BROWSER APP ASSEMBLY

Previously, the browser did little more than render the instructed graphics, but today the browser is actually assembling the web application on the fly from a number of components delivered to it from an assortment of locations. That places an increasing burden on the browser, and a need for it to be as fast as possible. Other industry advances like HTML5 place an even heavier burden on browsers by storing data on the client side, reducing server demand. As a result, browsers are responsible for over 60 percent of overall processing time in some cases. Our analysis of the top browsers (by market share) demonstrates the impact that both browser type and version can have on performance.

Figure 4: Top browser platforms and versions perform differently

TREND: MOBILE DEVICE PROLIFERATION

Businesses have to contend with new complexity brought on by the mobile Web. With approximately 500 mobile browser/device combinations in use throughout the world, the prospect of managing performance across all (or even most) of them is seemingly impossible. We analyzed the performance across todays most popular smartphones. Similar to browsers, the results demonstrate the impact that the phone type has on performance.

Figure 5: Differences in page load times across todays most popular smartphones

To read more details about the data testing methodologies, go to http://ow.ly/6hN6I.

ABOUT GOMEZ
The Gomez platform is the industrys leading solution for optimizing the performance, availability, and quality of web, non-web, mobile, streaming and cloud applications. The Gomez approach to application performance management starts by measuring your end users experiences and all the components that contribute to it to proactively detect performance issues, quantify their business impact and accelerate resolution. The Gomez solution works for any type of application, including enterprise applications accessed by employees, e-commerce web sites visited by customers or applications running on mobile devices. Only the Gomez First Mile to Last Mile solution eliminates blind spots across the entire application delivery chain, from the browser on a users computer or mobile device, across the Internet or a corporate WAN, across third-party and cloud providers, to the complex infrastructure inside data centers. Business managers, IT operations personnel and application development/QA engineers benefit from the insight provided by the Gomez solution. More than 4,000 customers worldwide, ranging from small companies to large enterprises and managed service providers, use Gomez to increase revenue, build brand loyalty and decrease costs.
To learn more about Gomez, visit: www.compuware.com/gomez

Compuware Corporation, the technology performance company, provides software, experts and best practices to ensure technology works well and delivers value. Compuware solutions make the worlds most important technologies perform at their best for leading organizations worldwide, including 46 of the top 50 Fortune 500 companies and 12 of the top 20 most visited U.S. web sites. Learn more at: compuware.com. Compuware Corporation World Headquarters 2011 Compuware Corporation Compuware products and services listed within are trademarks or registered trademarks of Compuware Corporation. Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. 09.11 20052

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