End user performance monitoring

[iaind]

In true corporate management style, the people responsible for our company performance indicators have decided that we need a KPI for the performance of the IT systems.

Now, I can churn out numbers and charts of CPU time, network activity etc etc ad nauseum but what they want me to magically give them is some sort of indication as to what the end user actually experiences. Oh, and preferably a single figure, maybe a percentage.

They dont care that we have multiple separate systems, with separate functions - if it takes them 20 seconds to search for an email, or excel hangs for 10 seconds they want it all aggregated into a single pointless figure.

We're a small network with about 100 users across 3 Citrix Xenapp server on 2003, so I looked at Edgesight, which from the advertising gumpf seems to do exactly what I want. However, on closer inspection, it just seems to be another (albeit quite clever) way of recording windows performance logs.

Has anyone come across a requirement such as this and know of any product that might even come close? I realise how stupid it is, but thats management for you...

 

[iaind]

Brilliant I'll take a look.

I only think it's stupid because there doesnt seem to be any reason for it, they just want a number they can give to the board. Think it would be interesting to get some stats, but I think a single percentage is daft - a percent of what exactly?

 

[iaind]

No probs. Just an FYI, it isnt cheap.

On the subject of KPI's then yeah i dont think distilling down the whole thing into a single KPI makes much sense. Maybe this is your opportunity to make this work for you? KPI's lead to performance management, and potentially performance related pay.... and maybe more spending as KPI's can be made to justify solutions to perceived issues... like performance... Food for thought

Good points, although I cant imagine they'll want to spend a huge amount on it. We're a registered charity so we might be able to get a discount, but on a network of 100 users, I cant see them wanting to make a big investment