Web applications are among the most effective advancements in the digital realm as it has literally changed how users interact with websites and eCommerce storefronts. If you’re searching for a way to enhance user experiences while streamlining various site processes, then you’ll likely adopt an application solution. While web applications can streamline order processing, customer service and inter-office communications, it’s only as effective as its operation. Before an application goes live, you must perform a wide array of load testing; however, even after the app is launched, there are several steps all website administrators must focus on to ensure an application continuously operates at its optimum performance standards.

Establishing Specific Performance Parameters

 The most effective step all application developers and administrators can take is to establish specific parameters regarding the performance and functionality of a website. These parameters allow each critical step of an application to be fully monitored and managed for optimum performance. The most effective roles in these parameters include:

Dedicated Testing Team - The most complex and crucial an application becomes, the greater the need for a dedicated testing and monitoring team. While this team may consist of one person, these professionals are responsible for monitoring APM results and running various system tests to ensure optimum performance on all levels. Imagine this team as the gatekeepers for an effective application.

1. Database Administrator (DBA) - Database administrators are responsible for identifying database issues and proactively solving problems that may arise within the database, such as transaction timeouts and row locking.
2. Dedicated Development Team - In the quest to avoid problems with a web application, a dedicated development team works to identify and investigate stability, transaction and performance problems. This team is also responsible for continuously reviewing code and looking for ways to improve the overall functionality of an application at the code-level. This role is critical for complex web applications.
3. Quality Assurance Manager - While a QA manager may not be an appropriate level of monitoring for all enterprises, this role ensures all application builds are thoroughly tested before going live. If your site is a large and complex eCommerce portal or if your web applications are dynamic and complex by nature, then a QA manager is more than suggested, it’s required.

Continually Strive to Answer These Questions

Because the world of web applications is so dynamic and ever-changing, tips to avoid problems within these apps are difficult to define. That being noted, there are many instances where potential problems can be avoided by simply answering a few questions. Regardless of the purpose of complexity of an application, the following questions are designed to help identify current and potential app issues/errors:

1. How many super users can a single server process before the response time falls below acceptable standards?
2. As you add more hardware to an application, do the test results scale linearly?
3. What are, if any, scalability issues that may cause the web application from performing at optimum levels when it goes live?
4. How many synchronized requests can an application handle before it begins to bottleneck and reduce performance?