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Epiowave
and Metrics
Metrics - the classical
view
Since its association with websites, online metrics (or "e-metrics")
has traditionally referred to basic data on how busy a site
is, who is visiting the site and which areas are more popular
than others. There have been many models designed for measuring
how 'fit' an enterprise site is, based upon this basic data.
Questions asked of metrics in the past have included "Is your
site attracting new people?", "Is our site 'sticky'? Which regions
in it are not?" and "How do we measure loyalty?".
Within the realm of ebusiness and inter/intra/extranet applications,
the role of metrics has become more complex. Monitoring functionality
on the web means storing data on users, sessions and different
aspects of the functions offered. The line between metrics and
information stored for debugging has become blurred, and programmers
have reflected this in their developments. Questions asked of
metrics in these developments include "How is our server handling
load?", "How many accountants are logged in daily?" and "Who
last used this application?".
Within the majority of development environments, metrics still
remains of secondary importance, and is only focused upon once
the core functional elements have been completed.
Epionet's approach
Over the past three years, as Epionet has developed its new
service-based approach to application development, it has become
apparent that metrics can and must become an integrated part
of any development environment. The design of the Epiowave,
a new environment which offers full control over application
development and re-use, has meant incorporating metrics features
which differ to those of other systems. These features were
designed to provide metrics as an aid to developers and administrators,
as well as providing live activity reports and system analysis.
New levels in data
collection
The information recorded in this system is more comprehensive
and at a more granular level. In this way, the full potential
of such a managed development and run-time environment is reached
in terms of recording application and server activity. Using
the Epiowave, extremely rich information is captured and made
available for analysis. As an entity-driven development and
deployment environment, it records and handles data on Users,
Groups, Applications, Server Events and Debugging.
For these entities, the system can automatically present information
on:
Focused reporting
- asking the right questions
The key to developing metrics that can maximise the benefit
to users is setting goals for the system based on basic user
needs. Comprehensive metrics information as offered by the
Epiowave suite is the result of asking simple questions from
the user's perspective. When interacting with intra/extra/internet
systems, users have access to:
· An overview portal screen displaying vital metrics information
with links to more detail
· A generic reporting engine which delivers reports based
on a selection of chosen criteria (a key goal)
· A web service wrapper for asynchronous event logging within
the system
· Broad system reporting as well as application specific reports
· Easy to understand graphic reports for metrics such as server
load / usage.
Presenting customer - centric answers
Technology often makes the mistake of offering useful functionality
contained in applications which offer little efficiency to
the user. The information available may be key, but such information
can remain unusable if there has not been sufficient focus
on interaction design and usability. Customer-centric system
design, development and deployment ensures that the experiences
of the intended user(s) are as positive as possible. This
is the corner stone of the Epiowave environment. Whether,
a developer, administrator or end user, the customer should
not need to spend time struggling with the application interface
and presentation logic when dealing with metrics and this
principle is evident in the Epiowave design.
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