A WEB APPLICATION’S reliability can harm or bolster a company’s relationship with its partners and customers. More importantly, application errors can lead to loss of revenue as end-users unable to process Web-based transactions are wont to go elsewhere quickly. IntegriTea, a Web application management solution from TeaLeaf Technology, promises to increase application reliability through real-time data collection of end-user session information, alert capabilities, useful reporting, and automated session playback. TeaLeaf’s session-capture capabilities and playback support compare favorably to tools in other Web application management solutions, such as Mercury Interactive’s Topaz and Keynote’s Enterprise Perspective. The TeaLeaf solution has three components: Capture, Server, and Portal. The IntegriTea Capture module provides filter-based and API-based data collection capabilities. IntegriTea Capture installed easily within test Apache, Tomcat, and WebLogic and WebSphere application environments. The Capture component supports other Web servers, such as iPlanet, and IIS (Internet Information Server) and most J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition)-capable application servers. Once installed, the Capture component can feed session data in real time to the IntegriTea Server. This real-time capturing is new in this release and ensures that IT can be alerted to problems quickly, which speeds up resolution. Data captured includes the application’s response to the end-user request as well as data elements from other application components, such as an enterprise database or business-partner application. IntegriTea’s Server, which is limited to Windows 2000 Server environments, collects session data from all deployed Capture components — whether deployed with Web servers or application servers. We had no trouble installing and using the IntegriTea Server across two Windows 2000 Server platforms. IntegriTea Server’s functionality can be distributed across one or more servers for greater scalability. As the Server inspects application session data, it checks for application errors, failures, and any other conditions defined by IT. Administrators use the wizard-driven management interface for defining conditions that are meaningful in the application environment. For example, we wanted to be able to monitor response time in the order entry and transaction confirmation portions of our test application. The Server also can check for other conditions, such as HTTP 400. When an event is matched, the IntegriTea Server provides immediate notification to IT in three different ways. First, an alert is added to a Windows system event log. Second, alerts can be delivered via e-mail using SMTP, which worked well during our tests. Last, alerts are stored for retrieval via the IntegriTea Portal. The Server module also stores session data for retrieval. Storing all session data can be costly and disk intensive. To alleviate this, TeaLeaf supplies tools for defining what data will be stored and under what conditions. For example, we chose to store session data only when specific error or failure conditions occurred. After the Server component checks defined rules for storage, it compresses the selected data before saving it for retrieval. The compression can save IT a significant amount on data storage costs. The third module in the TeaLeaf solution is the IntegriTea Portal, a Web-based application that provides interfaces to analyze application activities and events and to re-create problematic end-user sessions. A useful set of tools lets IT quickly create charts and reports from the captured data. We were disappointed that we could only access the IntegriTea Portal using Internet Explorer. But we did find a number of useful tools that will definitely speed up problem diagnosis and resolution. Among these was the viewer, which let us replay end-user sessions in a manner similar to a slide show. Using the playback feature, we could quickly see where several problems existed in multiple end-user sessions. After playback, the session can be saved and e-mailed to others in IT. The viewer is valuable because it allows IT staffers to see exact reproductions of problem scenarios, rather than manually re-creating problems reported by end-users. The IntegriTea Portal also supplies real-time metrics of activity as customers and business partners access your applications. The data is useful and can help IT spot trends, such as application bottlenecks. End-user session metrics are accessible via the built-in event dashboard. The dashboard can examine user activity at a high level, such as evaluating how many users are receiving an order confirmation page with a response time that exceeds company policy. Administrators can then drill down into individual end-user session data for further examination. The viewer can also be launched from the dashboard for session playback, diagnosis, and resolution. We found the information quite useful for identifying and resolving problems. Although TeaLeaf’s IntegriTea is a Windowscentric solution, we found the included tools, such as real-time session capture and playback, to be quite useful for rapid diagnosis and resolution of Web app problems, which ultimately will save IT time and money. Technology Industry