“Thanks to Aternity, we are able to support two major processes: qualification of applications during the development phase as well as content visibility of services and business applications.”
Automobile/Manufacturing
With its prominent international market position, Michelin attaches great importance to the quality of its processes. The company’s first experience with network probes was in Asia, in 2002. The aim at the time was to obtain better visibility of the performance of services and business applications.
“Network probes are an effective solution for the continuous observation of application processes. They are capable of measuring application availability and evaluating response times from a network perspective in real time on a dashboard,” says Jean-Noël Simonnet, Chief Infrastructure Architect – Michelin. “However, they are not an effective solution for complex application troubleshooting in real time or after the fact, or for qualifying applications during development phases.”
On the recommendation of one of its clients experiencing similar performance optimization challenges (reducing risks, response times, etc.), the Michelin Group chose to carry out an application and network performance test using the Aternity Application Performance Management (APM) solution.
“Our first surprise was the quick implementation and how intuitive the tool was. We then rapidly noticed the initial results, such as: reduced diagnosis time and detailed analysis of root causes, all of which were clearly decisive when it came to making our final choice,” adds Mr. Simonnet.
Rollout of the solution was conducted jointly by Michelin and its IT infrastructure provider, which was responsible for data centre implementation. Implementation took place in two waves: firstly involving the two Clermont-Ferrand infrastructures and, secondly, at the two Montpellier data centres.
“Thanks to Aternity Application Performance Management, we are able to support two major processes: qualification of applications during the development phase as well as content visibility of services and business applications,” comments Mr. Simonnet. “We are also measuring other significant benefits, such as the ability to predict response times on the WAN, as well as being able to investigate after the fact.”
The performance management capabilities offered by the Aternity Application Performance Management solution enable the Michelin Group to benefit from end-to-end application and infrastructure visibility. Supported by the automatic analysis and identification of defective components, during development and in production, in real time and after the fact, Michelin now benefits from a corrective and analytical solution that is competent from one end of the application chain to the other.
The Group is now in a position to quickly resolve all types of faults so as to lessen the risk of disruption to the business. As a result, this procedure allows the company to optimize its performance and better target IT spending to get a real return on investment.
