JN Data improves end-user services through more effective web application management

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“Our administrators use CA Wily dashboards to see the specific information they need to check on certain potential issues. From the second level point of view, our people can see what's going on with performance and availability to diagnose problems.”
-Tommy Hvid

Founded in 2002, JN Data A/S is the Danish IT arm of the financial conglomerate Nykredit and Jyske Bank. The company creates and develops the technological foundation for the banks’ business development, and also provides advisory services on business-relevant technology.

“Our job is to do practically everything for these two financial institutions when it comes to IT,” explains Tommy Hvid, Section Manager of the Web technology department at JN Data. “This includes data center services, program management, application performance management, and choosing their platforms and equipment.”

The two Danish banks offer approximately 400 products in their joint portfolio. JN Data’s 240 associates serve 500 branch offices of Nykredit and Jyske Bank, and are responsible for an infrastructure that includes two Java and one .Net strategic platforms, multiple third-party systems, a 10,000 MIPS capacity mainframe, 3,600 physical and virtual servers, and computers and devices for 10,000 employees.

Challenge

Optimizing performance of more and more web applications

Its customers’ distributed, non-mainframe platforms support a growing number of increasingly crucial Web Applications. “Today, a bank is more like a retailer than a traditional bank,” explains Hvid. “Its ability to provide services online has become extremely important. A mere 60-second delay in the end-user online experience can be catastrophic. We have to continually be on top of the possible risks or things can become very costly very quickly.”

This has historically been extremely difficult for staff. Without the ability to see performance-related incidents on the distributed platform, many problems were not known until reported by end users. Even after issues were identified, tracking down root causes could be a nightmare. “Every second-level unit says ‘My system is okay. I'm okay’,” explains Hvid, “but the end user is not okay. The problem is always somebody else’s fault, which really slows down our ability to find the real cause and correct it.”

A high degree of logic and functionality have been built into Web applications by  the developers. While this is great for end users on one hand, it has also led the banks and their customers to rely on them very heavily. “It’s getting more and more important for us to keep ahead of expectations where performance is concerned, because those applications have become so important,” says Hvid. “If they are not handled or approached the right way, it could bring down parts of the banks’ businesses.” Web application performance is seen as the central issue that JN Data will be dealing with well into the future.

Solution

Taking application performance management to a new level

JN Data chose the CA Wily APM solution to help them get a better handle on application performance. Right out of the box, JN Data gained a new diagnostic capability they hadn’t previously had. “It has enhanced our overall abilities, because we can now get information quickly from multiple and varied systems – on demand, in real time,” Hvid says.

 “We are collecting data on every aspect of things being executed on JVMs, on the Web systems, with .Net application code,” explains Hvid. “We can investigate almost anything passing the Web gateways and through the service windows. Instead of pinging URLs, we can get performance data directly from the systems.” JN Data uses CA Wily Introscope  in combination with its strategic surveillance setup, enriching the surveillance software with application performance statistics. As a result, staff can handle issues before they impact bank business, or proactively handle performance aspects earlier in the development cyclus.

JN Data uses the CA Wily APM solution to compare application performance and individual transaction data. This gives the IT staff a better feel for the real-world experience of end users, as opposed to a strictly technological understanding.

According to Hvid, it’s now much easier to find code that needs to be fixed. “In one instance, we discovered that the developers had to recode a application using Java in order to avoid a threat to back-end systems. That was significant,” he says. “There are multiple examples of bringing CA Wily in and, in a few hours, getting information from which we can start isolating problems.” When analyzing applications, the CA Wily software has also allowed the company to improve parts of the Web infrastructure, allowing applications to perform more efficiently and reliably.

“From a root cause perspective, I think CA Wily Introscope delivers value immediately after deployment. Most data centers have a serious problem determining root cause, but the blame game starts to disappear after just a few days after deploying CA Wily. You begin to approach your resources and your secondary units in a more structured and fact-oriented way. You can manage problems on a much more detailed level, and it makes you think of diagnostics from a whole other point of view.”

Results

Improving Web application performance for end users

By using the CA Wily APM solution to monitor and analyze web application development and performance, JN Data has been able to:

• Ensure a better end-user experience
• Correct application and infrastructure issues before they affect customer businesses
• Make the application development process more efficient
• Better control their own and their customers’ operational costs

“It's all about becoming proactive, instead of always having a reactive approach,” says Hvid. “Our administrators use CA Wily dashboards to see the specific information they need to check on certain potential issues. From the second level point of view, our people can see what's going on with performance and availability to diagnose problems.” CA Wily Introscope supports JN Data’s JEE and .NET supply chain by allowing personnel to proactively discover application errors before they reach production. “It speeds up the entire development process and, when we do put an application online, we have a much higher confidence level in how well it will perform from day one,” says Hvid.

According to Hvid, “Fewer man-hours are being spent to get better results, and that’s important because cost-cutting is one of our primary directives right now.”

Customer Profile

Industry: IT Services
Company: JN Data A/S
Employees: 240