I wonder if the performance manager is really being asked a fair question here. It is always going to be hard to manage the service from end to end, when so many of the links in the chain are beyond our managerial influence. We can manage our own in-house servers and network. We cannot expect to manage the web itself, the user's network and their servers, or any external services with which we interact. The next time your IT Manager says he wants end to end service management for your web based applications, perhaps you need to educate him. So often it seems that end-to-end service reporting is being confused with end-to-end service management.

Much software is already being touted that observes behavior at the client end of the transaction. This can offer valuable information about navigation paths, patterns of user behavior, time outs, bail outs and much more. This data assists those responsible for the management and marketing of the e-commerce web site. However, it is not performance information. .

It can be a source of information about end-to-end response time. It can therefore be used for reporting on service quality as seen by the user, a vital concept in the web world. It is also information largely about things that the performance manager cannot control. Although knowledge is nice, the value of the information is limited. If the information produced shows that service quality is inadequate, one needs to know where the problem lies. Typically, the majority of the processing and therefore the majority of the response time occurs on the server. This is therefore where the concentration of effort needs to be.