New technologies like virtualization, service-oriented architecture, cloud computing and agile development allow business to be more flexible, but it also puts the IT environment in a constant state of flux. More than ever before, managing IT means managing constant change and its associated risks.

Existing IT management tools were designed for managing a static state IT environment– environments where today’s system configuration and requirements haven’t changed from yesterday, and will remain the same tomorrow. They monitor system components or the network, assuming there is a static relation between IT components and service level agreements. The problem is that the rate of change in modern IT infrastructure makes this methodology obsolete.

Managing and tracking transactions is the only way to tie infrastructure to both end users and the business context. Transactions are the only thread linking underlying infrastructure and network components to actual user experience and business requirements. Tracking every transaction through all its hops provides the visibility and context needed to really understand what is going on in today’s complex, hybrid environments. Most of today’s IT management tools can’t manage and monitor every transaction through every hop, which is why they are effective only for static environments.

The Technology Behind SharePath
SharePath is different. It was built from the ground-up as a transaction-oriented IT reliability platform. Developed specifically to assist companies in dealing with change in their dynamic IT environments, SharePath can ensure end users are not negatively impacted by those changes. SharePath’s patent-pending technology enables it to unobtrusively track and gather information about every individual transaction across all its hops, from a click in the browser through all the data center layers and back. It then uses this information to automatically build accurate models of transaction behavior that visualize the exact impact of each IT component on end-user response time. These models enable IT operations to quickly analyze changes and understand exactly what is impacting, or more importantly, may impact, the end users.

Designed for dynamic environments
SharePath constantly auto detects all transactions and their paths. Auto detection works in all environments, even in constantly changing virtualized or private cloud environments.

Low cost, fast deployment
SharePath doesn’t require expensive manual modeling of systems or risky modification of application code. A simple installation on the monitored servers and a SharePath backend server are all that are needed.

Designed for high-volume production environments
SharePath doesn’t add measurable overhead, and doesn’t use intrusive heavy-handed, byte-code instrumentation techniques.

Comprehensive coverage, no blind spots
SharePath tracks transactions through any environment, not only .NET and Java. Even data centers that have standardized on those environments find that they still have critical components based on C++, COBOL, message brokers, ESBs, etc. Only a tool that can track through all those environments can give true end-to-end coverage.

Proactive Service Intelligence
SharePath uses its tracking capability to automatically track transactions through all their hops, creating a model of the interrelationship between each transaction type and the infrastructure. By using transactions to relate components, end-user performance and SLAs, this model provides the context of a component malfunction. You now know not only that a component malfunctioned, but also understand the ramifications of the malfunction.

SharePath ensures IT reliability
When a performance problem occurs, you know immediately where, why, and who is affected, and you have all the information needed to quickly resolve performance issues. SharePath is the insurance you need to reduce the risks associated with change for every phase in your data center and application lifecycle.

Architecture Overview
SharePath architecture consists of a SharePath backend, host managers and collectors, as well as an integration framework that allows you to leverage existing investments in other tools.

SharePath collectors and host managers are installed on monitored servers. They are responsible for collecting transaction data and forwarding it to the SharePath backend for processing. Collectors and managers are simple to install and don’t even require a restart of the managed application.

Data from the collectors is sent to the SharePath backend which uses patent-pending technology to assemble the full end-to-end path of each discrete transaction based on the transaction data collected from each collector. The discrete data from each component is stitched together to create complete end-to-end monitoring of transactions.

A Profiling and Modeling Engine analyzes the discrete transaction paths and automatically creates aggregated transaction models (or profiles) of related transactions and how they relate to the infrastructure – e.g., application transaction models. A built-in Repository stores the raw transaction path data and aggregated data. This data can be off-loaded to an external store or warehouse. The backend also provides Alerting and Notifications Engine, Dashboard and Analytics UI, Reporting Engine and Administration Console.

SharePath integration framework enables external access to SharePath’s data (e.g., feeding CMDB, integration with capacity planning products). The integration framework provides a Web services API and an Event Management Adapter (for exporting alerts).