Data recorder speeds system development

A system aimed at application developers that shaves time off the build cycle while also improving quality and understanding is moving from the ISV and SI community to manufacturers’ IT departments. Dubbed AppSight, from Identity Software, it acts as a ‘black box’. “It’s like a flight data recorder for IT developers,” says Lori Wizdo, VP of marketing. “It sits alongside the application and records behaviour, correlating what’s happening with the database, network and end user. So it automatically builds a history of the execution and behaviour for anyone to review on demand.” She claims around 600 users, and bills the tool as a system for problem resolution as opposed to debugging – with role-dependent views able to catch everything from code problems to issues with configuration or system resources. Wizdo cites cosmetics firm Mary Kay, which put in a supply chain system involving four ISVs and 250 integration points over two years. “QA and production roll-out was critical,” she says. “They were running the system with four manufacturing facilities, five supply locations and lean manufacturing so if things went wrong, in one hour the plant would shut down. “So problems have to be solved fast, and they found that they were able to solve problems in minutes rather than days, and hours rather than weeks. In fact, they budgeted for a two-month shakedown period and were able to do it in one month with our system. So the business value was achieved one month early.”