For that reason, it’s also critical that the quality of service management infrastructure require minimal overhead to operate in production. The challenge here is to be able to look at the infrastructure holistically, even in the face of constant change. This management also needs to be transparent to the application and the infrastructure.

Part of the problem is that the tools, such as debuggers, that are used to get applications production-ready aren’t useful for a transaction-focused approach. While applications live in production, it’s important that management tools collect both the correct information and the right amount of information on their performance. Code-level information for every activity within every system in every part of an environment is not achievable, useful, or relevant. This level of information is paralyzing.

The ability to deliver all of these criteria in a production environment is not kids’ play, or something that can be taken for granted. It’s an ongoing management battle, and requires that all of the criteria be consistently met. But by starting with a focus on transactions, defining performance based on business need, and then deploying the quality of service infrastructure to enforce those needs in production throughout the architecture, organizations will find that they can move away from constant firefighting to more proactive transaction quality of service management.