No business today that depends on online customers and processes to keep the lights on can afford an application meltdown. When an application critical to core business processes or revenues, such as a company's Web , is down for even an hour it can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

IT departments need foolproof ways to prevent application issues from becoming major failures. Having a plan in place for is essential, too. But these are worst-case scenarios, and while important, application providers should spend equal time and resources developing a plan to ensure that systems perform as expected during normal business operations. Such a plan needs to account for expected spikes in demand, such as finance closing its books at quarter's end or marketing launching a product -- as well as the unexpected events that can place unusual burdens on application, database and server loads.

TREND:

Here are the most effective prevention tips to keep critical enterprise in top shape.

1. Define the business value of performance and develop an application performance management plan with owners.