After defining a set of application performance monitoring requirements, and assembling an evaluation team, Coles Myer issued a tender and conducted a "bake-off" between vendors as a proof-of-concept.

"Mercury was the best fit [as] it supports the ongoing application performance management lifecycle," Tonkin said. "You can take it through from testing to production. The technology fits to our requirements."

Coles Myer, in conjunction with Mercury, implemented Business Availability Centre (BAC) for end-user management, system availability management, and a dashboard display.

The solution is now monitoring 10 key business applications, including merchandising, supply chain systems, and other core transaction systems. Also being watched is Coles Myer's online activities like its core portal, online retail sites, and the new B2B gateway.

Overall, there are about 350 end-user transactions and 1000 servers being monitored by 2000 Mercury SiteScope monitors running at 70 monitors per minute.