Using the experience of APM experts in the age of COVID-19

The world is waking up to the importance of tracing and tracking techniques, something experienced operations staff have used for decades.

In IT terms the idea of following the pathway (the act of tracing) that a user takes through a complex business system is the cornerstone of the analysis that is performed by security and operations teams every day.

And comparing a trace of a transaction to that of previous transactions (tracking) allows unusual behavior to be quickly identified.

In the age of pandemics, the concepts of tracing and tracking take on a new level of importance. Many countries are now implementing tracing technologies in phone apps, which allow a record to be kept of every other phone that has come close to a phone running the app. And in the event of someone testing positive for the COVID-19 virus, then a quick analysis of everyone that person has come into contact within a specific period of time allows all of those people to be alerted that they have been in contact with an infected person and should be tested. They can then receive testing and the scale of the spread can be limited by using targeted quarantining.

This is not a simple process, but one that takes vigilance and scale, but it also creates a number of potential privacy concerns, which some people will see as an issue.

But the places in the world that are using effective tracing, tracking, testing and quarantining procedures will be able to open up their economies quicker.

The question for every government is what is more important, privacy or the economy and health of the country?

It’s clear that every country today has a different answer to this question.

Nastel has created a feed with some new information on COVID-19! Click here.