Application performance monitoring solutions for enterprise-critical systems
Edge APM from Nathan Claire Group follows every request across your services, databases and external APIs, then correlates it with infrastructure, log and real user data in one data lake. Your engineers get to the cause of a slowdown or error, not a shortlist of suspects.
Built for organisations whose revenue runs through digital channels, and for the engineering, operations and IT leaders accountable for them. NCG pairs the Edge platform with implementation, managed monitoring and performance engineering, from offices in Nairobi, Lagos and London.
When applications slow down, fail or frustrate customers
Slow applications and APIs
Distributed traces and the live service map show which service, query or external dependency is adding latency, so you troubleshoot the slow call instead of the whole stack.
Related: Database MonitoringFailed or timing-out transactions
Locate the service or API leg that is returning errors during the failure window, then follow the transaction across web, mobile, USSD and card channels.
Related: Transaction MonitoringDowntime and late detection
Baselines learned from normal behaviour flag meaningful deviations early, and deployment markers show exactly when a regression started and which release introduced it.
Related: AI-assisted operationsPoor digital customer experience
Connect a slow page or app screen experienced by real users to the backend API, query or infrastructure issue behind it.
Related: Real User MonitoringWhat application performance monitoring does
Application performance monitoring measures how software behaves in production: how long requests take, how often they fail, how much traffic each service handles and which dependencies slow it down. Distributed tracing shows the full path of a single request, so a delay can be pinned to a specific service, query or third-party call.
Some teams call this discipline application performance management: using that data to set targets, prioritise fixes and keep releases from degrading service. Enterprise application monitoring adds harder requirements: legacy, on-premises and cloud systems side by side, regulated data that may have to stay in-country, and many teams who need the same evidence. On its own, APM explains what an application is doing. On Edge, the same traces sit next to infrastructure metrics, logs, database activity and real user sessions, which is what turns a latency alert into a root cause your team can act on.
APM, real user, synthetic, infrastructure and log monitoring compared
These disciplines are often confused, which leads teams to buy the wrong tool. Each answers a different question. Most incidents need several of them at once, which is why Edge keeps them in one data lake instead of separate products.
Application performance monitoring
Inside the application
Which service, query or external call is making requests slow or fail?
Distributed traces, service maps, latency percentiles, error rates
Edge APMReal user monitoring
Real customers’ browsers and apps
What are customers actually experiencing, on which device, network and region?
Page and screen timings, Core Web Vitals, sessions, user journeys
Edge RUMSynthetic monitoring
Scripted checks from outside
Is a key journey or endpoint working right now, even when there is no traffic?
Scheduled journey and API checks, availability, SSL and DNS
Edge SyntheticInfrastructure monitoring
Hosts, containers and clusters
Is the problem in the code or in the servers, pods and cloud resources underneath it?
CPU, memory, disk, network, Kubernetes and cloud metrics
Edge InfrastructureLog monitoring
Event records
What exactly happened, in which component, and when?
Application and system logs, exceptions, audit events
Edge LogsWhat Edge APM monitors
Full visibility into how your applications behave in production, from the first request to the final database call. Distributed tracing, service maps, and anomaly detection that connects technical performance to business outcomes.
Edge agent instrumentation
Lightweight agents with under 2% CPU overhead. Auto-discovery maps services without manual configuration.
Distributed tracing
Follow a single request across every microservice, queue and external dependency it touches.
Service map visualisation
Live topology of every service, its dependencies and the latency between them.
Anomaly detection from baselines
Machine learning baselines on normal behaviour, alerting only when patterns deviate meaningfully.
Root cause correlation
Correlate application errors with the infrastructure event, deployment or query that caused them.
Automatic slow transaction detection
Capture and surface the slowest transactions as they happen, with the full execution context behind them.
Signals captured
- API latency
- Database query time
- Request throughput
- Error rate
- CPU and memory
- Response distribution
- Service dependencies
- Queue depth
Works with the stack you already run
Application runtimes
- Java
- .NET
- Node.js
- Python
- Go
- Ruby
Containers and cloud
- Kubernetes
- Docker
- OpenShift
- AWS
- Azure
- Google Cloud
- Oracle Cloud
Telemetry standards
- OpenTelemetry (OTLP/HTTP, gRPC)
- Prometheus
- StatsD
Alerting channels
- Slack
- Microsoft Teams
- PagerDuty
- SMS
- Webhooks
APM correlated with the rest of Edge
Every Edge module writes to the same Edge Datalake, so APM traces can be read alongside the signals that usually live in separate tools.
Application monitoring for organisations operating across Africa and beyond
Serving customers in several countries brings problems that single-market tools miss: different mobile networks and carriers, USSD and mobile-money channels alongside web and apps, partner APIs in each market, and data rules that differ by jurisdiction. This is how Edge handles them.
Customers in many countries and cities
Edge RUM Geomaps show experience at global, regional, country and city level, and segment it by device, network and ISP, so a slowdown in one market is visible on its own.
Real user monitoringMobile money, USSD and card channels
Compare web, mobile, USSD and branch channels, and follow a payment to the failing service or partner API. Edge documentation describes tracing a spike in mobile-money reversals to a partner API outage.
Transaction monitoringVariable networks and carriers
See which carrier or peering point is adding latency, and tell a network problem apart from an application one before escalating to the provider.
Network monitoringAvailability where customers are
Scripted browser journeys and endpoint checks run around the clock from multiple locations, with screenshot evidence for SLA holders and regulators.
Synthetic monitoringData that must stay in-country
Deploy Edge on-premises, in your private cloud or in a regional cloud. Edge supports multi-region and multi-cloud deployment, so telemetry can follow each jurisdiction’s rules.
Security and deploymentAlerts that reach on-call teams
Route alerts by WhatsApp, SMS, email, Slack, Microsoft Teams, PagerDuty or webhooks, according to urgency and who is on call.
AI agent and alertingHow Nathan Claire Group delivers APM
Edge is the platform; NCG engineers make it work in your environment. Choose the level of support that fits your team.
Implementation and integration
NCG professional services handle architecture, agent and connector rollout, integration with your existing tools, and training for your engineers. Edge connects alongside your current stack — nothing has to be ripped out on day one.
Managed APM (Monitoring as a Service)
For teams that want the outcome without the operational overhead: NCG engineers provide 24/7 proactive monitoring, incident management and advisory on top of your Edge deployment.
Performance engineering
Starting with a Technology Environment Audit, NCG assesses your estate against performance, reliability and efficiency benchmarks and works with your teams to remove the bottlenecks APM uncovers.
From first call to production monitoring
- Step 1
Discovery call
We map your applications, infrastructure, databases, cloud and notification channels.
- Step 2
Connector deployment
Lightweight agents or agentless connectors are deployed — typically 2–4 hours for a standard environment.
- Step 3
Data validation
Engineers confirm telemetry is flowing correctly and performance baselines are established.
- Step 4
Dashboards and alerts
Dashboards, SLO thresholds and escalation policies are configured to match your runbooks.
- Step 5
Handover and training
Your team receives documentation, a runbook and direct engineer support.
Six questions to ask any APM vendor, and how Edge answers them
Use these when you compare application performance monitoring solutions or APM software. The best test is a discovery session on one real service, using your own traffic.
- 01
Does it support open standards, or lock us in?
Edge ingests OpenTelemetry over OTLP (HTTP or gRPC), plus Prometheus and StatsD, alongside its own language agents.
OpenTelemetry on Edge - 02
Where will our telemetry be stored?
On-premises, in your private cloud or in a regional cloud, so regulated data can stay in-country.
Security and deployment - 03
What overhead do the agents add?
Edge product documentation states lightweight agents at under 2% CPU. Validate this on your own workloads during discovery.
Edge APM module - 04
Can it correlate beyond traces?
Every Edge module writes to one Edge Datalake, so traces are read next to logs, infrastructure, database and real user data.
Edge Datalake - 05
Do we have to replace what we already run?
No. Edge connects alongside your current tools, with more than 100 integrations.
Integrations - 06
Who helps us implement and run it?
NCG engineers deliver implementation, managed APM (Monitoring as a Service) and performance engineering.
Services
Industries we monitor
- Banking and financial services
- Payments and cards
- Telecommunications
- Insurance
- E-commerce and retail
- Healthcare
- Public services
Month-end slowdowns at a digital bank
During month-end peaks, a bank saw transaction failures rise from 0.5% to 12% and mobile response times climb past 15 seconds. Within 24 hours of deploying Edge, root causes were identified across the database (N+1 queries, missing indexes, connection-pool saturation), the application (thread-pool exhaustion and cache misses), infrastructure (CPU saturation and a memory leak in fund transfers) and third-party APIs.
Figures come from Edge product documentation and describe one scenario. Results depend on your environment and are not a guarantee.
Read the full case study Read feedback from banking and telecoms clients in Kenya and NigeriaApplication performance monitoring questions
What is application performance monitoring (APM)?
Application performance monitoring tracks the performance and availability of software applications in real time. APM tools collect response time, error rate, throughput and resource usage, together with distributed traces that show how each request flows through services, so teams can detect degradation, find slow transactions and see where time is being spent.
How does Edge APM collect data?
Edge APM uses lightweight language agents (documented at under 2% CPU overhead) with automatic service discovery, and also accepts OpenTelemetry traces over OTLP/HTTP or gRPC. Everything is written to the Edge Datalake, where it is correlated with infrastructure, log, database and real user data.
Which languages and platforms does Edge APM support?
Edge provides APM agents for Java, .NET, Node.js, Python, Go and Ruby, and supports applications running on Kubernetes, Docker and OpenShift, across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and Oracle Cloud as well as on-premises infrastructure. If your stack is not listed, contact us and we will confirm whether a connector exists.
Can Edge APM be deployed on-premises to keep data in-country?
Yes. Edge can be deployed on-premises, in your private cloud or in a regional cloud, so application telemetry stays within your jurisdiction. This is common for banks, telecoms and public sector organisations with data residency requirements.
Do we need to replace our existing monitoring tools?
No. Edge is designed for a no-rip-and-replace approach: it connects alongside your existing stack, and with more than 100 integrations it can bring signals from current tools into the same view.
How is Edge APM priced?
Pricing is tailored to the scale of your environment, the modules you select and your deployment model. The best starting point is a short, no-obligation discovery session, after which NCG prepares a scoped proposal.
What is the difference between APM and observability?
APM focuses on how applications behave: request latency, errors, throughput and the traces that connect services. Observability is the broader ability to understand any system from its telemetry, combining application traces with infrastructure metrics, logs, real user data and business transactions. Edge APM is one of twelve modules on the Edge observability platform, all sharing the same data lake.
How quickly can we get started with Edge APM?
After a discovery call, lightweight agents or agentless connectors are deployed, typically in 2–4 hours for a standard environment. Engineers then validate the data, establish performance baselines, configure dashboards and alerts, and hand over with documentation and training.
Who builds Edge?
Edge is the observability and AIOps platform built by Nathan Claire Group (also known as Nathan Claire, Nathan Claire Africa and NCG). NCG engineers implement, support and, if you choose, operate Edge for clients from offices in Kenya, Nigeria and the United Kingdom.
Do you provide application performance monitoring solutions in Africa?
Yes. Nathan Claire is headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, with a West Africa hub in Lagos, Nigeria, and a European office in London. We work with organisations across East and West Africa and internationally. Edge can run on-premises or in a regional cloud, so application telemetry can stay in the country where it is generated.
Can Edge monitor applications used across several countries?
Yes. Real user monitoring shows experience by region, country and city, and by device, network and ISP. Synthetic checks run from multiple locations, network monitoring shows carrier and peering behaviour, and Edge supports multi-region and multi-cloud deployment. All of it is correlated in one data lake.
More answers in our full FAQ library.
Request an APM demo from anywhere in Africa or worldwide
Nathan Claire supports organisations across East and West Africa and internationally from offices in Kenya, Nigeria and the United Kingdom. Because Edge can be deployed on-premises or in a regional cloud, APM data can stay in-country for banks, telecoms and public sector organisations with residency requirements. Tell us where you operate in the demo form, or call the office nearest you. We reply within one business day.
Request a demo- KenyaNairobiHeadquarters and primary delivery centre, home to our core engineering team+254 727 067045
- NigeriaLagosWest Africa hub for operations and enterprise clients+234 812 221 4004
- United KingdomLondonEuropean office for international partnerships+44 20 3518 5888
See Edge APM on your own applications
Start with a 30-minute discovery call. We will map your environment and show you what Edge would surface — no obligation.