Firefighting vendor products shine when they blend interactive and historical capabilities. Regardless of the tools you use, ensure you have both interactive capabilities and historical capabilities. Always have your tools installed, running, and ready.

If performance is disastrous, put simply, users assume you're an idiot. They believe you do not understand there are problems, you don't know what the problems are, or you're not fixing the problems. Unless you have done something to change their minds, that's what they will think.

How could users be so cruel? Look at it from their perspective. They may believe it is solely your responsibility to keep the system running smoothly and that you get paid very well to do this. So if performance is unacceptable, it follows that you are not doing your job or are incapable of doing it well. That may be completely incorrect, but unless you do something quickly to break that thought process, it will become truth to them and, unfortunately, perhaps to others.