How to Get Synthetic Monitoring to Work in New Relic (Step by Step Guide)
Synthetics monitoring is a proactive
approach to ensuring the reliability and performance of applications and
services by simulating user interactions from various global locations. By
mimicking real user behavior, synthetics tools provide insights into application
performance, responsiveness, and availability. These tools enable scheduled
checks from multiple locations, allowing businesses to identify issues related
to regional latency, network connectivity, or service downtime. Additionally,
synthetics monitoring facilitates the creation of scripted tests to simulate
complex user journeys, providing a comprehensive assessment of application
functionality.
With synthetics monitoring,
organizations can receive alerts when issues arise, enabling swift action to
rectify problems before they impact end users. By scheduling regular checks and
analyzing historical data, businesses can track performance trends, identify
areas for improvement, and ensure consistent user experiences across different
regions. Synthetics monitoring not only enhances the reliability of
applications and services but also empowers organizations to proactively
address issues, maintain high levels of uptime, and uphold user satisfaction.
To set up synthetics monitoring in
New Relic, you can follow these eight simple steps:
·
1)
Sign Up and Log In
If you haven't already, sign up for a
New Relic account and log in to your dashboard.
·
2)
Access Synthetics
Once logged in, navigate to the
"Synthetics" section of the New Relic dashboard. It might be under a
tab labeled "More" or "Products" depending on your
dashboard layout.
·
3)
Create a New Monitor
Click on the "Create a
monitor" button. You'll be prompted to choose the type of monitor you want
to create. New Relic offers several types, including simple ping checks,
scripted browser tests, API tests, and more.
·
4)
Configure Monitor Settings
Depending on the type of monitor you
choose, you'll need to configure various settings such as the URL to monitor,
the frequency of checks, and the locations from which to run the checks.
·
5)
Write Scripts (if necessary)
If you're setting up a scripted
browser test or an API test, you'll need to write the script that defines the
actions or requests to be performed during the check. New Relic provides
documentation and examples to help you write these scripts.
·
6)
Review and Save
Once you've configured the monitor
settings and (if applicable) written the script, review everything to ensure
it's set up correctly. Then, save your monitor.
·
7)
View Results
After setting up the monitor, you can
view its results in the New Relic dashboard. You'll be able to see metrics such
as response time, uptime, and any errors encountered during checks.
·
8)
Set Up Alerts (Optional)
To receive notifications when your
monitor detects issues, you can set up alert policies in New Relic. This
ensures that you're promptly notified of any problems with your monitored
services.
By following these steps, you should
be able to set up synthetics monitoring in New Relic to track the performance
and availability of your applications and services.
How can synthetic monitoring be used?
Synthetic monitoring serves as a
versatile tool for businesses to maintain the reliability and performance of
their applications and services. It enables pre-launch testing, allowing
organizations to conduct comprehensive assessments before deploying new
features or applications. By simulating user interactions, synthetic monitoring
identifies potential performance bottlenecks, usability issues, and
functionality gaps, ensuring a seamless user experience from the outset.
Continuous performance monitoring is another vital application of synthetic
monitoring, enabling businesses to schedule regular checks from diverse
geographical locations. This approach facilitates real-time detection of issues
such as slow loading times, downtime, or errors, empowering organizations to
address them promptly and uphold service reliability.
Synthetic monitoring encompasses various types, each serving specific purposes in evaluating the performance and availability of applications and services:
Simple Ping Checks
This type of synthetic monitoring
involves sending ICMP ping requests to the target server to assess its
availability. It's the most basic form of monitoring and primarily indicates
whether a server is reachable or not. Ping checks are useful for detecting
network connectivity issues and basic server availability but provide limited
insight into application functionality.
Example: A website monitoring tool
sends ping requests to a web server every minute. If the server fails to
respond to the ping requests, an alert is triggered, indicating potential
network connectivity issues or server downtime.
HTTP(S) Checks
HTTP checks involve sending HTTP or
HTTPS requests to specific URLs to monitor the availability and response times
of web applications. These checks can verify whether a web server is responding
with the expected status codes (e.g., 200 OK) and assess the performance of
individual web pages.
Example: An e-commerce platform
conducts HTTP checks on its checkout page every five minutes. If the response
time exceeds a predefined threshold or the server returns an unexpected status
code (e.g., 404 Not Found), an alert is generated, prompting investigation into
potential issues affecting the checkout process.
Scripted Browser Tests
Scripted browser tests simulate user
interactions with web applications by executing scripts that mimic real user
behavior. These tests navigate through web pages, interact with elements such
as forms and buttons, and verify the correctness of page content. Scripted
browser tests provide insights into application functionality, usability, and
performance from an end-user perspective.
Example: A travel booking website
runs scripted browser tests to simulate the user journey of searching for
flights, selecting seats, and completing the booking process. If any step in
the process fails or experiences delays, the monitoring tool generates alerts,
enabling the development team to identify and resolve issues promptly.
API Monitoring
API monitoring involves sending
requests to API endpoints to verify their availability, response times, and
data correctness. API checks validate the functionality and performance of
backend services, ensuring they meet the required service level agreements
(SLAs).
Example: A social media platform
monitors its API endpoints that handle user authentication requests. By
periodically sending authentication requests and verifying the response times
and data integrity, the platform ensures that users can securely access their
accounts without encountering errors.
Each type of synthetic monitoring
serves specific purposes in assessing different aspects of application
performance and availability. By employing a combination of these monitoring
techniques, businesses can comprehensively evaluate their applications and
services, identify potential issues proactively, and maintain optimal user
experiences.
Things to consider during this
process:
During the synthetic monitoring
process, it's crucial to balance the accuracy of tests with real-world
conditions, understanding that synthetic tests may not always perfectly reflect
user experiences. Supplementing synthetic monitoring with real user monitoring
(RUM) data can provide a more comprehensive view of application performance.
It's essential to ensure that your synthetic monitoring covers critical user
journeys and functionality within your applications, prioritizing key
transactions, pages, or API endpoints to effectively gauge user experience.
Additionally, determining an appropriate monitoring frequency based on
application criticality and expected user traffic patterns is important to
detect issues promptly without unnecessarily consuming resources.
Furthermore, setting up alerting
thresholds based on acceptable performance criteria and SLAs is vital, avoiding
overly sensitive thresholds to prevent alert fatigue. Geographical diversity in
monitoring locations should be considered to represent your user base
adequately and identify regional performance issues. Regularly reviewing and
updating scripts for scripted browser tests or API checks is necessary to
accommodate changes in application functionality, preventing false positives or
missed issues during monitoring. Finally, integrating synthetic monitoring
alerts with incident response processes facilitates rapid issue resolution,
ensuring relevant teams are promptly notified and clear escalation paths are
established for effective response.
Synthetic monitoring plays
a crucial role in assessing the geographical performance of applications and
services. By monitoring from various regions, businesses gain insights into
regional latency, network connectivity, and content delivery, ensuring
consistent user experiences worldwide. Additionally, synthetic monitoring
extends its utility to third-party service monitoring, enabling businesses to
monitor the performance of essential dependencies like APIs or payment
gateways. This proactive approach minimizes the risk of disruptions to the
application and ensures that third-party services meet the required service
level agreements (SLAs). Overall, synthetic monitoring not only enhances
application reliability and performance but also supports capacity planning and
scalability testing, empowering businesses to optimize their infrastructure and
accommodate future growth effectively.
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