What is Synthetic Monitoring?

Definition How It Works Best Practices FAQ

Definition

Synthetic monitoring is a proactive approach to application performance monitoring that simulates user interactions with a web application or service. It allows organizations to detect performance issues before they impact real users.

How It Works

Synthetic monitoring works by sending automated requests to your application at regular intervals. Here’s a step-by-step breakdown:

Setup monitoring scripts that emulate user actions.
Schedule the scripts to run at specified intervals.
Collect response times and error rates from the requests.
Analyze the data to identify trends and issues.
Alert the team to any potential problems detected.

Important: Synthetic monitoring can help identify issues such as slow loading times, broken links, or server errors before they affect real users.

Example Code

Below is a simple example of a synthetic monitoring script using Python and the Requests library:

import requests
import time

def monitor_website(url):
    try:
        response = requests.get(url)
        print(f"URL: {url} | Status Code: {response.status_code} | Response Time: {response.elapsed.total_seconds()} seconds")
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"Error monitoring {url}: {e}")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    url_to_monitor = "https://example.com"
    while True:
        monitor_website(url_to_monitor)
        time.sleep(60)  # Run every 60 seconds

Best Practices

To maximize the effectiveness of synthetic monitoring, consider the following best practices:

Monitor critical user journeys to ensure essential functionalities are working.
Run tests from multiple geographical locations to understand performance for all users.
Integrate monitoring with alerting systems for immediate notifications.
Regularly review and update monitoring scripts to adapt to application changes.
Analyze historical data to identify patterns and optimize performance.

FAQ

What is the difference between synthetic monitoring and real user monitoring (RUM)?

Synthetic monitoring simulates user interactions, while RUM collects data from actual users as they interact with the application.

How often should synthetic monitoring run?

The frequency of synthetic monitoring depends on the application's criticality, but running checks every minute is a common practice.

Can synthetic monitoring detect all types of performance issues?

While synthetic monitoring is effective for many issues, it may not catch problems that only occur under real user conditions.

Flowchart of Synthetic Monitoring Process

graph TD;
                A[Start Monitoring] --> B[Emulate User Actions]
                B --> C[Send Requests to Server]
                C --> D{Response Status}
                D -->|200| E[Log Success]
                D -->|Error| F[Log Error]
                E --> G[Analyze Performance]
                F --> G
                G --> H[Alert Team if Necessary]
                H --> I[End Monitoring]