Introduction

Synthetics monitoring is an important component of any complete monitoring strategy for applications. It allows you to mimic user interactions with your application, analyzing key performance indicators and identifying issues that could cause problems for users. The New Relic is a well-known app performance monitor (APM) tool that comes with strong capabilities for monitoring synthetically. We’ll discuss how to get synthetics monitoring to work in new relic, including setting the synthetic monitors and analyzing the data from synthetic monitoring, and the best methods for monitoring synthetically.

What is Synthetic Monitoring?

Synthetics monitoring, sometimes referred to as active monitor, refers to a method of resembling user interactions the application in order to check its performance. Synthetic monitoring is the process of creating scripts that simulate the actions of users, like pressing links, filling in forms, or navigating pages. The scripts can be executed at regular intervals to track key performance indicators including loading time, error rate and even availability.

Why is Synthetic Monitoring Important?

Synthetic monitoring is essential because of a number of reasons. It’s an opportunity to examine the performance of applications, identifying problems before they affect users. By simulating user interactions synthetic monitoring will reveal bottlenecks in performance and other issues that might not be visible by traditional methods of monitoring.

The second is that synthetic monitoring can aid in ensuring that applications are in compliance with Service Level Agreements (SLAs). By analyzing key performance indicators Synthetic monitoring can identify the instances when an application isn’t conforming to SLAs and notify IT departments to initiate action.

In the end, synthetic monitoring can aid organizations in improving customer experience through identifying and fixing issues that hinder the performance of applications. Through simulating user interactions synthetic monitoring can be used to test the application in various situations, allowing you to pinpoint and correct issues that could cause problems for users.

Setting Up Synthetics Monitoring in New Relic

New Relic provides a powerful synthetics monitoring tool that allows companies to replicate user interactions using their applications. To enable the monitoring of synthetic users using New Relic, follow these steps:

Creating a New Synthetic Monitor

To create a brand new fake monitor with New Relic, follow these steps:

1. Log into Your New Relic account, then navigate into your Synthetics dashboard.
2. Hit on the “New Monitor” button.
3. Select the kind of monitor you’d like to create, like the basic browser monitor, or a scripted browser.
4. Add a description and name to describe your display.
5. Select the frequency and area of your display.

Configuring Synthetic Monitoring Settings

Once you’ve created your own synthetic monitor, it is possible to set the settings. To change the settings of your synthetic monitor using New Relic, follow these steps:

1. Go through the Settings for Synthetic Monitor.
2. Set the alert settings for your monitor, which includes the types of alert, the threshold as well as notifications channels.
3. Set the script settings on your monitor, including script type, the location for the script and the script arguments.

Adding Synthetics Monitoring Scripts

To include synthetic monitor scripts to New Relic, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Synthetic Monitor Scripts page.
2. Choose the kind of script you wish to add, like browser-based scripts or API testing script.
3. Input the script’s code and any variables and functions.
4. Check your script to make sure that it’s functioning properly.

Analyzing Synthetic Monitor Data

After you’ve setup the synthetic monitoring feature using New Relic, you can begin analyzing the synthetic monitoring data to pinpoint problems and improve performance. To analyze the data from synthetic monitoring within New Relic, follow these steps:

Viewing Synthetic Monitor Results

To see the results of synthetics monitorsing using New Relic, follow these steps:

1. Go through the Synthetic Monitor Results page.
2. Check the overall condition on your screens, noting any issues or warnings.
3. You can drill down into each monitor to see detailed performance metrics such as response time as well as availability and errors.

Troubleshooting Synthetic Monitor Failures

If you experience synthetic monitor problems with New Relic, follow these steps to resolve the issue:

1. Examine the error message and log entries to determine the failure of the monitor.
2. Inspect any connectivity or network issues that could be affecting the monitor.
3. Examine the script code to check that it’s running in a proper manner.
4. Adjust the settings on your monitor including frequency and place of operation, to determine whether the issue is still there.

Best Practices for Synthetic Monitoring

To make the most of the synthetic monitoring feature New Relic, to get the most value from synthetic monitoring New Relic, follow these best methods:

1. Install multiple monitors to evaluate key interaction between users and the scenarios.
2. Create realistic scripts that imitate the actual behavior of users.
3. Track key performance metrics like response time, error rate and availability.
4. Set up alert notifications so the IT teams are aware of any problems.
5. Check regularly your monitoring data to find and fix problems.

Conclusion

Synthetic monitoring is an important component of any complete approach to monitoring applications. New Relic provides a powerful software for monitoring synthetically that permits companies to simulate user interactions with their apps, analyzing important performance indicators and identifying issues that might impact users’ experience. Following the steps described within this post, users will be able to create synthetic monitoring in New Relic, analyze synthetic monitoring data, and then implement the best practices for monitoring synthetically.