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In this blog, we will focus on the changes and the different routes the vendors in the synthetic monitoring industry have taken.
Last week, I received a phone call from the Head of Observability at a large global enterprise firm. He has been in the monitoring space for almost three decades working with various organizations and has experience with most monitoring tools. The first thing he asked was, “I have used several synthetic monitoring solutions right from basic HTTP to comprehensive user journey capable tools. I would like to know how Catchpoint is different from the rest.”
He went on to cite a few names he was familiar with including SiteScope, Gomez, and Keynote, and clarified that he has been out of touch with the monitoring space over the last few years and what he said aligned with the vendors he named. Some of them don’t exist anymore or have been diluted and/or rebranded.
A lot has changed in the monitoring space with many new vendors and a range of features to choose from. Although all vendors promise a solution that addresses every type of monitoring concerns, not every synthetic monitoring tool is built equally. In this blog, we try to answer how vendors, including Catchpoint, differ and focus on what makes a synthetic monitoring solution complete.
Synthetic Monitoring is a methodology that has been around for close to three decades and can be considered a derivative of “mystery shoppers”. A mystery shopper is a paid consumer hired to shop in specific stores to collect data. Think of mystery shoppers as “undercover customers” sent in to observe, interact, and report on other customers and the store employees.
Mystery shoppers are typically employed by a third-party rather than the store or company itself. Shoppers are sent to a wide variety of service-based businesses – potentially anywhere customers are served or serviced. Mystery shoppers are not hired to give opinions but are hired to assess a business and its employees from the customer’s perspective.
The methodology found its way in the digital world with companies like Mercury, Silk, Keynote, Gomez, Webmetrics, Alertsite, etc. The primary focus was on testing webpages which then evolved into scripted web transactions or user journeys. Before we dive into the details of synthetic monitoring, let’s discuss the key tenets of synthetic monitoring:
In an ideal scenario one would expect a synthetic monitoring solution to do all of the above and more:
But,
To understand what defines a complete synthetic monitoring solution, we need to first understand some of the popular technology changes we have seen over the last decade.
Fig 1: Evolution of Monitoring Technology
All the advancement in technology has made it necessary to implement a comprehensive synthetic monitoring solution. The matrix below (Fig 2) covers all the pillars of synthetic monitoring and the key features that should be provided by these solutions.
Fig 2: Synthetic Monitoring Pillars and Key Features (click to enlarge)
If this is what it takes for a complete synthetic monitoring solution, how many vendors in the current market space actually offer this today? Not many to be honest!
Most synthetic monitoring vendors are compromising the depth and breadth of the solution they offer and this has diluted its capability to focus on specific use cases or functions. The matrix below (Fig 3) compares the features included/excluded by different vendors.
Fig 3: Monitoring Vendor-Feature Comparison (click to enlarge)
This trend of synthetic vendors focusing on specific functions or departments originates from the different monitoring mindsets that exist within organizations.
While there is nothing wrong with the business model of the siloed specialized synthetic monitoring solutions, it does create a lot of gaps in the monitoring maturity of an organization.
Is the monitoring vendors’ business model right for the enterprise that purchases it?
When Gomez and Keynote Synthetics were merged to form today’s Dynatrace Synthetics a lot of the features it offered were diluted to align with the developer-first mindset of Dynatrace. I have discussed how this approach has created a lot of monitoring blindspots in this blog. Most enterprises typically don’t prefer using multiple synthetic monitoring solutions across different teams.
Some common challenges faced by enterprises that use such a diluted synthetic monitoring solution are:
When an enterprise is evaluating synthetic monitoring tools, they should ask themselves two important questions:
These questions are crucial when determining the right tool for your organization.
Every organization is continuously focusing on improving their goals and practices. Usually, most organizations are in one of these three monitoring maturity phases (Fig 4).
Fig 4: Monitoring Maturity Phases (click to enlarge)
The monitoring tools used are integral to the functioning of the five core components of an organization – application, technology, people, process, and tools.
If you are using a Synthetic Monitoring solution or plan to buy one, then take a step back and ask yourself – Why do you need one?
If the answer to all the above questions is a resounding YES, then you need a “comprehensive” synthetic monitoring solution. The decision is yours!