Synthetics 101: Monitoring You Can Trust

Not all synthetic monitoring solutions are created equal. Some are newcomers that understand the value this technology brings to today’s global economy. Others are legacy providers in the APM space trying to become more relevant. Then there are well established DEM providers, which claim a worldwide presence, but on looking closer, in fact, have porous coverage and presence in only minor providers. We’ve put together a synthetics 101 demo and the “must-haves” necessary to have an effective synthetic monitoring solution.

The solution you can trust should provide quality data: non-aggregated and coming from established tier 1, 2, and 3 providers around the world.

Each component that makes up the Internet must be monitored. This includes:

• The last mile (tier 2 and 3 providers like Comcast, TMobile, and Verizon), which everyone uses to access the Internet
• The backbone/transit networks (tier 1 providers like Insignia, CenturyLink, Cogent), which can be thought of as the Internet core
• DNS vendors (e.g. Neustar, NS1, and Cloudflare), which provide DNS reliability and security
• CDN and security providers (e.g. Limelight Networks, Fastly, and Akamai), which ensure your content is delivered quickly and securely
• A wealth of other third-party services (e.g. AppNexus, MuleSoft, and SiteSpect)

Each provider within the complex ecosystem that makes up the Internet has different levels of reliability and performance. Each one must be tracked to ensure an optimal digital experience for the end user.

Similarly, a wide range of synthetic monitoring test types from each of these locations is necessary to find out how every part of your website and/or application is performing.

Watch a Video Demo to Understand Catchpoint’s Approach to Synthetic Monitoring

Catchpoint has over 830 pre-deployed test locations worldwide using well-known providers across each tier. No other provider offers the same level of coverage, test type, and ability to drill into the details so that you can quickly detect, identify, and fix performance issues before your customers are impacted.

Our nodes are situated in the core Internet backbone providers, wireless 3G and 4G, last mile, in-branch enterprise locations, and all the main cloud providers. We offer 20 different test types, including web, streaming, SSL, HTML, DNS (a previous Tip Tuesday), API, and FTP. We test everything from everywhere because, in today’s global digital landscape, your customers and employees are situated around the world.

Another crucial differentiator from our competition: Catchpoint provides proactive synthetic monitoring from the user perspective in, not from the cloud or server out. Many providers do things the reverse way round, but our mission is to monitor the same path your customers are using because we know that the end user is at the heart of every digital business.

In this week’s short video demo, we break down Catchpoint’s unique approach to synthetic monitoring.

This video shows how Catchpoint can help you:

• Monitor from the user perspective
• Enjoy presence in well-established providers
• Have the ability to test everything from everywhere
• Access non-aggregated (raw) data
• Perform back in time forensics when called to do so