How to Configure Synthetic Monitoring in New Relic?

Your website will crash tomorrow!

What if I tell you it’s true, but you have no clue?!

It might not be me, but a software wizard can tell you what’s wrong with your website and what will happen next. 

Yes, and it’s called Synthetic Monitoring – Your Aladdin’s Genie 

However, it doesn’t just close its eyes and predict the horoscope. 

Instead, it uses its cutting-edge Machine Learning and AI to monitor your entire system, components, and interconnected networks. 

And, at the first sign of any trouble, it just pulls out its iPhone and gives you a call! 

Let’s dive deep into this article to figure out how to keep your website 100% efficient, avoiding all the storms and unwanted troubleshooting using the New Relic Synthetic Monitoring. 

What Is Synthetic Monitoring?

Synthetic monitoring is an approach for monitoring the performance, availability, and functionality of web applications, websites, and APIs by simulating the paths that connect users to the service. 

Synthetic monitoring provides insight into the application’s performance, user experience, and API functionality. Besides, it also predicts any upcoming issues that may affect your application or website’s performance.

It’s neither magic nor mystery! 

It’s a modern ML and AI combination to help you manage your web applications.

Synthetic Monitoring vs. Real User Monitoring

Aside from Synthetic Monitoring, there was a manual monitoring system. It’s known as Real User Monitoring (RUM).

The manual method, RUM, involves the user manually tagging actions rather than emulating them. 

You can inject codes and collect performance data as users interact with your website or app. 

When Synthetics Monitoring predicts and alerts you about application issues, you must deploy RUM manually to investigate what’s wrong. 

Let’s look at some of the key differences between Synthetic Monitoring and Real User Monitoring:

How Does Synthetic Monitoring Benefit Global Business?

Global businesses use synthetic monitoring to ensure the optimal performance of their digital services. Let’s explore some of its useful effects.

Predictive nature: A synthetic monitoring system can analyze operational data to forecast the future performance of your application or website. You examine a few analytics to predict potential issues your application may encounter.

Business Agility:  Synthetic monitoring allows you to deploy applications at your business’s pace while considering the market scenario. The infrastructure will be adaptable to changing seasons.

Global performance monitoring: Global companies can test their apps’ performance and availability from multiple locations to provide a consistent user experience.

Regulatory compliance: Regional data privacy may affect application performance and availability. Companies can comply with these regulations and improve user experience with synthetic monitoring.

Complex Application Monitoring: Synthetic monitoring simulates user interactions and processes in many complex applications. Besides, it imitates complex actions like browsing databases, testing API performance, testing how things work together, etc. 

Performance optimization: Synthetic monitoring finds bottlenecks, slow-loading elements, and problematic third-party integrations. Similarly, this data helps businesses optimize their apps and boost performance, improving user experience and sales.

Benchmarking and SLA monitoring: Businesses can set performance benchmarks for third-party services or APIs and monitor compliance with Service Level Agreements (SLAs) using synthetic monitoring.

The New Relic Synthetic Monitoring 

New Relic Synthetic Monitoring is a tool that simulates user interactions with websites and apps. It proactively monitors your website’s performance, alerting you to errors, failures, or anomalies that could impact user experience. 

It’s like your virtual detective, always looking for trouble in your websites and applications. It’s a clever tool that creates ‘synthetic’ users to test your site and highlight any problems before they affect your real users.

This tool provides global insights. It optimizes your app for every user, whether using a mobile in Miami or a desktop in Dubai.

So breathe deep, relax, and let New Relic Synthetic Monitoring run your digital world 24/7.

New Relic primarily offers 7 different types of monitoring,

1. Availability (Ping)
2. SSL Certificate Expiration (Certificate Check)
3. Page Link Crawler (Broken Links Monitor)
4. Page Load Performance (Simple Browser)
5. User Flow/Functionality (Scripted Browser) 
6. Endpoint Availability (Scripted API) 
7. User Step Execution ( Step Monitor)

For instance, we’ll show you how to set up monitoring for Availability (Ping) and Page Load Performance (Simple Browser). 

Prerequisite

To use the NewRelic Synthetic monitoring tool, you must first sign up on their website. They have a free plan for everyone.

Go to the New Relic Sign Up Page and register with the email associated with your company. Alternatively, you can sign up using Google.

If you want a premium version with more features, go to the New Relic Pricing page.

Setup Availability (Ping) Monitoring in New Relic

Availability or Ping monitors are the simplest types of synthetic monitors. They will check if an application or website is online. The synthetic ping monitor uses a simple Java HTTP client to request your site from different locations. 

So, let’s get started with step-by-step instructions for configuring the New Relic Synthetic Monitor on your website’s Availability (ping).

Step 1: Select Availability (Ping) Synthetic Monitor in New Relic

After signing up, you’ll be directed to the New Relic dashboard. It displays all of the available options. 

Locate and select the Synthetic Monitor on the left side of the dashboard. It will take you to the Create your first monitor option. 

Navigation route:  one.newrelic.com > Synthetic monitoring > Create your first  monitor

It will take you to the Create Monitor page, where you will find the seven types of monitors available. 

There, you select the Availability (Ping) monitoring.

Using the New Relic Synthetic Availability monitoring, you can see if people from all over the world can connect to your website without issue. And how long it takes users to connect to your website.

Step 2: Set up Your Availability Monitor Website

The Configure Monitor window will allow you to name your monitor and enter the URL of the website you want to begin monitoring. We’re entering the Geekflare URL because we’ll be checking our website.  Also, set the time length you want to keep the monitoring running.

Step 3: Select Location for Availability monitor 

Choose the locations where you want to check the availability. You can select from 20 major cities across six continents. 

Since this is the first time testing, let’s choose 17 locations from the three major continents. 

Your Synthetic Monitor on Availability is now ready and operational. Just give the system a few hours to run the tests and fetch the data. 

Step 4: Check Results for the Availability Monitor 

You can find the Summary button at the top of the dashboard. It will show you the success rates, failed checks, and whether your website is failing to load anywhere. 

The duration of the availability checks is shown in the lower sections. You can retrieve the data from the top right corner settings using your timelines. The bottom charts show the last 24 hours’ data. 

Click the Result button below the Summary button to see the full result. Here, you can look up the ping ratios for different places.

You can choose a specific location to see more information about its availability. We chose Seoul because it had the highest ping.

Setup Page Load Performance Monitor (Simple Browser) in New Relic

You can use this simple browser monitor to check the availability and performance of a single page, as well as to monitor the overall load of the page.

Step 1: Pick Your Synthetic Monitor 

If you’ve already set up an availability monitor, you can skip to the fourth step. If not, let’s get through.

After you sign up, you’ll be taken to the New Relic dashboard. It shows all of the available options.  

Find and select the Synthetic Monitor on the left side of the dashboard. It will lead you to the Create your first monitor option. 

Navigation route: one.newrelic.com > Synthetic monitoring > Create your first  monitor

Step 2: Set up Your Page Load Performance Monitor 

Name your monitor and enter the website’s URL in the Configure Monitor window. We’ll check our website using the Geekflare Article page URL. Set the duration of the monitoring at the bottom.

Step 3: Select Location for the Page Load Performance Monitor

Select the locations where you want to check the page load performance. There are 20 major cities from 6 different continents to choose from.

Let’s pick four different locations from the four major continents: Washington (North America), Milan (Europe), Singapore (Asia), and Sydney (Australia). 

Step 4: Check Page Load Performance Test Results

At the top of the dashboard, you’ll find a summary of the monitoring. It will display the statistics, failed tests, and success rates. 

The complete set of results is presented at the bottom in 5 lovely graphs, one for each: Performance timing, Domain requests, Duration, Average size resource types, and Error response codes.

To view the complete result, click the Result button to the right of the Summary button. Here, you can look up the details of loading times for different places.

Look at the first few results. Clearly states that the users from Sydney need help loading our article page. 

The longest one took 3.28 seconds. So let’s have a look deep into the result.

Yes, you can even dive deeper! And to do that, click on that specific result.

Now, you can find the time every component of that page took to load, including the Application, CSS, HTML, Images, JS, and Text. 

Also, it shows you the total data transferred and the number of requests needed to complete the page load. 

Scroll down to see all the details of that page, such as the loading time of each image and code. 

Yes, so many details!

Hold on; it’s not over here. You can dig even further! 
Simply click on any of the components—for instance, the top HTML component.

You can see every component detail, including size, transferred size, status, server IP, connection ID used, HTTP version, request time, and more! 

Using the Page Load Performance monitor, you can identify and resolve any issues that are slowing down your website. 

Simply by snapping your fingers!

How secure is the New Relic Synthetic Monitoring?

It’s not only that simple but also safe.

New Relic Synthetic Monitoring is highly secure and designed to protect your applications and data from potential threats.

It employs encryption standards, private monitoring capabilities, and secure credential storage to protect your valuable information.

So relax, grab some popcorn, and watch Netflix!

Before that, let’s take a quick look at five key features that make it such reliable:

• Secure by Design: New Relic’s synthetic monitoring protects your data in transit and at rest, offering comprehensive protection for your synthetic monitor data​.
  
• Private Locations: The platform allows you to set up private locations. Besides, it allows you to monitor internal sites securely on your network​.
  
• Data Privacy: Committed to safeguarding your data, New Relic securely stores Synthetic Monitoring data for 13 months. Also, HTTPS encrypts all data transmissions.
  
• Secure Credentials: New Relic provides a Secure Keystore for storing sensitive information, ensuring the safety of your credentials during synthetic monitoring activities.
  
• Scripted Browsers and Security: Scripted browsers have natural security risks. New Relic has also implemented measures to reduce these risks to provide a safer monitoring environment.

Conclusion

Success in this tech world is always being one step ahead. 

People who know what’s coming next and how to deal with that rise to the stars.

Using synthetic monitoring, you can always be one step ahead of any potential problems with your website or app. 

This magic genie will prevent your system from collapsing or negatively impacting your user experience. 

Tomorrow’s first step begins today.

You may now read about some more Synthetic monitoring tools.