LM Synthetics

What is Synthetic Monitoring?

• Synthetic Monitoring is an active approach to testing a website or web service by simulating visitor requests to test for availability, performance, and function.

• Synthetic monitoring uses emulation or scripted recordings of user interaction or transactions to create automated tests. These tests simulate a critical end user pathway or interaction on a website or web application.

• The results of these tests give early insight into the quality of the end user experience by reporting metrics on availability and latency, and identifying potential issues.

• LM Synthetics monitoring leverages Selenium—a trusted open-source browser automation and scripting tool to send Synthetics data to LogicMonitor.

LM Synthetics

LogicMonitor uses the following Selenium tools for the Synthetics monitoring solution:

• Selenium GRID—Proxy server that allows tests to be executed on a device

• Selenium IDE Chrome Extension—Browser recording tool that allows you to create and run the synthetics checks

The following diagram illustrates how LogicMonitor leverages Selenium to collect Synthetics data:

• Allows you to find out as soon as possible if any site/web service is having any issues

• Allows you to identify and solve problems quickly to prevent widespread performance issues.

• Allows for more uptime and proper working of your website

• Important factors for a website are page loading speed, performance and uptime.

• Gives you the ability to track metrics over time, viewing trends for further analysis

Ping Checks

• Simple test to see if a website is up and running

• Alerts can be triggered based on if 1 or many locations are not able to ping the site insuring alerts are generated accurately.

• The checks can be triggered to run up to every 1 minute

Website Checks

• Standard Web Check

  • Displayed as “web checks” in LM interface

  • Performed by one or more geographically dispersed checkpoint locations

  • These locations are hosted by LM and external to your network

  • Overall purpose is to verify that your website is functioning appropriately for users outside of your network and to adequately reflect these user’ experiences.

• Internal Web Check

  • Performed by one or more collectors internal to your network

  • Purpose is to verify that websites and cloud services (internal or external to your network) are functioning appropriately for users within your private network

Selenium Checks

• Selenium synthetic checks are automated tests that use the Selenium web testing framework to simulate user interactions with a website or web application. These checks can be used to verify the functionality and performance of a website, such as checking that links are working properly, forms are submitting correctly, and pages are loading quickly. The tests can be run on a regular basis to ensure that the website is functioning as expected and to catch any issues early on.

• They can measure how long it takes to complete a specific workflow/task, such as logins, page loading, verifying specific text, validating users can input data.

• Selenium is the capstone item, they can check all end user access. This then segways into “we know there is a problem, now where is the problem”- enter APM/Logs. Ex. We get an alert that the login failed, now we would use other tools to figure out why/where. With the metrics, you will be able to tell exactly which check failed in the workflow process

Selenium Synthetics Dashboard

 

Adding Synthetics Website Test

Common Use Cases

1. MSP’s- tons of customers with different portals and keeping track with what's going on with all of those. They are meeting their SLA’s for uptime.

2. If a customer has any kind of website they want to ensure is accessible all the time.

   1. Internal would be M365, or proprietary tool they built themselves.

   2. External- e-commerce website- clicking on promo link, check out sequence. You can also see trends over time and you can see busy parts of the day where a load balancer might be beneficial.

3. Dev-ops might be interested in this and how it correlates with traces or push metrics we are sending. They can use synthetics as a “piece of the puzzle” to better understand the whole picture.

4. The app teams may want to verify the login process of the application is functioning correctly

Resources

• https://www.logicmonitor.com/support/services/adding-managing-services/adding-a-web-service

• https://www.logicmonitor.com/blog/ping-checks-vs-synthetics-vs-uptime#ping-checks-vs-synthetics

• https://www.logicmonitor.com/support/selenium-webchecks

• https://www.logicmonitor.com/support/selenium-synthetics-setup

• https://www.logicmonitor.com/support/lm-synthetics-overview

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