Boosting app performance: The power of synthetic monitoring

Synthetic monitoring involves testing application performance and functionality using simulated users. This approach breaks with the traditional testing and monitoring split, where testing occurs proactively before deployment and monitoring happens reactively after the application is live. Instead, synthetic monitoring integrates monitoring into pre-deployment, transforming it into a proactive operation.

Traditionally, monitoring entails watching real users. Real user monitoring (RUM) involves observing real users interacting with your application in real time to assess performance and detect issues. RUM is reactive—you must wait for users to perform actions, so at least one real customer will have experienced any revealed issues.

In contrast, synthetic monitoring involves monitoring a bot programmed to simulate various user actions. There will always be a place for RUM, as user behavior can be unpredictable. However, synthetic monitoring enables the identification and resolution of issues before they impact users. Think of it as a dress rehearsal: an opportunity to fix any missed cues or fluffed lines before a live audience sees the performance.

Understanding synthetic monitoring

Performance issues in your website or web app are deadly for user engagement. Users are unlikely to give your site a second chance if it’s slow, fails to load, or experiences errors during their interaction. If your customers face delays, they’re likely to abandon your app in favor of faster, more reliable alternatives—sending key business metrics, like conversion rates and overall satisfaction, plummeting.

Synthetic monitoring tackles these challenges, letting you identify, diagnose, and address performance bottlenecks proactively. Scripted transactions that mimic real user behavior and interactions enable you to thoroughly test your application in various scenarios before any real users encounter an issue.

The importance of proactive performance testing

Today’s web environments are highly dynamic, defined by constant updates and new releases, and driven by ever-growing user demands and competitive pressures. Every update to an application introduces potential bugs and performance issues. Integrations with third-party services, APIs, and microservices architectures add to the complexity, increasing the risk of failures. This complexity and the consequent need for agility in deployment cycles have led to the rise of continuous monitoring and testing.

Synthetic monitoring is an indispensable tool within this framework. It’s an early warning system that allows you to adapt your web environment to rapid changes and maintain high performance and reliability.

Synthetic transactions: Simulating real user interactions

Let’s dig deeper into how synthetic transactions work in practice.

Synthetic transactions meticulously replicate user paths and interactions within applications, from simple logins to complex multi-step transactions—referred to as the transaction journey. You can script these transaction journeys to mirror typical user journeys, testing application response times, functionality, and availability across different environments and global locations. The aim is to gain a comprehensive view of the user experience, highlighting areas for improvement before real users are affected. By mimicking real user behavior, synthetic transactions offer invaluable insights into application performance, ensuring businesses can uphold high-quality digital services.

A simple example is an e-commerce platform that deploys synthetic monitoring to simulate the checkout process. During off-peak hours, the synthetic monitoring agent detects a critical payment gateway slowdown. You receive alerts about the issue before any real customer attempts a purchase, allowing you to address the bottleneck overnight. By morning, the system operates smoothly, preventing any customer delays or transaction failures.

A more complex scenario is a digital banking application offering a range of services, such as personal loan applications, fund transfers, and setting up recurring payments. As the app developer, you can create synthetic monitoring scripts to simulate complex user pathways, such as applying for a loan, transferring funds between accounts, and setting up recurring payments from various global locations. These scripts test the application’s functionality, responsiveness, and integrated services, like credit checks and payment processors, under diverse conditions.

By observing these sophisticated simulations, you gain a nuanced understanding of the entire user experience. Armed with this insight, you can continue optimizing the application to ensure reliable performance in any situation.

Identifying performance bottlenecks with synthetic monitoring

With synthetic monitoring, you can pinpoint performance bottlenecks by executing predefined scripts that mimic user interactions. As you systematically test an application’s various components, from user interface elements to underlying database operations, you can identify the specific areas where delays or failures occur. Through performing detailed analytics and reporting, synthetic monitoring becomes the source of powerful actionable insights, letting you target and resolve inefficiencies with precision.

Detailed analytics and reporting from synthetic monitoring typically include comprehensive dashboards that visualize performance metrics over time, such as page load times, transaction completion rates, and error rates. Reports might drill down into specifics, showing the time spent on Domain Name System (DNS) lookup, server response times, and time to first byte (TTFB), among other metrics. These tools often allow for historical data comparison to identify trends or recurring issues, offering further insights into performance improvements.

Synthetic monitoring also allows you to isolate both front-end and back-end issues.

Identifying back-end issues

For back-end monitoring, you create scripts to simulate user interactions with the server. If a synthetic transaction reveals an unusually long response time for retrieving data from a database, investigate server logs and performance metrics to identify the bottleneck. If the delay stems from a specific database query, analyze the query execution plan to identify inefficiencies. Then, optimize the query or the database schema to improve performance.

Identifying front-end issues

For front-end monitoring, you create scripts to simulate user interactions with the application’s user interface (UI), such as clicking a button to load new content. If the script reports a significant delay or the content fails to load, investigate further using browser dev tools. Analyze network requests and rendering times to uncover the root cause. For instance, use a waterfall chart to visualize each resource’s loading time, so you can pinpoint slow or non-loading resources, like images, CSS, or JavaScript files. Next, implement targeted optimizations, such as compressing images, minifying CSS and JS files, or adjusting the load order to enhance the user experience.

Conclusion

Synthetic monitoring makes user-focused application maintenance proactive, giving you the power to anticipate issues and address them before they affect your users. By simulating real user interactions, you get a comprehensive view of your application’s performance so you can predict and resolve bottlenecks before they occur.

Site24x7’s synthetic monitoring tools simulate user journeys, monitor transactions, and ensure optimal performance across geographies. With advanced RUM, analytics, and reporting. Try it with a free 30-day trial today.