Introduction

In the world of web and application development, ensuring a seamless user experience is essential. As users increasingly demand high-performance, low-latency applications, and services, businesses must monitor how their websites, APIs, and applications perform in real-time. This is where synthetic monitoring comes into play. Synthetic monitoring simulates real user interactions with your digital services to detect issues before they impact actual users.

One of the most powerful tools for synthetic monitoring is New Relic Synthetics. New Relic Synthetics is a part of the New Relic monitoring platform that provides automated, scripted checks to simulate user interactions with your website or application. By using synthetic monitoring, businesses can proactively monitor uptime, availability, and performance from multiple global locations, ensuring their services are always operating as expected.

In this blog post, we will explore what New Relic Synthetics is, the top 10 use cases for it, its features, how it works and its architecture, installation process, and a basic tutorial to get you started with New Relic Synthetics.

What is New Relic Synthetics?

New Relic Synthetics is a monitoring solution provided by New Relic that enables businesses to simulate user interactions with their websites, applications, and APIs to ensure they are performing optimally. By using synthetic monitoring, New Relic Synthetics allows you to run automated, script-based checks to detect issues before they affect real users.

New Relic Synthetics supports a wide range of synthetic monitoring capabilities, including browser monitoring, API monitoring, and uptime monitoring, with tests running from multiple global locations. It is designed to help IT teams monitor web performance, reduce downtime, and identify areas for optimization. Synthetics provides valuable insights into response times, availability, and overall performance, helping teams to maintain the best possible user experience.

New Relic Synthetics is integrated with the broader New Relic platform, providing a unified view of application performance, infrastructure health, and user experience metrics.

Top 10 Use Cases of New Relic Synthetics

New Relic Synthetics is a versatile tool that can be applied to a wide range of use cases. Here are the top 10 ways businesses can leverage New Relic Synthetics:

1. Website Uptime Monitoring

New Relic Synthetics continuously checks the availability of your website or web application from multiple locations around the world. It simulates real user visits to detect any downtime or availability issues before they impact your customers.

2. End-User Experience Monitoring

By simulating real user interactions, New Relic Synthetics helps you monitor the actual user experience, including page load times, transaction completion times, and browser performance. This allows you to ensure that users receive a fast and seamless experience on your website or app.

3. API Monitoring

New Relic Synthetics can monitor APIs by simulating API calls to verify that they are working as expected. By monitoring response times, status codes, and API performance, you can quickly identify issues with your APIs before they affect end users or services dependent on them.

4. Global Performance Monitoring

With global monitoring locations, New Relic Synthetics provides insight into how your website or application performs from various regions. This is essential for businesses that serve an international audience and need to ensure that their services are optimized for users around the world.

5. Multi-Step Transaction Monitoring

New Relic Synthetics allows you to create multi-step scripted tests that simulate the entire user journey. This can include actions like logging in, making a purchase, or completing a form. Monitoring these critical transactions ensures that the most important user flows are functioning correctly.

6. Third-Party Service Monitoring

If your website or app relies on third-party services (such as APIs or external libraries), New Relic Synthetics can help monitor those services’ availability and performance. This ensures that your website or application doesn’t face disruptions due to third-party service failures.

7. Continuous Availability Testing

New Relic Synthetics can be set up to run continuous tests at regular intervals to ensure that your services are always available. Continuous availability testing is crucial for businesses that cannot afford any downtime and need to detect issues before they become critical.

8. Load Time and Performance Testing

In addition to uptime, New Relic Synthetics also tracks page load times and performance metrics. By simulating a user’s interaction with your site, Synthetics helps you monitor how quickly your pages load, which is critical for improving user satisfaction and search engine rankings.

9. Monitoring for Mobile Applications

New Relic Synthetics allows businesses to simulate user interactions on mobile websites and applications, providing insights into performance, availability, and user experience on mobile devices. This helps ensure that your mobile users have a positive experience, regardless of their device.

10. Alerting and Incident Management

New Relic Synthetics is integrated with New Relic’s alerting system, allowing you to set up notifications based on specific criteria such as downtime, slow response times, or failed transactions. This integration helps teams to respond to issues proactively and reduce incident resolution time.

What Are the Features of New Relic Synthetics?

New Relic Synthetics comes with a rich set of features that make it an effective solution for monitoring user experience, performance, and availability. Some of the key features include:

• Scripted Browser Monitoring: Simulate user interactions in real browsers (Chrome, Firefox) to test complex web applications.
• API Monitoring: Monitor REST APIs and other services with detailed checks, response times, and status code tracking.
• Global Monitoring Locations: Run synthetic tests from over 40 monitoring locations worldwide to simulate real-user experiences in different regions.
• Multi-Step Browser Monitoring: Automate multi-step transactions such as logins, purchases, and form submissions to monitor critical user journeys.
• Custom Alerts: Set up custom alerting thresholds for response times, errors, or downtime, and receive notifications via email, SMS, or integrations with Slack, PagerDuty, or other tools.
• Real User Data Integration: Integrates with New Relic APM to provide insights into both synthetic and real user performance in one unified dashboard.
• Advanced Scripting: Write custom scripts for more advanced, real-world simulations and test user flows on your site.
• Transaction Monitoring: Track critical transactions on your website or application, ensuring key actions work smoothly for users.
• API Response Time Tracking: Track response times and status codes for external API endpoints, ensuring that third-party services are functioning properly.
• Performance Optimization Insights: Get detailed reports on performance bottlenecks, including load times, response times, and overall site health.

How New Relic Synthetics Works and Architecture

New Relic Synthetics uses a combination of global monitoring locations and scripted tests to simulate real user interactions with your web services. Here’s how it works:

1. Global Monitoring Locations: New Relic Synthetics operates over 40 monitoring locations worldwide. These monitoring nodes simulate real user interactions with your website or API, ensuring you get a comprehensive view of your service’s availability and performance from different geographic regions.
2. Scripted Tests: You can create automated scripts using JavaScript to simulate user interactions like logging in, navigating through the site, completing transactions, and more. These scripts can test multiple steps in a user’s journey, helping to simulate real-world usage.
3. Data Collection and Analysis: Once tests are executed, data is collected and sent to New Relic for analysis. The data includes detailed metrics like response time, page load times, errors, and status codes, giving you a thorough understanding of how your service performs from a user’s perspective.
4. Alerting and Notifications: If a test fails or exceeds performance thresholds, New Relic Synthetics sends real-time alerts to notify you of the issue. You can configure these alerts based on specific metrics such as downtime, slow response times, or failed transactions.
5. Unified Dashboard: All data from synthetic tests is integrated with the New Relic platform, providing a unified view of your application’s performance. The data can be analyzed alongside real user monitoring (RUM) data, giving you a holistic view of your service’s performance.

How to Install New Relic Synthetics?

New Relic Synthetics is a cloud-based service, so there is no traditional installation process required. However, to set it up, follow these steps:

1. Create a New Relic Account:
   • Sign up for a free New Relic account if you don’t already have one.
2. Set Up Your Application:
   • After logging into New Relic, create an application within the New Relic Synthetics dashboard. You’ll need to configure the application by entering its details (e.g., URL) and specify the type of monitoring (browser, API, etc.).
3. Write Synthetic Scripts:
   • For browser and multi-step transaction monitoring, write custom scripts using JavaScript. These scripts simulate real user actions on your website.
4. Configure Monitoring Locations:
   • Choose monitoring locations from which your tests will be executed. New Relic Synthetics allows you to test from over 40 global locations.
5. Set Up Alerts:
   • Configure alerts based on your monitoring needs. You can define thresholds for performance and set up email or SMS notifications when those thresholds are crossed.
6. Start Monitoring:
   • Once you’ve set up your monitors and alerts, New Relic Synthetics will start simulating user interactions and gathering performance data. You can track results via the New Relic dashboard.

Basic Tutorials of New Relic Synthetics: Getting Started

Here’s a quick guide to getting started with New Relic Synthetics:

1. Create a Browser Monitor:

• Go to the New Relic Synthetics dashboard and click “Create a monitor.”
• Select “Browser” as the monitor type.
• Enter the URL of the website you want to monitor and choose the global locations from which to run tests.

2. Write a Simple Script:

• Use JavaScript to create simple test scripts for monitoring page load times or user interactions like logging in.
• Write code to interact with elements on the page and record performance data.

3. Set Up Multi-Step Monitoring:

• Create multi-step scripts to monitor critical user journeys, such as completing a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or submitting a form.

4. View Results:

• After running the tests, view the results from the dashboard. Analyze page load times, transaction performance, and any errors detected.

5. Set Alerts:

• Configure alerts to notify you when a test fails or when performance exceeds predefined thresholds.

The Value of New Relic Synthetics

New Relic Synthetics is an essential tool for businesses that want to ensure the best possible user experience on their websites, APIs, and applications. With its ability to simulate real user interactions, monitor performance from multiple global locations, and provide detailed performance insights, New Relic Synthetics helps businesses proactively identify and resolve issues before they affect customers.

Whether you’re monitoring website uptime, tracking API performance, or simulating complex user transactions, New Relic Synthetics is a powerful solution to help ensure that your digital services run smoothly, efficiently, and optimally.