Active monitoring

Synthetic monitoring (also known as active monitoring or proactive monitoring) is a monitoring technique that is done by using an emulation or scripted recordings of transactions. Behavioral scripts (or paths) are created to simulate an action or path that a customer or end-user would take on a site, application or other software (or even hardware). Those paths are then continuously monitored at specified intervals for performance, such as: functionality, availability, and response time measures. Synthetic monitoring (also known as active monitoring or proactive monitoring) is a monitoring technique that is done by using an emulation or scripted recordings of transactions. Behavioral scripts (or paths) are created to simulate an action or path that a customer or end-user would take on a site, application or other software (or even hardware). Those paths are then continuously monitored at specified intervals for performance, such as: functionality, availability, and response time measures. Synthetic monitoring is valuable because it enables a webmaster or an IT/Operations professional to identify problems and determine if a website or application is slow or experiencing downtime before that problem affects actual end-users or customers. This type of monitoring does not require actual traffic, thus the name synthetic, so it enables companies to test applications 24x7, or test new applications prior to a live customer-facing launch. This is usually a good complement when used with passive monitoring to help provide visibility on application health during off peak hours when transaction volume is low. When combined with traditional APM tools, synthetic monitoring can provide deeper visibility into end-to-end performance, regardless of where applications are running.