Using the Synthetic Monitoring user interface
You can use the Synthetic Monitoring user interface to create and manage Synthetic tests and manage Smart Alerts for Synthetic tests.
The Synthetic Monitoring main page
To display the Synthetic Monitoring main page, select the beaker icon in the left navigation menu:
The Synthetic Monitoring main page opens with the Tests tab, which displays a table listing of your synthetic tests. The page has two other tabs: Locations, which shows information about your locations, and Smart Alerts, which shows Smart Alert configurations. For more information about the tabs and the options to manage synthetic monitoring, see the following sections:
The Tests tab
The Tests tab displays all the tests that you have created. For the selected interval, all the test results of the test across all the assigned locations are aggregated. The test with the lowest success rate is displayed in
the beginning of the list.
You can choose to sort the table by any fields in the table except the Action column. When you sort by decreasing latency, you can see which test has the worst response time in the time period
across all results and assigned locations.
In addition to sorting, you can filter the table by using the Type, Location, and Application filters. You can also search for a test by name in the list by using the search box.
The table displays the following information:
- Name: The name of the Synthetic test.
- Status: Indicates whether the test is actively running or has been paused.
- Type: Displays the type of test and the scheduled frequency. The type of a test can be either
API Simple
orAPI Script
. - Success rate: The rate of success, and is determined by comparing the number of successful test results in the time period with the total number of test results.
- Latency: The average response time of the test results in the selected time period. It includes a short graph of the response time results.
- Location: Indicates the locations where the test is assigned and running. If more than one location is assigned, the number of locations is shown instead of the location name. In addition, the colored dots below the location text indicate the status of the test at each location.
- Application: If the Synthetic test is associated with an application at the time of test creation, the application label is seen. The label is a link to the selected application page in the Application section.
- Health: Provides an indication of the overall health of the test across locations based on failing results that are compared with total results.
- Action: Contains pause and play buttons, which act as a toggle and provides a quick way to pause or resume a test. If a test is paused, it can be resumed by selecting the play button.
The Locations tab
The Locations tab displays locations that are created when you deploy self-hosted point-of-presence (PoP) location. You might deploy multiple self-hosted PoPs, and all of them are shown here.
This tab can be helpful when you have deployed a PoP. If the location appears in this tab, it means the PoP has successfully registered with the Instana backend. After your PoP is running, you can use this tab to check the health of the PoP. If you have the PoP sensor installed, monitoring issues will affect the health column. If you do not have the PoP sensor installed, you can check health by going to the Kubernetes monitoring pages for the PoP. By default, the locations appear in alphabetical order, but you can choose to sort the table by using any other field in the table except the action column. No filters are provided for Locations, but you can search for a location in the list by using the search box.
The table displays the following information:
- Location Name: The name that you provided at the time when the PoP was deployed. If you also deployed the Instana Kubernetes agent and the PoP sensor, the name is shown as a link, which takes you to the PoP Sensor Physical pages where you can look at the status of the PoP and Kubernetes pods that make up the PoP.
- Display Name: The displayable name that you provided when the PoP was deployed. The display name is used on all Synthetic Monitoring UI pages where the location is shown.
- Status: Indicates whether the PoP is online or offline. A PoP is considered to be offline if it does not communicate with the server for 10 minutes or more. The time (10 minutes) is not configurable.
- Type: Only Private PoP is supported.
- No. of tests linked: The number of different Synthetic tests that are assigned to run at this location.
- Last test run on: Shows the date and time of the most recent test run.
- Namespace: The namespace into which you deployed the PoP. If you also deployed the Instana Kubernetes agent and there is no PoP Sensor installed, the name is shown as a link, which takes you to the Kubernetes monitoring pages where you can look at the status of the Kubernetes pods that make up the PoP.
- Health: Provides an indication of the overall health of the location reported by the PoP Sensor. If the PoP Sensor is not installed, then NA (for Not Applicable) will be displayed.
- Action: A menu of possible actions that you can take against a location. If you uninstall your PoP, you can use the delete action to remove the location from the Instana backend. If you delete a location, a confirmation
dialog appears, which informs you of any active tests that are assigned to the location. You must enter the text
LOCATION
in the input box to complete the delete request. After a location with active tests is deleted, the tests might exist in the Instana backend without an assigned location. You can update a test by using the API to assign it to another location without creating the test again.
The Smart Alerts tab
The Smart Alerts tab displays the Smart Alerts that are configured for all of your Synthetic tests. For each configured alert, you can see the following information:
- Name: The name of the Smart Alert.
- Time Threshold: The number of consecutive Synthetic test failures that are needed to cause the alert to fire.
- Tests Applied: The number of Synthetic tests that are configured to use this alert.
- Filter Applied: The icon that indicates whether any filtering of this list is in place.
- Pause button: The button to pause the Smart Alert. It is paused for all assigned tests.
- Ellipsis button: The button to edit, duplicate, and delete the alert.
The Deploy a PoP button provides a template of the command that you need to use to deploy a PoP to communicate with the backend on this Instana region.