Synthetic Check

Configuration

Initially you need to configure the measured endpoints in the Instana Agent <agent_install_dir>/etc/instana/configuration.yml. The following options are available for monitoring configuration:

com.instana.plugin.ping:
  endpoints:
    LABEL_1:
      type: 'icmp'
      target: '172.16.0.42'
    LABEL_2:
      type: 'http'
      target: 'http://172.16.0.42:80/health'

Synthetic checks are exectued by the Instana Agent with every 10 seconds frequency (frequency can't be modified). The endpoints are listed in the Comparison table when Ping is selected from the Table Content dropdown menu.

Sensor (Data Collection)

Tracked Configuration

  • Endpoint label as specified in the config
  • Endpoint type (icmp or http)
  • Target

Metrics

  • Duration: the measured time for the request to return

Health Signatures

For each sensor, there is a curated knowledgebase of health signatures that are evaluated continuously against the incoming metrics and are used to raise issues or incidents depending on user impact.

Built-in events trigger issues or incidents based on failing health signatures on entities, and custom events trigger issues or incidents based on the thresholds of an individual metric of any given entity.

For information about built-in events for the Synthetic Check sensor, see the Built-in events reference.