How to Get Synthetics Monitoring to Work in New Relic? – All You Need to Know

Do you know that your website can crash any day?

Considering the essentials to create your website, and keeping an eye on its performance metrics can be of huge help, but several other factors can disrupt its productivity. 

So, before you miss the boat, you must know that a software wizard called Synthetic Monitoring can save your website from this problem.

But if you have no idea what it is and are wondering how to get Synthetics Monitoring to work in New Relic, this write-up will provide you with the answer and help ensure your website runs efficiently.

But before that, you must obtain some useful trivia.

What is Synthetics Monitoring?

Synthetic Monitoring is a method to monitor the performance, ability, and functionality of any web application, website, or API.

It combines Machine Learning and AI technology to predict if anything unusual will happen or not. So, if there’s a chance of your website crashing, you’ll get alerts immediately!

When it comes to applications, Synthetic Monitoring can point out any peculiarities in them by sending data to the servers and comparing it with historical trends. 

As web architectures become more complex day by day, this method evidently plays a pivotal role in checking any website’s performance and availability.

What is New Relic?

New Relic is a cloud-based application performance management (APM) software that helps you monitor your app’s performance, health, and ongoing changes.

Moreover, New Relic supports multiple programming languages, frameworks, platforms, and cloud-based applications. It will give you real-time insights into the performance of the digital systems and proactively detect and resolve issues.

With Synthetic Monitoring, New Relic allows businesses to replicate user interactions and monitor the performance of their websites. But how does monitoring New Relic work with Synthetic? Let’s find out in the next section.

How to Get Synthetics Monitoring to Work in New Relic?

Now that you know the effectiveness of New Relic and Synthetic Monitoring in terms of performance analysis, let’s look at the steps for New Relic security monitoring.

• Sign in to Your New Relic Account: First, open the New Relic website and sign in to start the process. 

  

• Go to Synthetics: Once you’re logged in, navigate to the Synthetic Monitoring tab present at the left.

  

• Create a New Monitor: Under the Synthetic Monitoring tab, you need to click Create a new monitor. In case you haven’t used this before, you’ll need to click on “Create your first monitor.”

  

• Select the Monitor: You need to choose the right monitor type as per your requirements. New Relic offers Simple Browsers, Scripted Browsers, API tests, and other options that help you monitor. 

  

• Configure the Monitor: Provide the monitor specifics that include the URL, location, frequency of monitoring, and other options.

  

• Set the Alert Conditions: Now, you need to set the conditions that would trigger an alert. For example, you can set an alert for certain content checks, and if there’s any issue, New Relic will notify you. 

• Save the Monitor: When you’re done with the configuration, setting the alerts, and location, click “Save monitor” at the bottom. 

  

• Monitor Results: After you set up the monitor, New Relic will start the monitoring with synthetic tests. You can take a look at the results and performance metrics under the New Relic user interface.

• Set up Notifications: If you like, you can set up notifications to receive the alerts and for any kind of issue detection.

That’s it; you’ll just need to let New Relic monitor the data and give you alerts promptly whenever there’s a problem.

However, you must know that the specific list of steps and options mentioned here may change depending on the version of New Relic and the features included in your subscription.

How Synthetics Monitoring is Better than Real User Monitoring?

Before the introduction of Synthetic Monitoring, there was a manual monitoring system called Real User Monitoring (RUM). While Synthetic Monitoring predicts and alerts about the issues, RUM requires you to manually tag the actions rather than emulating them.

To understand the difference between the two, you can refer to the table below:

Parameter	Synthetic Monitoring	Real User Monitoring (RUM)
Monitoring	Monitors the whole system	It works only during off-peak hours
Condition	Network and browser conditions	Real user condition
Extent	Offers competitive benchmarking	It gives full web performance
Website Implementation	Works on any website	Works on only your website
Off-peak Monitoring	Available	Very limited
JavaScript	Not required	Required
Range	Global	Only limited locations are preferred
Root Cause Identification	Available	Not available
Suitable for benchmarks	Yes	No

So, these are the key differences between Synthetic and Real User Monitoring that clearly show the former is better than the latter.

How Secure is New Relic Synthetic Monitoring?

After going through this New Relic Monitoring overview, you must wonder about its safety factor.

In that case, New Relic is pretty safe and highly secure while protecting your website and applications from potential threats. Here’s the list of features that make it a reliable option:

• Secure Design: New Relic’s synthetic monitoring is reliable enough to protect your data if it’s being transferred or stored in an internal or external storage device.

• Data Safety: The whole collection by New Relic during synthetic monitoring is stored for 13 months, and all transmissions are secured through HTTPS encryption.

• Private Locations: You can set up private locations with the platform and can even monitor internal sites on your network.
• Secure Credentials: Your personal information is stored safely and securely.

• Scripted Browsers and Security: New Relic reduces the possibility of natural security risks in scripted browsers and enhances the safe monitoring environment.

So, with the availability of such features, New Relic ensures data safety and makes the whole process free of concern. 

Final Thoughts – The Rising Demand for Synthetic Monitoring 

Coming to the end of this write-up, you must have realized that Synthetic Monitoring can protect your website or app from any potential issues. Using it with New Relic can surely protect your website from crashing and help provide a positive experience to visitors.

The demand for Synthetic monitoring in the modern digital landscape is increasing day by day. Businesses and individuals have been using it as an effective tool for performance management, and it has been helping them to stay one step ahead of any unwanted threats.