New Relic Synthetics is like a toolset filled with automated helpers that keep a watchful eye on your websites, applications, and APIs. It tells you how your software is doing, helps you fix problems, lets you see how users interact with your software, and helps you keep track of service agreements.
Step 1: Get a New Relic Account
To get started, you need a New Relic account.
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- Go to the New Relic website, sign up, and follow the instructions to create your account.
- You’ll have to share some information about your organization and choose a password.
- Once you’ve done that, you can start using New Relic Synthetics.
Step 2: Find the Synthetics Dashboard
Once you’re logged into your New Relic account;
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- Look for the Synthetics page. This is where you’ll create, manage, and monitor your synthetic tests.
- Here, you can do things like create synthetic monitors, see the results of your monitors, and set up alerts.
Step 3: Make a Synthetic Monitor
Synthetic monitors are really important in New Relic Synthetics. They pretend to be users and interact with your websites or applications to test how they work. Here’s how you can make one:
Pick a Monitor Type
Click on ‘Create a Monitor’ and pick the type of synthetic monitor you want to make. There are a few options like Ping monitors, Simple Browser monitors, Scripted Browser monitors, and API Test monitors. Choose the one that best fits your needs.
Set Up Your Monitor
Give your monitor a name and enter the URL or API endpoint you want to test. Decide how often your monitor will run and where it will run from. If you’re making a Scripted Browser monitor or API Test monitor, you’ll also have to write or paste in the script that will be run.
Check and Save
After setting up your monitor, run a test to make sure it works. If it’s all good, save your monitor. It’ll then run at the times you chose, collecting information about how your website or application is doing.
Step 4: Look at Results and Make Alerts
Once your synthetic monitor is up and running, you can see the results on the Synthetics Dashboard. You’ll be able to see things like how fast responses were, which checks were successful, and which checks failed. If any checks did fail, you can see detailed logs and screenshots to help you figure out what went wrong.
To keep you in the loop if something goes wrong, you should set up alerts. New Relic Synthetics can send you an email or let you know in other ways if your monitor finds a problem. To do this, go to the Alerts section of the Synthetics Dashboard and make a new alert condition. You can decide what kind of issues will make an alert, like a check that failed or a response that took too long.
Step 5: Keep Improving
Lastly, remember that monitoring isn’t a one-time thing. Regularly check your Synthetics data to spot trends, and change your monitors if you need to. If a certain page is always slow, for example, you might want to make a more specific monitor for that page. Or if a particular API endpoint keeps causing problems, you might want to make a dedicated API Test monitor for it.
To Sum Up
In the end, New Relic Synthetics is a strong tool that can help make sure your websites and applications are doing well. By following these steps, you can get Synthetics Monitoring working in your New Relic account, giving you helpful information about how your software is doing.