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Setting up tests in Splunk Synthetic Monitoring

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Synthetic tests are the primary mechanism of web page and application monitoring in Splunk Synthetic Monitoring. You can set up these tests to run at your preferred frequency from the devices and locations of your choosing. These let you proactively alert the relevant teams when a site or user flow they manage becomes unavailable, as well as report on the performance of a site or user flow over time.

Test options

Splunk Synthetic Monitoring does not require extensive installation and setup: you can get started by creating your first test directly in the Splunk Synthetic Monitoring user interface. There are three types of tests you can run: Browser, Uptime, and API. 

If the site or application you are monitoring uses allow lists or block lists for visitors or an analytics tool to measure traffic, check that it is configured to accommodate traffic from Splunk Synthetic Monitoring. See Configure your site to accommodate synthetic tests for instructions.

Browser tests 

A Browser test lets you monitor the user experience for a single page or a multi-step user flow by running a synthetic test of the URLs you provide. Use this type of test to monitor conversion paths or any path that requires multiple steps or runs JavaScript.

To learn how to create a browser test, watch this short demo.

Additional resources to learn more about Browser tests

For best practices and troubleshooting tips, refer to Running Synthetics Browser Tests.

To learn how to view your test, interpret your results, and implement advanced settings, refer to Splunk documentation.

To add steps and synthetic transactions to your Browser test, select Edit steps or synthetic transactions. See Add synthetic transactions to your Browser Test to learn more.

An Uptime test lets you make a request to a specified URL or port address and monitor its response time and response code. Uptime tests record three metrics from each run: response time, DNS time, and time to first byte. There are two types of Uptime tests: HTTP and Port Uptime tests.

  • An HTTP Uptime test checks the uptime or response code of a single url or endpoint. To test multiple endpoints or make a more complex request, use an API test instead.
  • A Port Uptime test checks the response of a server port using Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or User Datagram Protocol (UDP)

To learn how to create either kind of Uptime test, watch this short demo.

Additional resource to learn about Uptime tests

To view your test and/or interpret your results, refer to Splunk documentation. 

API tests

An API test provides a flexible way to check the functionality and performance of your API endpoints. Whether you’re interested in testing multi-step API interactions or you want to gain visibility into the performance of your endpoints, an API test can help you accomplish your goals.

To learn how to set up an API test, watch this short demo. 

If you need more guidance, refer to Set up an API Test.

Additional resources to learn more about API tests

Synthetics use cases in action

To help you visualize how Splunk Synthetic Monitoring helps solve problems in actual business scenarios, we’ve created a fictitious e-commerce company, Buttercup Industries. Follow Kai, a site reliability engineer, as they share the story of how they use these three different types of tests to monitor and take action on their applications and services.