Web Performance Monitoring: A Comprehensive Guide for Developers
In this guide, we will delve into several essential topics related to web performance monitoring. Here's what every developer must know:
- Application Availability
- Application Errors
- Key Web Requests or Transactions
- Application Dependencies
- Web Application Metrics
- Monitoring Other Aspects
- Recommended Tools
Monitoring Application Availability
One of the fundamental aspects of web performance monitoring is ensuring that your web application is online and accessible to your users. You can effectively do this with a simple HTTP ping monitor that operates every minute.
Take, for instance, how we utilize this method at Stackify to monitor our various web applications and marketing websites. This enables us to track the response time and confirm they respond with an HTTP status code of 200.
Using Retrace for Website Availability Monitoring
Many monitoring tools, including Retrace, allow you to check for specific text as part of the response. This is handy in ensuring that the page not only loads with a 200 HTTP status code but also delivers the correct response.
For example, we use this feature to monitor our Elasticsearch cluster, looking for specific text such as "number_of_nodes":11. This ensures the right number of Elasticsearch nodes are up and running. These types of HTTP checks prove invaluable for an extensive range of purposes!
Monitoring Application Errors
If your web application isn't functioning correctly, your error logs are your first line of defense. It's crucial to immediately check these logs for potential issues.
Take this example: a few days ago, our system was operational but unusually slow. We received an alert from Retrace indicating high page load times and error rates. Upon checking our error monitoring dashboard following the alert, we were able to identify the problem swiftly.
This guide illustrates the importance of comprehensive web performance monitoring and how you can leverage tools like Retrace to keep tabs on your applications. Mastering these topics and techniques ensures that your application remains accessible and performs optimally, ensuring a great user experience.
