In this lesson you’ll learn about the various monitor types that you can use to watch over your web assets with the Uptrends service. (Hint: It is quite a lot!)
What monitor types are available?
Uptrends offers a wide range of monitor types for your monitoring needs. Each has a particular set of settings and configuration options to help you accomplish a monitoring task. First you need to decide which types of monitor you’ll need, because there are several choices for monitoring your webpage: synthetic monitors like basic checks (Uptime monitoring), checks that use a real browser (Browser monitoring, Transactions) or API Monitoring. Of course you can use multiple monitor types, side by side, and possibly combine them with Real User Monitoring, to measure your site’s actual performance as experienced by your users.
More information on the difference between basic checks and real browser checks can be found in the KB article Basic webpage checks versus real browser checks.
Basic checks
A basic check only looks at the initial response; other page elements are not considered. It checks the availability and response of the page, based on a few key components. A basic check may occur as frequently as once per minute giving a more accurate account of the page’s uptime than a real browser check does.
- Uptime monitoring (Availability Monitoring)
- Websites: HTTP, HTTPS
- External Server Monitoring: Ping, Connect
- Database Servers: Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL
- Mail Servers: SMTP, POP3, IMAP
- Advanced Availability: FTP, SFTP, DNS, SSL certificate
Real browser checks
A real browser check downloads and loads the entire page contents (scripts, CSS files, images, and third-party content) into an actual browser window. The real browser checks are potentially scheduled as frequently as once every five minutes. They provide you with a simulated view of an actual user’s experience with your web page. This monitor type gives you an idea about uptime but with less accuracy than a basic check.
Other monitoring
- API Monitoring
- Webservice HTTP
- Webservice HTTPS
- Multi-step API
- Real User Monitoring
We will go into further detail regarding each of these monitor types, including what each monitor type does and how to configure them, in the lessons that follow.