Understanding Web Link Monitor

I'm running APM v4.0 and wanted to clarify the Web Link Monitor test template. If, for instance, I wanted to validate the response time from http site www.google.com and assigned this to a random node. What are the metric values that get returned related to? Is it actually giving me back the response time of this site from the vantage of this remotely assigned node? Or, are the values simply from APM polling engine?

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qle

The Web Link Monitor will validate each link on the specified web page. In your example, it would test each link on www.google.com and provide the number of invalid links found on that page. The Web Link Monitor will also measure response time but I'm not sure if it's the response time for the web page or for testing all links on the specified web page.

If you're looking for response time, you may be better served with either the HTTP or HTTPS monitor. The response time for those components should reflect the time needed to load the web page.

Finally, I'm pretty sure that all components test their response time from the polling engine, not the remote node. If it's possible, the only way to do this would be through some script magic using the script monitors.

aLTeReGo

gle is correct about how the Web Link Monitor works in APM. What you're describing however sounds more like a job for SEUM. SEUM can provide distributed monitoring of your webservers and web based applications from different locations. SEUM will give you visibility into how those web applications are performing and their availability from each location, as well as comparative charts so you can quickly and easily see how your applications or websites are performing across many different locations.

XM07535

I'm trying to use the web link monitor to validate that an internal web page loads. I have the URL and simply want to make sure the page loads in 15 seconds or less. I set the warning to be greater than or equal to 15000 milliseconds and the critical threshold greater than or equal to 30000 milliseconds. The Statistical values are the same. For some reason I still get alerts even if the page loads below the warning threshold. Not sure why, but based on the responses, I assume because the Probe Result dialog box shows 1 of 3 tests failing?

aLTeReGo

The web link monitor was designed to validate that links on a given page are not broken. The component monitor you want to be using to measure page load time is the HTTP User Experience monitor. You might even want to take a look at our Synthetic End User Monitor product which was designed specifically to monitor websites and web applications.

XM07535

For now, we've worked with the Application owners and the web link monitor is acceptable. I've used the Compuware Vantage tool in the past for Synthetic End User monitoring, and at this time we won't be pursuing this direction. Fortunately, the test has conditions that are static so response time of the web link is sufficient.

The user account to access the web page never changes or locks out. The page accessed by the account never changes. If the page doesn't load then we know the application is down. The web link monitor is usable in this case.

Thanks for your help.