Catchpoint provides a wide variety of synthetic test types, enabling you to monitor virtually any type of system and to simulate various aspects of the user experience. Each test type has its own configuration steps and returns a unique set of metrics. Several test types have multiple monitor options to choose from. Read on to learn more about them:
Web Test - checks the availability and performance of a single web page. There are several different Web Test monitors available, enabling you to simulate different types of web page interactions, devices, and/or browsers.
- Object - loads the primary URL but no page components. This is best for simply confirming the availability of a web page and its initial responsiveness.
- Emulated - imitates a browser and loads URL and all components, but does not execute Javascript or CSS.
- Playback - Executes requests from traffic captured daily in a browser, or specified in a HAR file.
- Mobile Playback - Executes requests from traffic captured by Chrome with mobile UA, or specified in a HAR file.
- Mobile - Uses the Chrome browser to render mobile webpages.
- Chrome - Uses the Chrome browser to load URL and all components and execute Javascript and CSS.
Transaction Test - similar to a Web Test in that it emulates the behavior of a browser accessing a website, but it supports Selenium scripts to perform a series of interactive steps, such as inputting data in a form, accessing a series of pages, etc.
Playwright Test - same as the Transaction Test above, but designed to support the Playwright scripting language. Playwright test offers Edge and Chrome monitors
Puppeteer Test - similar to Playwright Test, but uses Puppeteer scripts to perform web transaction tests. Puppeteer test supports Chrome.
WebPageTest Test - Based on Catchpoint's WebPageTest.org, the catchpoint WebPageTest test type examines a webpage and supports advanced analytics options including Lighthouse scores, run comparisons, and device emulation.
HTML Code Test - examines and executes a block of HTML without having to connect to a web server to retrieve it. This is useful for testing HTML code before deploying it in production.
API Test - enables you to check the performance of a REST API by making a call or series of calls to it and capturing the XML or JSON responses, as well as other performance metrics.
Web Socket Test - often used in chats, financial tickers, and gaming applications, Web Sockets allow for simultaneous real-time communication between client and server through a single persistent connection. With the Catchpoint Web Socket Test you can monitor Web Sockets by establishing a connection, sending data, asserting the server response, and creating custom metrics based on the response.
DNS Test - enables you to focus specifically on the performance and availability of your DNS servers. You can target a specific server, or you can more closely simulate the experience of an end user by allowing DNS to dynamically select a server for each request.
FTP Test - monitors the performance and availability of FTP servers by checking to see whether it can upload/download files.
Transport Test - checks the network TCP connection to a given host and port. Use this for basic network monitoring as opposed to higher-level application monitoring.
SMTP Test - monitors the performance and availability of SMTP servers by connecting, authenticating, and sending email messages.
Ping Test - monitors round-trip time and packet loss to the test host. Ping tests can use TCP, ICMP, or UDP protocol.
Traceroute Test - analyzes traffic routing and lets you see performance and packet loss at each hop from node to test server. Traaceroute tests have multiple monitor options to choose from, including InSession, TCP, ICMP, UDP, and QUIC.
Custom Test - enables you to test any type of system using your own custom code running on an Enterprise Node. Have a requirement that isn't addressed by an existing test? The Custom test type enables you to make it happen.
NTP Test - monitors the availability of an Internet Time server. You would typically run this type of test from an Enterprise Node to see whether it can consistently reach an external NTP server.
IMAP Test - similar to the SMTP Test, the IMAP Test monitors the availability of email servers using the IMAP protocol.
MQTT Test - monitors the availability and performance of IoT (Internet of Things) devices.
SSL Test - checks the validity of the certificate on a given host and port, performs certificate and public key pinning with a single certificate, and can alert on various metrics, including the number of days until the certificate expires.
BGP Test - allows you to monitor your announced prefixes (eBGP) from hundreds of autonomous system (AS) peers, which share their full BGP tables with Catchpoint monitoring nodes located around the world.
Node to Node Test - enables you to set up a mesh of Tests among your Enterprise Nodes so that you can see how your various locations/data centers are communicating. Node-to-Node tests can use traceroute or ping.