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Monitoring: Backend vs. Frontend Approaches
I’m Arsalan Mirbozorgi, real user monitoring (RUM), Application performance monitoring (APM) End-user and data center monitoring, as well as backend, frontend, and website performance monitoring. Some of the terminology used to describe various types of website and web application monitoring are listed here. All of these concepts have varying degrees of generality, specificity, overlap, and synonymy.
If you’re a newbie to the web monitoring market, it might not be easy to navigate because of the variety of phrases used and the large range of solutions available. It isn’t unusual for website owners to give up on performance monitoring because they are frustrated. But don’t worry!
It’s a great idea to learn about backend and frontend web monitoring in order to begin investigating the industry.
Differences and similarities between these two categories will be explained in this essay.
What Is Backend Monitoring?
It is possible to monitor the performance of a web application’s infrastructure via backend monitoring. These include the HTTP server, middleware, database, third-party API services, and many others. Each component may exist in the same data center or various data centers, depending on the nature of the service being provided.
Why Is Backend Monitoring So Essential?
Monitoring the backend allows you to identify and fix any issues that may arise quickly. A web app’s various components can face a variety of issues.
- Performance issues with software
- Difficulties with memory
- Bugs in the code
- Software issues at the system level (OS issues, security breaches)
- The computer’s problems (out of memory, disk space, disk failure, network interface card (NIC) failure).
Web-related problems like this are common, but they typically have a greater impact than necessary due to the fact that they go unnoticed. If you use backend monitoring, you’ll be informed of issues right away. Because of this, they don’t have to discover their website has crashed hours later when they visit it – or worse when their consumers do. When outages are discovered earlier, they can be resolved more quickly.
Backend Monitoring and Service Level Agreements
Site owners can use backend monitoring to set and monitor service-level agreements (SLAs) with their infrastructure providers, in addition to the benefits described above. Site owners can guarantee that they are getting the services they are paying for by having access to comprehensive data on what problems happened, when, and where.
What is FEM?
Monitoring the performance of your online application from a user’s perspective, including all third-party content, is provided through frontend monitoring. “User experience” It is synonymous with frontend monitoring. Alternatively, known as “End-user” Monitoring provides a snapshot of what your website’s visitors see when they request it. Frontend experiences can vary dramatically depending on a user’s geographic location, browser, and other factors. These disparities can be spotted thanks to frontend monitoring.
Yottaa Monitor provides trending data from five different areas around the world for the London 2012 Olympic Games.
On the other hand, frontend monitoring reveals performance issues that aren’t necessarily tied to component failure. Among them:
- Problems with content (i.e., a new image on your site is too heavy, drops down performance; a script served by a site like Facebook is down, thereby slowing down your site)
- Problems with browser compatibility (i.e., users on Firefox 13 are experiencing a much slower page load than users on other browsers)
- Problems related to where you are. As a result, users in Asia see a significantly slower site than those in other regions.
- Irregularities in the network On mobile devices, the connection is a major impediment.
If you want your customers to have a positive experience, you need to keep an eye on your front-end. Visitors and consumers will leave your site if it takes too long to load or offers an unsatisfactory experience.
Three Frontend Monitoring Solutions
Solutions under the umbrella of frontend monitoring are implemented in a variety of ways. Three primary methods of data collection are listed here:
- Real user monitoring (RUM) Performance data from actual user visits is collected using JavaScript injected into the browser by this type of solution. RUM is a useful tool for analyzing performance trends and patterns. In terms of finding the root of a problem on your site (there is no waterfall graphic accompanying the data) or rapidly alerting you to issues, RUM is a bit limited.
- Simulated Browsers. Simulated browsers are used to access a web page or web application in this type of frontend monitoring system. Simulated browsers can’t accurately depict a user’s experience as an actual browser visit; hence, this is the cheapest monitoring option.
- Real-time monitoring of the browser. Real browsers, not simulated ones, are used in this form of frontend monitoring to view a website or web application. As a result, it gathers information on what a user would view on the site using these criteria: browser, location, and type of Internet connection. Your site’s performance can be fine-tuned before any of your visitors encounter issues as a result of this method.
What Do You Need to Implement?
Some performance monitoring tools provide a front-to-back solution. Others are better suited to working on the front or back ends of a project. A company’s financial resources ultimately determine a monitoring solution. Some are a few dollars a month, while others cost thousands. Gomez and Keynote are the most expensive options, but there is also a slew of open-source and bare-bones alternatives.
After that, here’s our answer (we can’t help but mention it!). Using real-browsers, Yottaa’s monitoring system runs on a worldwide hybrid cloud network. Email and SMS alerts can be set up to notify you of certain situations.