Synthetic Monitoring
Synthetic monitoring runs scheduled checks against a service from chosen locations. It tells you whether a defined endpoint or user journey works before a customer reports a failure.
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Intro
Synthetic Monitoring
Synthetic monitoring runs a defined check on a schedule. A probe requests an endpoint, performs a workflow, or drives a browser through a journey. It records whether the check met its conditions and how long it took. The question is deliberate: can a representative client complete this expected interaction now?
This is external evidence. A service can report healthy internal metrics while a public DNS record, TLS negotiation, network route, dependency, or login flow is broken. A synthetic check observes the path from the chosen probe to the target. It does not replace service telemetry, logs, traces, or real user monitoring. It gives them a controlled companion signal.
Start with the promise
Do not begin with every URL. Begin with a user or system promise that matters. An API client expects a health endpoint to return the right status and response. A customer expects to sign in and reach an account page. A resolver should return the intended DNS answer. A certificate should allow the expected TLS connection.
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Sources
- https://docs.cloud.google.com/monitoring/uptime-checks/introduction
Supports
- Synthetic monitors periodically issue simulated requests and record success and latency
- Uptime checks can send HTTP, HTTPS, or TCP requests and validate response data
- Synthetic monitors can test login, checkout, and third-party API workflows
- Public and private uptime checks have different network boundaries
- Synthetic results include success or failure, execution time, logs, and metrics
- https://grafana.com/docs/grafana-cloud/observe-and-act/testing/synthetic-monitoring/introduction/
Supports
- Synthetic monitoring supplies an external blackbox view of applications and services
- Supported checks include ICMP, HTTP, HTTPS, DNS, TCP, traceroute, scripted k6, and browser k6 checks
- Probes collect target availability, health, and response latency data
- Each selected probe runs independently at every scheduled interval
- Public and private probes are available
- https://prometheus.io/docs/guides/multi-target-exporter/
Supports
- Blackbox probing can report success, timing phases, status, TLS state, and certificate expiry
- Prometheus can scrape an exporter probe endpoint for remote targets
- https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter
Supports
- Blackbox Exporter probes HTTP, HTTPS, DNS, TCP, ICMP, and gRPC endpoints
- Probe results include a success metric and timing metrics
- https://github.com/adriannovegil/awesome-observability
Supports
- The curated observability list includes k6 among load generators and synthetic traffic tools
- The curated observability list includes monitoring and uptime ecosystem tools
- https://grafana.com/docs/k6/latest/testing-guides/synthetic-monitoring/
Supports
- k6 can run scheduled smoke tests for continuous production monitoring