Jump start to Dotcom-Monitor

This is the sponsored post from our awesome partner DotCom-Monitor.

Jump start to Dotcom-Monitor : I am an avid user of HPE LoadRunner, Apache JMeter, and Dynatrace. Couple weeks ago, I got introduced to Dotcom-Monitor product suite. I created a free-trial account and I have been playing it with from past couple of days. In this blog post, I am going to write about my experience about Dotcom-Monitor product. Let us dive in.

What is Dotcom-Monitor?

Dotcom-Monitor is not a new company or startup. They are award winning web monitoring (and many more products/services) since 1998. Head to dotcom-monitor.com for more details. They have series of products for performance monitoring, load testing, web services testing, network and server performance. They have many fortune clients such as Dell, Xerox, Citrix etc.

What’s in the box for performance testers?

Every performance testers must check dotcom-monitor services/products. Dotcom-monitor also offers a tool called Everystep scripting tool to automate the browsers. Everystep supports almost all the technologies such as Silverlight, Java, HTML5, PHP, Ruby and many more. For performance testers, in free trial you get following privileges: ServerView Monitoring, BrowserView Monitoring, User View Monitoring, Metrics View Monitoring, and LoadView Stress Testing. You get 30 days free trial for all the above said services except LoadView Stress Testing. In LoadView Stress Testing, you get 5000 tasks for free.

Sign-up Now

To create a free-trial, please visit https://userauth.dotcom-monitor.com/ Complete the profile with valid data and confirm your account. Once you login, you could see below services associated to your account.

Jump start to Dotcom-Monitor
Jump start to Dotcom-Monitor

Getting started

There are lot of options in Dotcom-Monitor. Before you begin, you need to draft your requirements and objectives. First step is to create a monitoring device. It is like creating a script or test scenario. Click on Add Device button to create a monitoring device.

Add a Device - Jump start to Dotcom-Monitor
Add a Device

In this blog post, I am going to tell you how to create a ServerView monitoring device to monitor a website.

Click on HTTP/S under ServerView and then click on Continue. There are four steps to be completed before you begin monitoring the website under test.

In Configure Task step, you need to enter the URL, Content Validation, Basic Authentication, SSL Certificates, Headers, GET Parameters, DNS Options etc.

In Create Device step, you need to mention about the location of monitoring agents, monitoring schedule, and advanced configuration. In free trial, you get 4 hours frequency.

In Alerts step, you need to mention to whom the alert needs to be triggered. You can trigger SMS, Email, Phone, SNMP and many more. Except standard alerts, you need to pay for other modes of alerts such as SMS, Phone Alerts etc.

In Reports step, you need to select which type of report you want to generate after monitoring is completed. CSV, PDF, and TXT formats are available.

Before you begin monitoring, you can review all the settings or simple hit save for later use.

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Viewing the Monitoring Reports

Anytime you can login into Dotcom-Monitor to view the results. Simple expand the ServerView Monitoring, click on the actions and select Reports as shown below.

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In the next screen, select the duration and hit Submit to view the reports. Below is the sample report of my test.

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Dotcom-Monitor generates multiple charts by default. Click on the appropriate links to view the metrics.

About Configuration and other Options

Apart from creating device to monitor the performance, Dotcom Monitor has a separate module to configure groups, templates, schedules, filters, dashboards, agents etc. Before you begin creating any monitoring device, make sure that you have configured all the variables under Configure menu.

Dotcom-Monitor offers excellent online support via knowledge base and live chat. Turn-around time is pretty quick. You can customize your account under Account module. In the Wallet page, you can check the balance and load the credits in the Purchase page. In the Download page, you can download three products: EveryStep Scripting Tool, Private Agent, and Metrics View Agent. Private Agents need special attention to get it installed.

Here is the video about how to create ServerView Monitoring in Dot-Com monitor?

 

Overall Dotcom Monitor Experience

Overall experience is excellent. Any performance tester with basics skills can create monitoring device and start monitoring it. The navigation across multiple pages and sections were fluid and excellent.

Load time across all the pages were responsive (quick). But in the reports, improvements are required. I didn’t like the way the report have been structured. Also, calculation time is pretty high. Also, I didn’t find the way to share the results in the reports. All I need to do is, go to Report History to share the unique URL to my manager. Load Test Calibration is taking much time to complete.

 

Your turn:

I will post more articles about DotCom-Monitor. I request you to sign-up and let me know your experience in the comments section.

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