What do I need to know about API Monitoring?
With Synthetic API monitoring, you can monitor the availability and performance of HTTP(s) based APIs. These APIs can be internal, external, or third-party APIs.
In this article…
What does Synthetic API Monitoring offer?
Which API metrics will I have insights into?
API Monitoring can be use to monitor the availability and performance trends of APIs, API jobs and API collections:
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Metrics
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API collection
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- Availability %
- Average response time
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API job
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- Availability trend
- Performance trends
- Average response size trends
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API
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- Status code trends
- Response time trends
- Response size trends
- Time-related trends, e.g., wait time, TLS time, TCP time, DNS time, etc…
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How does Synthetic API Monitoring compare to AppDynamics Synthetic Web Monitoring?
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Synthetic API monitoring
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Synthetic web monitoring
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Designed to gather granular API level information, such as:
- wait time
- DNS time
- TCP time
- request time
- download time, and more…
Also designed to monitor API monitoring trends, such as:
- status code trends
- response size trends
- API trends
- granular API data for debugging
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Designed to gather page-level information, such as:
- page screenshot
- page resources
- domains requested
- waterfall view of the page load events
- compute visually complete, and more…
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Can I monitor a sequence of API requests as a workflow?
Yes. Synthetic API Monitoring can be configured to monitor a single API or a sequence of multiple API endpoints.
You can find sample scripts for multiple API requests, in this document.
How often can API tests be configured to run?
Synthetic API Monitoring can be configured to run with a minimum frequency of 1 minute.
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What do I need to know about monitoring APIs from different locations?
How many locations can API tests be run from?
You can monitor APIs from 17 hosted locations distributed worldwide.
You can also use private synthetic agents to monitor APIs in your intranet, VPC, or in any other locations. Find the steps for setting up private synthetic agents on the Install the Private Synthetic Agent (Web and API Monitoring) page in AppDynamics Documentation.
Is it possible to add custom locations from which to test private APIs?
Yes, AppDynamics customers can set up private synthetic agents in any location they require to test private APIs.
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How can I manage API password security?
Do you have an encrypted store for passwords?
Yes, customers can use the Synthetic Credentials Vault to store their passwords securely and use it in the API Monitoring jobs. For more information, refer to AppDynamics Documentation.
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What licensing do I need for Synthetic API Monitoring?
Can I use my existing AppDynamics Synthetic Monitoring license for API Monitoring?
Yes, The Synthetic Monitoring license can be used for both Web and API Monitoring.
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Web Monitoring
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API Monitoring
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Hosted agent
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Metered in 5-second time blocks
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Metered in seconds
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Private agent
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Minimum supported frequency of 5 minutes
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Minimum supported frequency of 1 minute
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Can I use or transfer my Service Availability Monitoring (SAM) license for use of Synthetic API Monitoring?
You need an active Synthetic Monitoring license to use Synthetic API Monitoring.
While there is no mechanism to convert the SAM license to a Synthetic monitoring license, customers can continue to use their active SAM license with the SAM product
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I currently monitor my service endpoints using Service Availability Monitoring (SAM). How can I move to Synthetic API monitoring?
Depending on whether you use Service Availability Monitoring with SaaS Controller or on-premises Controller, you can use either Synthetic API or Synthetic Web monitoring products to monitor your service endpoints.
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Synthetic API Monitoring method to monitor service endpoints
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SaaS Controller
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Method: Install private synthetic agents
Instructions
- Set up the Private Synthetic Agent (PSA) for API Monitoring
- Reach out to our support team to move your jobs from SAM to Synthetic API Monitoring
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On-premises Controller
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Method: Move to a SaaS controller
Instructions
- Set up the Private Synthetic Agent (PSA) for API Monitoring
- Reach out to our support team to move your jobs from SAM to Synthetic API Monitoring
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Method: Install web monitoring private synthetic agents
Instructions
- Set up the Private Synthetic Agent (PSA) for Web Monitoring
- Follow the configuration instructions in the Documentation portal to create a Synthetic job for monitoring your service endpoints
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How can I move my service endpoints from SAM to Synthetic API Monitoring?
Our team can help you to move the service endpoints monitored in SAM to Synthetic API Monitoring. Please reach out to your regular AppDynamics contact person or raise a support ticket.
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How do I get started with Synthetic API Monitoring?
You can refer to AppDynamics Documentation to learn how to get started with Synthetic API monitoring.
Does Synthetic API Monitoring support OAuth?
Yes, you can use JavaScript to implement OAuth authentication for your API Monitoring jobs. To implement OAuth, you can refer to these sample code snippets.
Which API standards does API Monitoring support?
API Monitoring supports the HTTP and HTTPS protocols. Additional protocols will be supported based on customer requests.
Are there sample API monitoring scripts I can refer to?
Yes, sample JavaScripts based scripts for API monitoring are available here.
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Additional Resources
AppDynamics Micro Demo: Synthetic API Monitoring
AppDynamics Documentation: Synthetic API Monitoring
AppDynamics Support
