Real Browser Monitor

Introduction:

This section is common to all the editions of IT360, as per the below constraints;

Professional Edition
Enterprise Edition [Applicable to Probes only, and not applicable / relevant to the Central Server, since the configuration of the monitors happens only at the Probe level. However, you may see these discovered monitors from the Central Server]
MSP Edition [Applicable to Probes only, and not applicable / relevant to the Central Server, since the configuration of the monitors happens only at the Probe level. However, you may see these discovered monitors from the Central Server]

Real Browser Monitor (RBM) provides live End-User experience measurement. RBM opens up a Microsoft Internet Explorer Browser and monitors a web application, just like how a real user sees it. It supports playback from different geographical locations.

For e.g., if you have different users, login to your application from UK, US, Germany, Australia etc, you can monitor their experience from a central IT360 Server. You could have the IT360, running in a data center in India, and have the Real Browser Monitor Agents, deployed in other geographical locations, and have it report Web Application Performance data to the Central site. This way, you can monitor the availability and performance of the website pages, at different locations.

Working of Real Browser Monitor:

Components of RBM - Toolbar for Browser (Internet Explorer), Agent to be installed from where the "Internet Explorer" playback has to be performed and IT360 Server.
RBM playback Agents (separate exe downloads), need to be installed in the client locations.
System requirement for the machine, where RBM Agent is to be deployed:
RBM Agents have to be installed on a dedicated Windows Machine - 256 MB RAM, 1 GB HD, with Internet Explorer 6 or above.
RBM Agents register to the ManageEngine IT360, on start up. You need to specify the "host and Web Client Port" of IT360, the first time the agent is installed and running. Agents get listed automatically.
Using the RBM Toolbar, you can record the required URL Sequences and the actions that a typical end-user would access. The actions will be recorded as webscripts. The webscripts can be viewed in the webscript manager.

Real Browser monitor is created in IT360 server, by calling the required webscripts and agents. RBM Agent will periodically check IT360, if RBM monitor has been configured for this agent. If available, RBM Agent will run the webscript associated, by invoking Internet Explorer. The recorded actions will be replayed in the browser. [Note: While playback is happening, do not close the Internet Explorer]. Once the playback is complete, RBM Agent will update the results of the playback [response time, response code, etc] in IT360.

Only one Internet Explorer, used by RBM Agent, can run in the background / foreground, while play back is in progress. This means only one transaction can be executed at a time. IT360 takes care of ensuring this synchronized playback.

The availability and performance of the websites are monitored in live, by using the Real Browser Monitor. If the health of the URLs are critical, then alarms can be generated. Based on the alarms, the admin will fix the issue.

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Monitoring End-User Experience with RBM Monitor:

The availability and response time of the recorded URLs will be monitored, according to the poll interval set. Alarms are configured, based on threshold configurations. So, if the health of the URLs is critical, alarms will be generated.

Availability tab gives the Availability history for the past 24 hours or 30 days.

Performance tab gives the Health history for the past 24 hours or 30 days, and also the Total Response Time of the various monitors.

List view enables you to perform Bulk admin configurations. Click on the individual monitors listed, to view the following information;

Monitor Information:

Parameter	Description
Name	Denotes the name Real Browser Monitor.
Health	Denotes the health (Clear, Warning, Critical) of the monitor, based on its dependencies.
Polling Interval	Time set for the polling interval.
Agent	Name of the RBM Agent.
Script	Name of the Webscript.
Availability	The current status of the monitor - whether up or down.
Validation	Results of the functions - Content Check, Element check will be updated for each URL. Content Check - You can validate a specific content in the page. Element Check - You can validate a specific element like Hyperlink in the page.

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Performance - Last One hour:

Parameter	Description
Average Response Time	The average response time for accessing an URL, or total average response time of the URL Sequence (takes into account the avg.response time of the individual URLs in the Sequence).
Current Response Time	The current response time of the individual URL, or the entire URL Sequence.

PageSize - Last One Hour:

Parameter	Description
Current Page Size	The current page size of the URL in bytes
% Page Size Change	The percentage change in current page size when compared to previous page size
Previous Page Size	The page size of URL in the previous poll

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RBM Dashboard:

The RBM dashboard provides an overview of the status of your webscripts or transactions, from multiple locations. If you click on the individual scripts listed, it will take you to a page, which shows the following metrics;

Total response time of the transaction across each location(agent):

This section provides a graphical representation of the total response time of the transaction, across the different locations, where the webscript is running.

Current status and response time of the transaction across each location:

This section provides a tabular representation of the current status and response time (in milliseconds) of the webscript from the locations, where the script is running. The location showing maximum response time will be highlighted on the page. This indicates you the location, from where the transaction is responding slow.

Total response time of the individual urls in the transaction:

This section provides a good indication of how each individual url, present within a transaction, performs from different geographical locations. This section lists all the urls of the transaction and shows the response time of each url from multiple locations. The location, from which the url has the maximum response time value, will be highlighted. Click on any of the response time values listed, to navigate to the 'Monitor Information' page of that particular url.

FAQ:

1. How does Real Browser monitor differ from URL Sequence monitor?

URL Sequence monitor supports only the recording of URL sequences and not the actions performed in the URLs. Also, RBM supports playback from different geographical locations unlike a URL sequence monitor

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