Real user monitoring

Last updated

Real user monitoring (RUM) is a passive monitoring technology that records all user interaction with a website or client interacting with a server or cloud-based application. [1] Monitoring actual user interaction with a website or an application is important to operators to determine if users are being served quickly and without errors and, if not, which part of a business process is failing. [2] Software as a service (SaaS) and application service providers (ASP) use RUM to monitor and manage service quality delivered to their clients. Real user monitoring data is used to determine the actual service-level quality delivered to end-users and to detect errors or slowdowns on websites. [3] The data may also be used to determine if changes that are propagated to sites have the intended effect or cause errors.

Organizations typically use RUM to test changes within the production environment or to anticipate behavioral changes in a website or application by using A/B testing or other techniques. As technology shifts more and more to hybrid environments like cloud, fat clients, widgets, and apps, it becomes more and more important to monitor the usage of applications from within the client itself.

Real user monitoring is typically "passive monitoring" i.e., the RUM device collects web traffic without having any effect on the operation of the site. In most cases, a form of JavaScript is injected into the page or native code within the application to provide feedback from the browser or client. This data is collected from various individuals and consolidated. [4]

RUM can be very helpful in identifying and troubleshooting last-mile issues. RUM differs from synthetic monitoring in that it relies on actual people clicking on the page to take measurements rather than automated tests simply going over a given set of test steps.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Software testing</span> Checking software against a standard

Software testing is the act of checking whether software satisfies expectations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thin client</span> Non-powerful computer optimized for remote server access

In computer networking, a thin client, sometimes called slim client or lean client, is a simple (low-performance) computer that has been optimized for establishing a remote connection with a server-based computing environment. They are sometimes known as network computers, or in their simplest form as zero clients. The server does most of the work, which can include launching software programs, performing calculations, and storing data. This contrasts with a rich client or a conventional personal computer; the former is also intended for working in a client–server model but has significant local processing power, while the latter aims to perform its function mostly locally.

In software quality assurance, performance testing is in general a testing practice performed to determine how a system performs in terms of responsiveness and stability under a particular workload. It can also serve to investigate, measure, validate or verify other quality attributes of the system, such as scalability, reliability and resource usage.

In telecommunication, provisioning involves the process of preparing and equipping a network to allow it to provide new services to its users. In National Security/Emergency Preparedness telecommunications services, "provisioning" equates to "initiation" and includes altering the state of an existing priority service or capability.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Usability</span> Capacity of a system for its users to perform tasks

Usability can be described as the capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. In software engineering, usability is the degree to which a software can be used by specified consumers to achieve quantified objectives with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a quantified context of use.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Load testing</span> Process of putting demand on a system and measuring its response

Load testing is the process of putting demand on a structure or system and measuring its response.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Systems development life cycle</span> Systems engineering terms

In systems engineering, information systems and software engineering, the systems development life cycle (SDLC), also referred to as the application development life cycle, is a process for planning, creating, testing, and deploying an information system. The SDLC concept applies to a range of hardware and software configurations, as a system can be composed of hardware only, software only, or a combination of both. There are usually six stages in this cycle: requirement analysis, design, development and testing, implementation, documentation, and evaluation.

Web development is the work involved in developing a website for the Internet or an intranet. Web development can range from developing a simple single static page of plain text to complex web applications, electronic businesses, and social network services. A more comprehensive list of tasks to which Web development commonly refers, may include Web engineering, Web design, Web content development, client liaison, client-side/server-side scripting, Web server and network security configuration, and e-commerce development.

Software as a service is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as on-demand software, web-based software, or web-hosted software.

Mobile app development is the act or process by which a mobile app is developed for one or more mobile devices, which can include personal digital assistants (PDA), enterprise digital assistants (EDA), or mobile phones. Such software applications are specifically designed to run on mobile devices, taking numerous hardware constraints into consideration. Common constraints include CPU architecture and speeds, available memory (RAM), limited data storage capacities, and considerable variation in displays and input methods. These applications can be pre-installed on phones during manufacturing or delivered as web applications, using server-side or client-side processing to provide an "application-like" experience within a web browser.

Website monitoring is the process of testing and verifying that end-users can interact with a website or web application as expected. Website monitoring are often used by businesses to ensure website uptime, performance, and functionality is as expected.

Desktop virtualization is a software technology that separates the desktop environment and associated application software from the physical client device that is used to access it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Accounting software</span> Computer program that maintains account books

Accounting software is a computer program that maintains account books on computers, including recording transactions and account balances. It may depend on virtual thinking. Depending on the purpose, the software can manage budgets, perform accounting tasks for multiple currencies, perform payroll and customer relationship management, and prepare financial reporting. Work to have accounting functions be implemented on computers goes back to the earliest days of electronic data processing. Over time, accounting software has revolutionized from supporting basic accounting operations to performing real-time accounting and supporting financial processing and reporting. Cloud accounting software was first introduced in 2011, and it allowed the performance of all accounting functions through the internet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cloud computing</span> Form of shared internet-based computing

Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over multiple locations, each of which is a data center. Cloud computing relies on sharing of resources to achieve coherence and typically uses a pay-as-you-go model, which can help in reducing capital expenses but may also lead to unexpected operating expenses for users.

In software engineering, a software development process or software development life cycle (SDLC) is a process of planning and managing software development. It typically involves dividing software development work into smaller, parallel, or sequential steps or sub-processes to improve design and/or product management. The methodology may include the pre-definition of specific deliverables and artifacts that are created and completed by a project team to develop or maintain an application.

Data as a service (DaaS) is a cloud-based software tool used for working with data, such as managing data in a data warehouse or analyzing data with business intelligence. It is enabled by software as a service (SaaS). Like all "as a service" (aaS) technology, DaaS builds on the concept that its data product can be provided to the user on demand, regardless of geographic or organizational separation between provider and consumer. Service-oriented architecture (SOA) and the widespread use of APIs have rendered the platform on which the data resides as irrelevant.

In software engineering, service virtualization or service virtualisation is a method to emulate the behavior of specific components in heterogeneous component-based applications such as API-driven applications, cloud-based applications and service-oriented architectures. It is used to provide software development and QA/testing teams access to dependent system components that are needed to exercise an application under test (AUT), but are unavailable or difficult-to-access for development and testing purposes. With the behavior of the dependent components "virtualized", testing and development can proceed without accessing the actual live components. Service virtualization is recognized by vendors, industry analysts, and industry publications as being different than mocking. See here for a Comparison of API simulation tools.

This article discusses a set of tactics useful in software testing. It is intended as a comprehensive list of tactical approaches to Software Quality Assurance (more widely colloquially known as Quality Assurance and general application of the test method.

In IT operations, software performance management is the subset of tools and processes in IT Operations which deals with the collection, monitoring, and analysis of performance metrics. These metrics can indicate to IT staff whether a system component is up and running (available), or that the component is behaving in an abnormal way that would impact its ability to function correctly—much like how a doctor may measure pulse, respiration, and temperature to measure how the human body is "operating". This type of monitoring originated with computer network components, but has now expanded into monitoring other components such as servers and storage devices, as well as groups of components organized to deliver specific services and Business Service Management).

The term load testing is used in different ways in the professional software testing community. Load testing generally refers to the practice of modeling the expected usage of a software program by simulating multiple users accessing the program concurrently. As such, this testing is most relevant for multi-user systems; often one built using a client/server model, such as web servers. However, other types of software systems can also be load tested. For example, a word processor or graphics editor can be forced to read an extremely large document; or a financial package can be forced to generate a report based on several years' worth of data. The most accurate load testing simulates actual use, as opposed to testing using theoretical or analytical modeling.

References

  1. Altvater, Alexandra (2020-01-29). "What Is Real User Monitoring? How It Works, Examples, Best Practices, and More". Stackify. Retrieved 2022-08-13.
  2. "Real user monitoring (RUM)". Dynatrace . Retrieved September 20, 2021.
  3. "USER EXPERIENCE MONITORING". UTP. 12 June 2014. Retrieved 5 November 2014.
  4. Oyama, Katsunori; Takeuchi, Atsushi; Ming, Hua; Chang, Carl K. (December 2011). "A Concept Lattice for Recognition of User Problems in Real User Monitoring". 2011 18th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference. Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam: IEEE. pp. 163–170. doi:10.1109/APSEC.2011.32. ISBN   978-1-4577-2199-1. S2CID   7779708.