maxoperf concepts
Synthetic monitor
Synthetic monitor — a continuous probe that fires periodic checks (HTTP, API workflow, browser flow, DNS, SSL, …) from one or more regions and alerts when the target fails.
Also known as: uptime monitor, synthetic check
Definition
A synthetic monitor is a periodic probe that simulates one user (or one API caller) hitting a target endpoint, runs the request from one or more geographic regions, and produces a structured outcome (up / down / degraded / error / timeout) per region per check. Continuous probing detects outages between deploys and during release windows when no one is actively using the system.
In Maxoperf
Monitors live in the same workspace as your load tests. The same location model that runs load-test runners can also run scheduled probes, so adding a monitor does not require a separate vendor workflow. Outcomes feed status pages, alerting destinations, on-call rotations, SLO error-budget calculations, and failure criteria that can abort a running load test.
Common pitfalls
- Treating monitors as a substitute for load tests — they tell you the endpoint exists and responds, not that it scales.
- Using only one region — a single-region transient is hard to distinguish from a real outage; default to ≥ 3 regions for production endpoints.
- Skipping assertions — a
200with the wrong JSON shape is still a regression worth alerting on.
FAQ
How is a synthetic monitor different from a load test?
A load test answers "did this scale once?" — a synthetic monitor answers "is it up right now?" by firing one user-shaped request periodically from multiple regions, around the clock.
Can a Maxoperf monitor abort a running load test?
Yes — set a failure criterion that references the monitor and the load test cancels automatically when the production target degrades during the test.