AutoSteps allows Synthetic Monitoring for application performance management by using scripted recordings of transactions. These scripts are created to simulate an action or path that a user would take on a site or an application to monitor common trafficked paths and critical business processes. These scripts are then continuously executed to monitor important performance metrics like response times and availability.

This is a good complement when used with Passive Monitoring to help provide visibility on application health during off peak hours when transaction volume is low as synthetic tests are indicative of user experience but not definitive. Therefore, AutoSteps combining with PerformanceGuard will give a complete view of user experience along with high level root cause clues. They both together will provide a complete overview of the system, infrastructure and user experience. You can eliminate those inherent blind spots when using both together as they will provide your organization with the best view of user's experience - both actual and potential.

Background and purpose

AutoSteps is very valuable to end users because it enables the administrator or an IT/Operations professional to identify whether a website or an application is running slow or experiencing downtime before that problem affects actual end-users or customers.

AutoSteps enables users to test Web applications 24x7 or test new applications prior to a live customer-facing launch. It provides a deeper visibility into end-to-end performance for the available applications regardless of location. AutoSteps works by issuing automated, simulated transactions from a script client to your application. These testing scripts become "monitoring" tools by running at regular intervals providing you with a baseline. AutoSteps will keep running, discover the error, alert you and provide detailed information about the problem where real user monitoring will not be able to comprehensively test for the functional correctness.

It is useful for measuring availability and response time of critical pages and transactions (how a site performs from all geographies) but doesn't monitor or capture actual end-user interactions.
The user can use AutoSteps to answer the following questions:

• Is my site or application up?
• How fast is my site or application?
• Is my login process interrupted?
• Are transactions working?
• If there is a slow down or failure, where is it in the infrastructure?
• How is my overall performance?
• Am I striking the correct balance of performance versus cost?

Benefits of using AutoSteps

AutoSteps can be used for:

• Testing a new feature before deploying
• Ensure application is up and running 24x7
• Testing and evaluating a new Market/Geography and Technology
• Help resolving issues before customers
• Monitor your applications to meet your SLA's
• Finding issues before customers do
• Transaction/API performance
• Improve the performance of your site by finding response times and broken user flows

Overview

AutoSteps is a superstructure on an existing PerformanceGuard installation with a Backend, one or more Frontends and a number of Agents. AutoSteps adds an executor on the computer which communicates with the Agent.

AutoSteps adds a range of new concepts to PerformanceGuard such as Scripts, Executor Groups, Schedules and Jobs.

Scripts

The combination of a Script file, information about what program is to be used to execute the script and a set of execution parameters. Scripts are part of the definition of a Job together with Schedules and Executor Groups

Executor Groups

AutoSteps will automatically load balance the execution of scripts across all members of an Executor Group - only computers with AutoSteps installed can be added to an Executor Group. Executor groups are part of the definition of a Job together with Scripts and Schedules.

Executor Groups can be populated by either adding individual computers or by assigning AutoSteps Network Groups. When assigning network groups all computers in the network are automatically added to the Executor Group.

This makes it very easy to scale the execution of scripts. If an Executor Group is being exhausted with tasks, just install AutoSteps on a computer with an Agent. If you use network groups to populate the Executor Groups, you are done as they will automatically be included in the Executor Group. If you use computers directly in the Executor Groups you will need to add the newly installed AutoSteps computer to the Executor Group manually.

Schedules

Used to define how often a Script must be run. Schedules are part of the definition of a Job together with Scripts and Executor Groups

Jobs

The combination of a Script, an Executor Group and a Schedule