Intelligent Page Monitoring: The Next Level

Tyler James

Here at RapidSpike we are committed to providing a high quality service, and as part of that we frequently release upgrades to our core software. So today we’re very pleased to announce our Intelligent Page Monitor (IPM) upgrades!

IPMs will now run in the latest version of Google Chrome

• This means your monitor will accurately reproduce a real browser
• Previously we used a headless browser called PhantomJS which is now deprecated

Data recording and analysis will be vastly improved

• By routing browser traffic through an internal proxy, we’re now able to capture additional data with a higher accuracy
• We used to use a Javascript module for recording this data but it was limited and sometimes inaccurate

More standardised and cleaner test environments

• Each test runs in a completely new session making for more reliable benchmark statistics (DNS cache flush and clean browser cache and cookie store)
• By using Docker containers we’re able to completely scrap and rebuild environments between tests

These upgrades are a taste of things to come with RapidSpike, as we continue to develop our products further. Where possible we’ll also try to keep costs the same – these IPM upgrades will not incur further charges to our customers.

We do, however, need to apply some limits which will affect some of our older customers. A little while ago we altered IPMs so that they could only run in one region per monitor and limited test frequencies according to a customer’s subscription plan. At the time these changes only affected IPMs created after this change, but as part of this migration we’ll be enforcing the changes for everyone.

When will it launch?

On the 3rd September we’ll be migrating all IPMs over to this new system. However, you can migrate them manually at no extra charge right now. Just login, navigate to an IPM and hit the ‘Upgrade’ button. Be sure to keep your eye on your monitor’s data after migrating as a very small number of customers may experience changes in load times, which could mean that alert rules need to be altered accordingly.

BONUS – Additional User Journey Regions

Our IPM software is on par with our User Journey software which means we’ve been able to merge our test locations. We now offer new test locations in Manchester (UK), East and West United States, Hong Kong and Sydney regions!