Enhanced Web Metrics: A Deeper Dive into Website Performance

At AppNeta we talk a lot about network performance, but sometimes a user experience issue lies with the application itself.

As network operations teams rarely have full visibility into the applications that drive the business, getting metrics to isolate when the app is the problem is crucial to ensure low mean time to repair (MTTR) and reduce mean time to innocence (MTTI). When it is an app issue, understanding how your web application performs is crucial for ensuring a positive user experience. Slow loading times, network hiccups, and server delays can all contribute to frustrated users and lost revenue.

Enhanced web metrics can help application teams identify when network issues are affecting them (e.g., DNS, TCP, SSL delays). By providing granular insights into the various components of a web transaction, these metrics empower any team, network, or app to pinpoint bottlenecks, preempt major user experience issues, and optimize performance like never before.

Introducing enhanced web metrics in AppNeta

Earlier this year, AppNeta introduced a suite of enhanced web metrics designed to provide a comprehensive view of your website's performance. These metrics, available for both HTTP and browser workflows, offer a detailed breakdown of response times, allowing you to quickly identify the root cause of performance issues.

Key benefits of enhanced web metrics

• Granular breakdown of response times: Gain insights into DNS resolution, TCP connection, SSL handshake, request wait times, and more.
• Identify performance bottlenecks: Pinpoint the specific stage of a web transaction that is causing delays.
• Faster troubleshooting: Quickly diagnose and resolve performance issues with detailed performance data.
• Optimize website performance: Use the insights gained to improve website speed and user experience.

A closer look at the metrics

• Redirect time measures the total time spent on redirects, including DNS lookups, connection establishment, and server response time. High redirect times may indicate issues with redirect configurations or network latency.
• DNS lookup time tracks the time taken to resolve the IP address of the target domain. Excessive DNS lookup times can signify DNS server issues or inefficient DNS caching.
• TCP connection time measures the time required to establish a TCP connection to the server. High TCP connection times may point to network delays or server-side issues.
• TCP retransmission counts notes how many retransmissions have occurred over the time period, indicating when loss may be affecting performance.
• SSL connection time captures the time spent on the SSL handshake process. Long SSL connection times could be due to proxy server issues, security device delays, or problems with the server's SSL configuration.
• Request wait time measures the time from when a request is sent until the first byte of the response is received. High request wait times often indicate server-side delays, such as high server load or inefficient application code.

In addition to response time metrics, AppNeta also provides detailed download metrics including:

• Download time, which tracks the time taken to download the entire content of the HTTP response. Increased download times may be caused by large file sizes or slow server response times.
• Download size, which monitors the size of downloaded content, helping you identify if large files are contributing to performance issues.
• Download speed, which tracks the speed at which content is downloaded, providing insights into network bandwidth and server response times.

Conclusion

AppNeta presents these metrics in intuitive charts and tables, allowing you to easily visualize performance trends and identify anomalies. The platform also provides detailed error messages and failure analysis to help you troubleshoot issues quickly and more effectively. AppNeta has actively gathered user feedback to improve the feature, ensuring it meets the needs of even the largest enterprises.

Enhanced web metrics provide invaluable insights into website performance, empowering you to identify and resolve issues quickly. By leveraging these metrics, you can identify when web apps are the source of poor performance instead of the network. If you own and operate the app, this data can help optimize your website for speed, improve user experience, and ultimately drive better business outcomes.

To learn more and see it in action, view our introductory course on enhanced web metrics.