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5 Tips for Effective Mobile Monitoring

Eran Kinsbruner

Here are some important guidelines to remember when you start to plan your mobile monitoring strategy ...

1. Real device monitoring is a "must"

Only real devices let you capture the true mobile end user experience in terms of application performance and availability. Be sure to use non-jailbroken/rooted devices, production version apps (non-modified), run complex user scenarios using complex client logic on real devices, and measure client-side performance impact on the overall user experience. Other monitoring solutions, such as browser emulation, fail to reflect the true mobile user experience.

2. Leverage both RUM and Synthetic monitoring techniques

Real User Monitoring is the best way to know what is happening on a user's device, as it is based on an agent within the application that collects data and communicates it to the monitoring server. Synthetic monitoring allows organizations to track application behavior against real networks globally in a “clean-room” environment, and provides an excellent solution for debugging problems identified in the field.

3. Extend your existing monitoring solution to mobile

There is no need to re-invent the wheel. Your operations center has accumulated valuable experience in monitoring and triaging incidents. There is no need to create new processes, re-train personnel or buy completely new solutions. Rather, it is advisable to expand those processes to cover your mobile initiative as well by making it mobile-relevant.

4. Select your synthetic monitoring coverage wisely

Synthetic monitoring, by definition, provides sampled coverage of the audience, devices, carriers and locations, and user scenarios. It is not realistic to provide coverage for everything. Identify those combinations that are relevant to your business objectives and work from there.

5. Ensure the reliability of your monitoring solution to eliminate false alerts

There is nothing most frustrating to your Ops Center staff than false alerts. Your mobile monitoring solution must comply with stringent SLAs to ensure that your engineers do not waste time on alerts caused by problems related to device availability, for example. Device redundancy, together with identification and reduction of alerts driven from known issues, help to ensure proper attention to real issues that are impacting end users.

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5 Tips for Effective Mobile Monitoring

Eran Kinsbruner

Here are some important guidelines to remember when you start to plan your mobile monitoring strategy ...

1. Real device monitoring is a "must"

Only real devices let you capture the true mobile end user experience in terms of application performance and availability. Be sure to use non-jailbroken/rooted devices, production version apps (non-modified), run complex user scenarios using complex client logic on real devices, and measure client-side performance impact on the overall user experience. Other monitoring solutions, such as browser emulation, fail to reflect the true mobile user experience.

2. Leverage both RUM and Synthetic monitoring techniques

Real User Monitoring is the best way to know what is happening on a user's device, as it is based on an agent within the application that collects data and communicates it to the monitoring server. Synthetic monitoring allows organizations to track application behavior against real networks globally in a “clean-room” environment, and provides an excellent solution for debugging problems identified in the field.

3. Extend your existing monitoring solution to mobile

There is no need to re-invent the wheel. Your operations center has accumulated valuable experience in monitoring and triaging incidents. There is no need to create new processes, re-train personnel or buy completely new solutions. Rather, it is advisable to expand those processes to cover your mobile initiative as well by making it mobile-relevant.

4. Select your synthetic monitoring coverage wisely

Synthetic monitoring, by definition, provides sampled coverage of the audience, devices, carriers and locations, and user scenarios. It is not realistic to provide coverage for everything. Identify those combinations that are relevant to your business objectives and work from there.

5. Ensure the reliability of your monitoring solution to eliminate false alerts

There is nothing most frustrating to your Ops Center staff than false alerts. Your mobile monitoring solution must comply with stringent SLAs to ensure that your engineers do not waste time on alerts caused by problems related to device availability, for example. Device redundancy, together with identification and reduction of alerts driven from known issues, help to ensure proper attention to real issues that are impacting end users.

Hot Topics

The Latest

As businesses increasingly rely on high-performance applications to deliver seamless user experiences, the demand for fast, reliable, and scalable data storage systems has never been greater. Redis — an open-source, in-memory data structure store — has emerged as a popular choice for use cases ranging from caching to real-time analytics. But with great performance comes the need for vigilant monitoring ...

Kubernetes was not initially designed with AI's vast resource variability in mind, and the rapid rise of AI has exposed Kubernetes limitations, particularly when it comes to cost and resource efficiency. Indeed, AI workloads differ from traditional applications in that they require a staggering amount and variety of compute resources, and their consumption is far less consistent than traditional workloads ... Considering the speed of AI innovation, teams cannot afford to be bogged down by these constant infrastructure concerns. A solution is needed ...

AI is the catalyst for significant investment in data teams as enterprises require higher-quality data to power their AI applications, according to the State of Analytics Engineering Report from dbt Labs ...

Misaligned architecture can lead to business consequences, with 93% of respondents reporting negative outcomes such as service disruptions, high operational costs and security challenges ...

A Gartner analyst recently suggested that GenAI tools could create 25% time savings for network operational teams. Where might these time savings come from? How are GenAI tools helping NetOps teams today, and what other tasks might they take on in the future as models continue improving? In general, these savings come from automating or streamlining manual NetOps tasks ...

IT and line-of-business teams are increasingly aligned in their efforts to close the data gap and drive greater collaboration to alleviate IT bottlenecks and offload growing demands on IT teams, according to The 2025 Automation Benchmark Report: Insights from IT Leaders on Enterprise Automation & the Future of AI-Driven Businesses from Jitterbit ...

A large majority (86%) of data management and AI decision makers cite protecting data privacy as a top concern, with 76% of respondents citing ROI on data privacy and AI initiatives across their organization, according to a new Harris Poll from Collibra ...

According to Gartner, Inc. the following six trends will shape the future of cloud over the next four years, ultimately resulting in new ways of working that are digital in nature and transformative in impact ...

2020 was the equivalent of a wedding with a top-shelf open bar. As businesses scrambled to adjust to remote work, digital transformation accelerated at breakneck speed. New software categories emerged overnight. Tech stacks ballooned with all sorts of SaaS apps solving ALL the problems — often with little oversight or long-term integration planning, and yes frequently a lot of duplicated functionality ... But now the music's faded. The lights are on. Everyone from the CIO to the CFO is checking the bill. Welcome to the Great SaaS Hangover ...

Regardless of OpenShift being a scalable and flexible software, it can be a pain to monitor since complete visibility into the underlying operations is not guaranteed ... To effectively monitor an OpenShift environment, IT administrators should focus on these five key elements and their associated metrics ...