Technical Benchmarks to check Location Status
If you notice performance issues in reports from a single location, you can check the location's performance against other sites to see if others are experiencing the same issues you are in that location. Running a Technical Benchmark report can help with this. These reports compare your site's performance against major internet sites like Yahoo and Amazon, tested from the same location over the same time frame.
To run the report, select Reports - Performance Reports from the AlertSite console. (this is currently only available in the AlertSite 1.0 console) Choose a report option. Only Detail, Hourly Summary, or Daily Summary reports include the Technical Benchmarks option. Technical Benchmark reports can only be run against a single device and a single location as well, so select a device from the list of monitors, and a location below. Make sure to check Report Details and check the Technical Benchmarks checkbox as well.
The Technical Benchmark windows appears on the right when the checkbox is selected. In the bottom window, select the benchmark sites you want to report against. You can report against a total of 7 sites in a single report. (you can also run benchmarks against your other sites in the window above the benchmark sites). Select a Date Range and click the Create Report in the top right corner.
At the top of the report you see the graph comparing your site with the Benchmark Sites selected, as well as the Load Analysis details. This can give you a quick view of availability compared to your own site's performance, as well as performance,
If you scroll down in the report you can see the details of the test runs as well. If response Times vary you may get an indication of performance issues occurring across the board from the location as well. If they are consistent, it's a good indication that the location itself is not having any issues, and further investigation into your own site is warranted.
If ALL of the Benchmark sites are having the same issue it is a good indication that the vendor at the location, or the backbone itself, is or was having issues in the time frame indicated. If only SOME of the benchmark sites have the the same issue, it is likely a peering issue of the backbone with certain providers, and not an overall location issue. In either case, issues with benchmarks sites that parallel your own site's performance issues are a good indication that visitors to your site routing to you in a similar way from that location, would have experienced the same issues. If NONE of the benchmark sites had the same issues your site did during the time frame indicated it is a good indication that the issue is isolated to just your site. Further investigation to the site itself is warranted in this case.
