Manage private Synthetic locations

Add a private Synthetic location as well as analyze and manage capacity usage in the Private synthetic locations global settings page (select the Private synthetic locations settings page from search results).

Early Adopter

Synthetic-enabled ActiveGate version 1.217+

Dynatrace version 1.218+

Overall location status

Private Synthetic locations in your environment are listed with green, yellow, red, or gray indicators of overall capacity usage status. You can see the type and number of synthetic monitors as well as the number of Synthetic-enabled ActiveGates assigned to each location.

Select the monitor type (HTTP or Browser) to see the list of synthetic monitors of that type at that location.

You can select multiple locations for bulk management of outage handling. Select the checkbox next to each location you want to manage.

The colored status indicator for each location shows if it's overloaded in terms of capacity usage, enabling you make educated decisions about adding more ActiveGates in order to run additional monitors. (Also check system and hardware requirements for private Synthetic locations.)

For usage calculations on each ActiveGate, Dynatrace allocates CPU and RAM resources for running each type of monitor. Resource allocation per monitor type is resolved into the maximum number of simultaneous monitor executions that may take place at any given point in time. Actual capacity usage calculation per monitor type (see Location details below) is based on the number of concurrently executed monitors compared to the maximum allowed simultaneous executions over the preceding 30 minutes.

For example, an ActiveGate might support two simultaneous browser monitor executions at a given point. However, depending on the duration of the monitors being executed, this could equate to more than two monitors being executed within a given timeframe. For example, one 55-second monitor and three 10-second monitors could be executed within a single minute with no more than two simultaneous executions at any given point.

Metrics for capacity usage per monitor type provide an accurate view of Synthetic location health and can be used for charting and alerting—be sure to split these metrics by location (see Location details below).

Location details

Select a location to see the breakdown of its overall status into capacity usage per monitor type. For each of these monitor types, you can see the number of monitors and hourly scheduled executions as well the capacity use percentage.

• HTTP monitors
• High-resource HTTP monitors
• Browser monitors

You cannot see usage data per monitor type when all ActiveGates or Synthetic engines at a location are down.

The ActiveGates assigned to the location are listed and displayed in red when a Synthetic engine or an ActiveGate itself is offline; the Status column displays a corresponding message. You can add or delete ActiveGates from here. Note that the Add ActiveGate button is disabled when there are no ActiveGates available to be assigned to a location—you can check for this in Deployment status.

Metrics for the health status of each monitor type are available for charting and alerting. For example, choose the following metrics in the Metrics browser or the Data explorer:

• Synthetic - HTTP - Engine Utilization
• Synthetic - HTTP High Resource - Engine Utilization
• Synthetic - Browser - Engine Utilization We strongly recommend splitting these metrics by location to get an accurate view of location health.

Chromium update

You can Enable Chromium auto-update at the location level, that is, for all ActiveGates assigned to a private location. This setting only applies to Linux-based ActiveGates; on Windows-based ActiveGates, Chromium is always updated during Synthetic engine updates.

As we recommend using the latest supported Chromium version for the smooth and secure execution of browser monitors from your private location, Chromium autoupdate is turned on by default for locations with Linux-based ActiveGates. If your location has only Windows-based ActiveGates, the toggle is turned on but grayed out; Chromium is always updated automatically on Windows-based ActiveGates.

Chromium autoupdate takes place during manual as well as automatic ActiveGate and Synthetic engine updates. If you don't want Chromium to be updated automatically, for example, to use a specific version of Chromium or if you have offline environments, turn off the switch before triggering an ActiveGate update.

Successful Chromium autoupdate requires access to repositories for Chromium and dependencies at https://synthetic-packages.s3.amazonaws.com. (If you've enabled a custom local repository, Chromium components (but not dependencies) need to be available at the specified HTTP server address. See Chromium autoupdate from a custom repository below.)

You will see a message if Chromium autoupdate fails for this or other reasons—we recommend either meeting the requirements for autoupdate (such as access to repositories) or disabling Chromium autoupdate for your private location.

If you disable Chromium autoupdate, you can manually update Chromium per ActiveGate. However, Chromium autoupdate is required when using custom repositories.

Also check our information on installing Chromium and other dependencies manually (Linux only).

Location outage handling

For each location, enable the corresponding switches generate problems when a location or any of its ActiveGates/Synthetic engines are unavailable:

• You can generate a problem with the entire location is unavailable (all assigned ActiveGates or Synthetic engines are offline).

• You can generate a problem when any single ActiveGate or Synthetic engine assigned to the location is offline.

  For example, if your location has two ActiveGates and you enable both problem switches, you will see three problems when your location is unavailable, one for the entire location and one for each ActiveGate that's offline.

• Additionally, you can opt to view a banner notification at the top of the Dynatrace web UI when either the entire location or any individual ActiveGate/Synthetic engine is unavailable.

  

From the main settings page listing all your private Synthetic locations, you can select multiple locations for bulk management of outage handling.

1. Select the checkbox next to each location you want to manage.

2. Select Edit in the lower-left corner of the page.

   

3. Select the appropriate outage handling checkbox.

4. Enable/disable the switch below the checkbox. This will overwrite the corresponding setting for the selected locations.

   

5. Save changes.

Update Chromium manually from S3

You might want to update Chromium and dependencies manually if you have an offline environment. If you've installed an ActiveGate manually, say, for manual dependency management because of constraints in accessing the Amazon S3 service, you'll want to update Chromium manually.

You need to update Chromium manually per ActiveGate, and the process varies slightly based on the operating system. Note that manual update of Chromium only applies to Linux-based ActiveGates; on Windows-based ActiveGates, Chromium is automatically updated during Synthetic engine updates.

Prerequisites:

• Ensure that Enable Chromium auto-update is turned off for your private location in Settings > Web and Mobile monitoring > Private Synthetic locations. If you disable autoupdate for a location, you must manually update Chromium on every ActiveGate assigned to that location.
• Ensure that you can connect to https://synthetic-packages.s3.amazonaws.com to access Chromium and dependencies.

Chromium autoupdate from a custom repository

If you'e enabled a custom, local repository for Chromium installation, Chromium can only be autoupdated. Follow this procedure to autoupdate Chromium via the same custom repository.

1. After ActiveGate installation, specify the custom repository of the ActiveGate in the [synthetic] section of the custom.properties file in the /var/lib/dynatrace/gateway/config directory. This allows for automatic Chromium updates from the custom repository during manual or automatic Synthetic engine updates.

   shellcopydownload
   [synthetic]
   chromium_repo = https://172.18.0.100/chromium-repo

2. Enable Chromium update for your private location in global settings—go to Settings > Web and mobile monitoring > Private Synthetic locations. Then select your location to enable autoupdate.

   Note that the Chromium autoupdate UI setting applies to all ActiveGates assigned to your private location.

3. Ensure that the Chromium components required for update are available at the custom repository location. Chromium is then automatically updated from the custom repository during ActiveGate and Synthetic engine updates.