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REST API Transaction Monitoring

We're building a new monitor type for Site24x7 - one designed for modern web and mobile applications that rely heavily on REST API calls to the function. We'd like to gather feedback from our users, so please post your suggestions below.

Modern web applications consist of web pages that use a large number REST API calls to retrieve data, perform actions, etc. Site24x7's REST API Transaction Monitor will allow you to perform synthetic monitoring of web application workflows without the overhead of running a real browser.

  • Step-based monitoring
    You can monitor a web application as a sequence of steps. For example, you can first retrieve a web page, then perform REST API calls with values present in the page. To monitor a mobile application, you can first execute a login web view to extract an authentication token, then use the token for REST API calls.

  • Session cookies
    The entire sequence of steps is executed in the same HTTP session, so authentication cookies or other cookie data set by the application will be available in subsequent steps.

  • HTTP methods
    You can use the GET, HEAD, POST, PUT, and DELETE HTTP methods to simulate any kind of HTTP request. POST data can be submitted as a form, XML, JSON, or plain text.

  • Response validation
    You can validate plain text responses with string checks for keywords or regular expressions. XML and JSON responses can be accurately validated using XPath and JSONPath expressions.

  • Variables
    Individual values from responses can be extracted using XPath or JSONPath expressions and saved as custom variables. These variables can then be used to build custom query strings or POST data for subsequent steps.

  • OAuth
    You can authenticate Site24x7 to your application using OAuth, and monitoring can be performed using the token granted to Site24x7.

These features are tentative and may change without notice.

The monitor will support the other features from our existing Website Monitor and REST API Monitor as well, such as custom headers, user agent, timeouts, etc. It can be run from all our global monitoring locations, and will support all of Site24x7's administrative features.

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Dear Customers,

We're happy to announce to you the launch of our REST API Transaction monitor. You can read the feature announcement to know more about the capabilities of this monitor.

Please drop us a line, if you've any feedback on the feature. 

Regards,

Abhiram

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The REST monitor feature is fantastic, but I'm confounded by the XPATH validations.  For example using 

/signal:SignalProcessingNotification/signal:ResponseSignal/signal:AlternateContent/@altContentIdentity='NBCS_CALIFORNIA'

returns 

Boolean='true'

against 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><signal:SignalProcessingNotification xmlns:adi3="urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:core:3.0" xmlns:signaling="urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:signaling:3.0" xmlns:signal="urn:cablelabs:iptvservices:esam:xsd:signal:1" xmlns:manifest="urn:cablelabs:iptvservices:esam:xsd:manifest:1" xmlns:ns5="www.cablelabs.com/namespaces/metadata/xsd/confirmation/2" xmlns:common="urn:cablelabs:iptvservices:esam:xsd:common:1" xmlns:content="urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:content:3.0" xmlns:offer="urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:offer:3.0" xmlns:po="urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:placementopportunity:3.0" xmlns:terms="urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:terms:3.0" xmlns:title="urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:title:3.0"><common:StatusCode classCode="0"/><signal:ResponseSignal action="noop" acquisitionPointIdentity="NBCS_CALIFORNIA"><signal:AlternateContent altContent="false" altContentIdentity="NBCS_CALIFORNIA" zoneIdentity=""/></signal:ResponseSignal></signal:SignalProcessingNotification>

when checked out on www.freeformatter.com/xpath-tester.html which is linked from the XPath validation section in your UI but I get errors like

 XPath expression assertion failed. ["/signal:signalprocessingnotification/signal:responsesignal/signal:alternatecontent/@altcontentidentity='nbcs_california'"] 

and failing monitors when using it in practice which makes the monitor slightly less useful, but at this point just getting a 200 is better than nothing.

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I'm having issues with the xpath expressions as well: 

/ArrayOfNewsItem/count(NewsItem) > 0

 

The above expression works and returns true against my service but the monitor fails with a similar message as above, " XPath expression assertion failed. ["/arrayofeventitem/count(eventitem) > 0"] XPath expression assertion failed. ["/arrayofnewsitem/count(newsitem) > 0"]

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Hi There,

 

Please route this request via our Support Channel. You can reach us at support@site24x7.com

We'll be happy to resolve your issue related to Rest API monitoring.

Have a Good Day!

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