Digital Experience Monitoring 101 – Know Your Node

One of the areas highlighted in end-user reviews from Catchpoint’s Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice Distinction was the depth and breadth of visibility our global node network provides.

“Any time we have had a question about an element of our environment we have been able to create a Catchpoint test to measure it. The data collected by Catchpoint tests is in-depth and very useful for understanding product behavior and performance.”

Network Engineer, Infrastructure & Operations

“Unparalleled node coverage. Most synthetic monitoring tools have very low APAC node coverage, but not Catchpoint. It has extensive coverage in India, China, and almost every South East Asian country. Provides a wide variety of test types. From simple up-down availability test, to full blown user-journey tracking capabilities. Different network level test types (Traceroute, ping) provide complete digital monitoring.”

Solutions Engineer Team Lead, Sales and Marketing

For today’s tech tip, I’ll be sharing a clear and precise description of what the different node types are within the context of the different types of data they provide. If that’s all you need, this blog should provide you with those nuts and bolts.

If you want to know more about how to use them, check out this week’s video, where I’ll also share some best practices and provide a set of example scenarios for each node type.

An Overview of Catchpoint’s Backbone, Last Mile, Enterprise, Wireless, and Cloud Node Types

We pride ourselves on offering backbone, enterprise, last mile, wireless and cloud points of presence on Catchpoint’s global monitoring network, allowing you to detect performance issues from anywhere in real-time.

Our synthetic tests are powered by our external nodes, but it’s crucial to know which one corresponds to your unique situation. Each variant is slightly different in terms of its configuration, offering a different piece of the puzzle, helping us figure out what went wrong and why.

Let’s take a look at a top-level overview of the properties of each node type.

In addition, you can install Catchpoint’s Endpoint client on an employee laptop and turn it into another monitoring point.

The ideal Digital Experience Monitoring solution is one that offers multiple node types to tailor towards your specific use case, and which can be used holistically. It can be helpful, for instance, to correlate data from last mile nodes with more consistent backbone and broadband provider locations.

In this week’s video, I’ll show you how each of our node types works within the software itself and how to plan out an instant synthetic test for your application. I will also share:

• A quick, clear rundown of our backbone, enterprise, last mile, wireless and cloud nodes;
• When to use each node type and why;
• Real-world use cases that are best suited to each node type.

Let’s jump in!