API Monitoring Basics

Are you interested in learning about API monitoring? Then you’ve come to the right article. Below, we explain what APIs are and why they’re valuable, explore the basics of API monitoring, and wrap up with practical advice on how to get comprehensive API monitoring in your organization.

What are APIs?

Application programming interfaces, better known as APIs, enable different internal and external applications to communicate and share information. To non-technical readers this may sound simple, but in reality, it’s transformative. APIs underpin nearly every modern digital experience, and the vast majority of software developers rely on them.

Industry forecasts also highlight their importance. For example, Fortune Business Insights projects the global API management market to grow from USD 5.42 billion in 2024 to USD 37.17 billion by 2032.

The opportunities APIs provide are substantial: they enable service integration, accelerate development, drive innovation, support customization, reduce costs, and improve user experiences.

However, when APIs underperform or break, the impact can be serious – from disrupted operations and customer churn to increased security risks. That’s why organizations need effective API monitoring.

What is API Monitoring?

API monitoring refers to the continuous testing and validation of APIs to ensure they are functioning as expected. This typically covers five key areas:

• Availability: Verifying that APIs are reachable and responding to requests.
• Performance: Measuring response times across environments to ensure they meet expectations.
• Data validation: Confirming that APIs return the right data in the expected format.
• Third-party integrations: Checking that externally managed APIs used by the organization (e.g., chat apps, document repositories) continue to function properly, especially after updates or changes.
• Security: Detecting anomalies, misuse, or improper access patterns that could indicate compliance or security issues.

AlertBot: Advanced API Monitoring Made Easy

AlertBot delivers advanced and comprehensive API monitoring through an easy-to-manage solution. It provides detailed performance reports that enable developers and IT teams to quickly detect, diagnose, and resolve issues, including potential problems that could disrupt operations in the future.

Some of the world’s largest and most successful organizations rely on AlertBot to ensure API functionality, performance, and reliability.

Click here to start your free trial. No credit card is required, nothing needs to be installed, and you’ll be set up within minutes.

The year was 1995. Michael Jordan returned to the NBA. Amazon sold its first book. Windows 95 unleashed the era of taskbars, long filenames, and the recycle bin. And when people weren’t dancing the Macarena, they were flocking to see Apollo 13 and hear Tom Hanks utter the phrase that would launch millions of (mostly annoying) impersonations: “Houston, we have a problem.”

Thankfully, the eggheads in space and the eggheads on the ground worked tirelessly (and apparently smoked a whole lot of cigarettes) to get the crew home. But it was the pivotal moment when the failure was first reported that triggered the spectacular problem-solving process. If it happened an hour — or maybe even a few minutes — later, then the outcome could have been tragic instead of triumphant.

Admittedly, the brave, intrepid professionals in charge of keeping their organization’s website online and functional DON’T have to deal with life-and-death scenarios. But they DO need to deal with problems that, if left unsolved, will significantly damage competitive advantage, brand reputation and sales (immediately if we’re talking e-commerce, and eventually if we aren’t). And that’s where AlertBot’s failure alerting feature enters the picture.

What is Failure Alerting?

Failure alerting is when designated individuals — such as a SysAdmin, CTO, CIO, CEO, and so on — are proactively notified when something goes wrong with a website, such as downtime, errors, slowness, or unresponsive behavior.

As a result, just like in Apollo 13, the right people can take swift, intelligent action to fix things before visitors/customers sound the alarm bell, or worse, head out the (virtual) door and go straight to a competitor without looking back.

Notification Methods

AlertBot customers can choose any or all of the following methods to notify team members of a website failure event:

• Email
• Text Message
• Phone Call

For example, a SysAdmin could receive an email, a text message, and a phone call the moment something goes wrong.

Automatic Escalation

Now, if we were in NASA Mission Control circa 1970, someone wearing really thick horned-rimmed glasses would rise above the cigarette smoke and ask: What happens if the SysAdmin doesn’t receive the email, text message, and phone call? It’s a good question, and there is an even better answer: don’t worry about it.

AlertBot’s failure reporting feature can be configured to escalate the website failure warning if certain individuals don’t respond within a specific timeframe. For example, if a SysAdmin is indisposed for any reason (driving, sleeping, etc.), then after two minutes the alert can be pushed to another designated team member such as the CTO. And if the CTO doesn’t respond within two minutes, then the alert can be pushed to the CIO, and so on.

Ideally, the individual (or multiple individuals) who are sent the first alert receive it immediately, and take rapid action. But if they don’t or can’t, then the alert is escalated accordingly. It is important to note that all of this happens automatically, so there is no possibility of human error.

Granted, none of this is as entertaining as watching Apollo 13. There’s no rousing soundtrack or Tom Hanks. Heck, there’s not even Kevin Bacon.

But when it comes to fixing website problems as quickly as possible, organizations know that the less drama, the better. That’s precisely what AlertBot’s multi-channel, auto-escalating failure reporting feature delivers. We don’t need an Oscar. We just need extremely satisfied customers — and we have a lot of those.

Next Up: Reviewing Failure Events Online

 In our next blog, we’ll explore reviewing failure events online to pinpoint issues and detect problems. Stay tuned!

Launch a free trial of AlertBot’s acclaimed site uptime monitoring solution. No credit card. Nothing to download. Get started in minutes. And if you decide to purchase our solution, there are NO setup fees!

Multi-Step Monitoring: Why it’s Essential and How it Works

 The term “essential” is thrown around pretty loosely these days. That new show about the hospital (no, not that one… not that one either… yeah that one) is advertised as essential viewing. A newly-released track by a hip hop artist that describes how little they need to release new tracks in order to live much, much better than the rest of us? That’s essential listening. And how can we forget that new muffin that cannot legally be advertised as a muffin, because is technically more of a candy. That’s essential snacking (“mmmmmm….pseudo muffin”).

But then on the other end of the hype spectrum, there are things that are legitimately essential, because going without them could lead to dire consequences — or maybe even a catastrophe. And for e-commerce companies, one tool that truly qualifies as essential is multi-step monitoring.

What is Multi-Step Monitoring?

In a break with tradition in the complex world of technology, multi-step monitoring is pretty much what it sounds like: a way to track the various steps that customers take as they move through pages on a website. This way, businesses can proactively identify and fix problems such as buttons that don’t work, forms that won’t submit, links that don’t go anywhere, pages that take too long to load, and so on.

Why is Multi-Step Monitoring Essential?

 Most customers who run into problems don’t shrug them off. They get mad. And that compels them to hit the brakes and head for the exit. In fact, a whopping 88% of online consumers are less likely to return to a site after just one bad experience. So, yeah, preventing about 9 in 10 customers from disappearing is important. One might even say that it’s… wait for it… ESSENTIAL!

How Multi-Step Monitoring Works

In AlertBot, configuring multi-step monitoring is remarkably easy, and doesn’t require an advanced degree in Hypercomplex Supergeerkery, with additional specialized certifications in Megaultra Nerdology. Here is how it works (a video tutorial is also available):

• Step 1: Login to AlertBot
• Step 2: Go to “Monitors”
• Step 3: Set up a new monitor.
• Step 4: Select the TrueBrowser® Multi-Step Monitor option.
• Step 5: Download the AlertBot Recorder (available for PC currently — this step only has to be completed once).
• Step 6: Give the monitor a name (e.g. “Amazon 1 Multi-Step Monitor”).
• Step 7: Launch the AlertBot Recorder, input the URL of the site (e.g. Amazon.com), and record a script simply by simulating actions that a customer would take. It is also a good idea to label steps/phases (e.g. “Homepage”, “Add to Cart,” etc.), which can be helpful when analyzing reports later on.
• Step 8: Save the script with a unique name (e.g. “Amazon test”).
• Step 9: Upload the script into TrueBrowser® Multi-Step Monitor (which was launched in Step 4).
• Step 10: Hit the “Test” button.

And that’s all there is to it. When the test is complete (this can take up to two minutes), a report is automatically generated that shows:

• The duration of each phase/step in the process.
• Whether each process was successful or unsuccessful.
• A waterfall chart capturing a breakdown of everything that loads on each individual page (e.g. request times, file transfers, etc.).
• Raw browser request data that reveals anything that is not working, or that could be contributing to a degraded user experience (e.g. loading large files or images that cause slowdowns).

Tests can be run at anytime to verify that problems are fixed and improvements are made. It’s remarkably easy. And yes, it’s essential.

Learn More

Discover the benefits of multi-step monitoring. Start a FREE TRIAL of AlertBot now. There’s no billing information required, no installation, and you’ll be setup within minutes. 

3 Reasons Why It’s a Bad Idea to Buy Site Monitoring from Your Web Host

by Louis Kingston

For baseball pitchers, the two most glorious words in the English language are “perfect game.” For actors, it’s “Oscar win” (forget all that nonsense about how “it’s an honor just to be nominated.”). For school-aged kids, it’s “snow day.” And for businesses, of course, it’s “captive audience.”

Indeed, it doesn’t matter how compelling or clever a marketing and advertising campaign might be. If audiences don’t take notice and pay attention, it may as well not exist. And if you doubt this, think of the last time you sat through 20 minutes of movie trailers — not because you wanted to, but because there was nowhere else to go (at least, not without saying “excuse me…” 10 times as you painfully twisted and squirmed your way past annoyed fellow moviegoers).

Why does this matter? It’s because your web host is singing from the captive audience songbook when it repeatedly urges you to add site monitoring to your existing hosting package. At first glance, this may seem like a good idea. After all, you know that site monitoring is important. Why not just grab it from your web host, the same way you grab a side order of fries from a fast food restaurant? Well here’s why not:

1. Lack of Specialization

Your web host doesn’t specialize in site monitoring, which means they aren’t using the latest technology or hiring the most qualified professionals. Just as you wouldn’t want your doctor to sell you a timeshare during an exam (“You know what might help that bronchitis? Two weeks a year in a sunny and warm Florida condo, as you can see from this lovely brochure”), you don’t want your site monitoring company to do anything but site monitoring. It’s not something anyone should be dabbling in.

2. Lack of Service Offering

When web hosts offer site monitoring, they typically focus on uptime. But site monitoring isn’t just about letting you know when your site goes dark. It’s also about making sure that your site is performing the way it’s supposed to — which means that all elements are functional (e.g. buttons, forms, multi-step processes, etc.), and all pages are loading rapidly. Without this critical information, you may believe that everything with your site is fine and all lights are green; that is, until you begin hearing from irate customers and start losing sales.

3. Potential Conflict of Interest

Last but not least, your site host is supposed to meet an uptime standard as part of their service commitment. But if that same host is also monitoring your site performance, they may be less inclined to be completely transparent if they fall below this standard. And if they did fudge some of the numbers, how would you even know? With this in mind, are we saying that all hosts that offer site monitoring are unethical? Absolutely not. Are we saying that there is an inherent conflict of interest that should be at least concerning and troubling? You bet.

The Simple, Smart Solution

The best (and really, the only) way to solve this problem is to avoid it completely — which means not site monitoring from your host, and instead getting it from a proven, reputable vendor that:

• Specializes in site monitoring — it’s all they do 24/7/365.
• Offers both uptime monitoring and comprehensive performance monitoring — not just the former.
• Has zero conflict of interest telling you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth regarding how your site is doing.

Ready to safeguard and strengthen your business with world-class, surprisingly affordable site monitoring? Then you’re ready for AlertBot! We check all of these boxes, and are trusted by some of the world’s biggest companies. Start your free trial now.

Louis is a writer, author, and avid film fan. He has been writing professionally for tech blogs and local organizations for over a decade. Louis currently resides in Allentown, PA, with his wife and German Shepherd Einstein, where he writes articles for InfoGenius, Inc, and overthinks the mythos of his favorite fandoms.