HTTP Server Tests
As the name suggests, an HTTP Server test measures the availability and performance of an HTTP service. Any HTTP service that is exposed to the internet (or intranet, if Enterprise Agents are deployed in your internal network) can be tested. HTTP Server Tests measure the availability, response time, and throughput of a web server.
The HTTP Server test is performed as a series of steps (or phases):
DNS: The domain part of the test target URL is resolved to an IP address.
Connect: A TCP 3-way handshake is performed.
SSL (optional): Security mechanisms are negotiated.
Send: An HTTP request is sent.
Receive: An HTTP response is waited for and received.
HTTP: The HTTP response code is validated.
Content verification (optional): Verification of the received content is performed by matching it against a regular expression.
Many aspects of HTTP Server testing can be configured to suit your individual or corporate testing requirements - various authentication protocols are supported, custom headers can be added, SSL options tweaked and so on.
When HTTP Server test detects an issue, the results pinpoint the phase of a request in which the issue occurred, helping to decrease your mean time to repair. To assist the analysis, information from lower layers is included in this test type, namely agent-to-server network and a BGP routing layers are readily available when looking for the root cause.
Typical Use Cases
Alert on the HTTP service availability or performance issues
Effectively detect issues with HTTP services served from multiple data-centers concurrently
Measuring CDN delivery speed, comparison to origin-only serving
Example HTTP Server Test Results
Here is an HTTP Server view for a test measuring the availability of the https://thousandeyes.okta.com/ service:
Other Included Tests
Agent-to-server test
BGP routing test
Manually Configuring HTTP Server Tests
To manually configure HTTP Server tests, see Web Layer Tests: Manually Configuring Web Layer Tests.
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