Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web. We use it every day when browsing the web. We use it to check the state and availability of a website or public API.
AI / HTTP(S) Monitor Specifications:
| Location | Interval | Available States |
|---|---|---|
| los-angeles-us | 30s | HTTP Status Code |
| london-uk | 30s | HTTP Status Code |
| sydney-au | 30s | HTTP Status Code |
| tokyo-jp | 30s | HTTP Status Code |
Monitoring a website or endpoint with API
To monitor an website or api endpoint with API navigate to the API monitors where you will be able to create API checks.
Adding an API / HTTP(S) Monitor
When you have your IP address you can add the address by clicking the Create API button in the top right of API monitors.
There are a few important fields to be aware of when configuring an API monitor:
- Expected Response Code
- Name
- Type
- URL
- Interval
These are the minimum fields required to test an endpoint. This can be as simple or as complicated as you would like. For example if you want to like to check the status of a simple website I would consider a GET request with an expected response code of 200.
However you could validate your login form is working or a specific authenticated API request is returning the expected status code. There are a lot of possibilities and we've tried to support as many authorisation, body, headers, parameters to be inclusive of all services.
Checking API / HTTP(S) Monitors state
Once you have added some checks you will be able to see the status code and some other very useful metrics:
- DNS Lookup
- TCP Connection
- TLS Handshake
- Server Processing Time
- Content Transfer Time
- Status Code
We only use Status Code as the metric to determine if an endpoint is responding as expected. However these can be useful in understanding the performance of your website from different locations around the world or simply if an endpoint is taking longer than you would except.
Conclusion
Adding API / HTTP(S) monitors is a the most common form of monitoring availability. It's a perfect way to simulate user interaction with your service and manage more complicated checks to ensure specific features or sections of a service is working. This is the most flexible offering we have when it comes to defining custom checks.