User Experience & Digital Experience Monitoring (UX/DEM)

“Proactively measure digital experience with active, global synthetic testing.”

What is Kentik Synthetic Monitoring?

Kentik Synthetic Monitoring is a cloud-based solution for proactive, active monitoring of user experience and application performance.

It complements Kentik’s flow and telemetry analytics by running synthetic tests (HTTP, DNS, VoIP, SaaS, API, routing) from a global network of vantage points as well as from private agents deployed in enterprise and service provider environments.

By continuously simulating real user interactions, it enables IT, NetOps, and DevOps teams to detect degradations before users are impacted, validate SLA compliance, and accelerate troubleshooting.

Key Features

• Global & Private Test Agents
  • Hundreds of public agents worldwide + deployable private agents in branch offices, datacenters, and cloud VPCs.
  • Full coverage of hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
• Application & Protocol Testing
  • Tests for HTTP/S, DNS, VoIP, video, API endpoints, routing paths, and SaaS performance.
  • Supports continuous monitoring and ad hoc troubleshooting.
• Network Path Visibility
  • Integrated traceroute and BGP visibility to correlate application issues with routing problems.
  • Detects peering or transit anomalies impacting user experience.
• Alerting & Dashboards
  • Real-time alerts when thresholds for latency, loss, or availability are exceeded.
  • Customizable dashboards for user experience KPIs.
• Integration with Kentik Observability
  • Correlates synthetic results with real flow telemetry, device health, and routing data.
  • Provides unified visibility for both proactive and reactive troubleshooting.

Benefits for the Client

• Catch issues before users do: proactive testing detects degradations early.
• Faster troubleshooting: pinpoint whether the problem lies in the app, network, or internet.
• SaaS & Cloud assurance: validate the performance of critical services like M365, Salesforce, AWS.
• Global + local visibility: combine public test nodes with enterprise private agents.
• Continuous improvement: validate SLA compliance and benchmark providers.

Why Kentik Synthetic Monitoring is Different ?

• Integrated with observability: not a standalone tool, but part of Kentik’s flow/device/security ecosystem.
• Multi-domain coverage: app, DNS, routing, SaaS, and network path in one platform.
• Hybrid-ready: test from both the internet and enterprise vantage points.
• Business-aware: aligns monitoring results with user experience and cost impact.
• Highly scalable SaaS delivery: deploy in minutes, scale globally.

Typical Use Cases

• Proactively monitor SaaS application performance for remote users.
• Detect and troubleshoot DNS or BGP issues before they impact customers.
• Validate VoIP and video call quality across sites and providers.
• Benchmark cloud and transit providers for SLA compliance.
• Combine synthetic + flow analytics for holistic observability.

Services & Support (What We Offer)

• Synthetic Monitoring Assessment – identify gaps in current UX monitoring.
• Deployment Services – rollout public + private Kentik agents.
• Dashboard Workshops – tailor UX dashboards for IT and business teams.
• Managed Synthetic Monitoring – proactive monitoring as-a-service.

“Measure, monitor, and assure digital experience across web, mobile, and APIs.”

What it covers ?

Real User Monitoring (RUM)

• Web RUM: capture Core Web Vitals, page load times, navigation errors, and JavaScript exceptions.
• Mobile RUM: monitor app start times, crashes, ANRs, and network calls on iOS & Android.
• Correlation: link frontend sessions to backend traces for end-to-end troubleshooting.

Synthetic Monitoring

• Uptime checks: validate availability of single URLs from global vantage points.
• Multi-step transactions: emulate user journeys such as login, search, or checkout.
• API tests: measure response times, validate SLAs, and detect dependency failures.
• CI/CD integration: run synthetic tests in pipelines to prevent regressions before release.

Benefits

• Detect issues before they impact customers.
• Correlate front-end experience with backend performance.
• Validate and enforce SLAs/SLOs with proactive monitoring.
• Benchmark web and mobile app performance across geographies and competitors.

Why it matters ?

Splunk combines RUM, Synthetics, APM, and Infrastructure Monitoring in one platform, providing both outside-in (user perspective) and inside-out (system perspective) coverage of digital experience.

OpenTelemetry-native

• Based on industry open standards with a supported OTel Collector and SDKs.
• Standardizes collection of metrics, traces, and logs.
• Ensures portability and avoids vendor lock-in.

Data Control & Cost Management

• NoSample™ tracing: capture 100% of traces while retaining critical fidelity.
• Data shaping: aggregate, filter, and downsample telemetry at the collector.
• Routing flexibility: send data to Splunk, S3, Kafka, or third-party tools.
• Cost governance dashboards: monitor ingest volume and retention for cost optimization.

Benefits

• Preserve high-value traces (e.g. checkout, payments, APIs) while optimizing less critical data.
• Scale observability without runaway costs.
• Align data strategy with both engineering requirements and financial constraints.
• Maintain flexibility to adapt as infrastructure evolves.

Why it matters

Splunk empowers enterprises with open instrumentation and cost governance to achieve observability at scale without compromising fidelity or flexibility.

“End-to-end active monitoring for proactive assurance of user experience and application performance.”

What is HawkEye?

The Keysight HawkEye Software Suite is an active monitoring platform that emulates real users and applications to measure end-to-end network and application performance.

Unlike passive monitoring, HawkEye continuously generates synthetic traffic to validate application performance, VoIP quality, SaaS experience, and cloud service delivery. It enables IT and network teams to identify issues before they impact users, reduce Mean Time to Repair (MTTR), and ensure compliance with SLAs.

Key Features

• Active End-to-End Monitoring
  • Simulate real traffic (voice, video, web, SaaS, API) across LAN, WAN, internet, and cloud.
  • Validate application performance from the user’s perspective.
• Multi-Protocol & Multi-Service Coverage
  • VoIP, video conferencing, web, DNS, HTTP(S), SaaS apps (Office 365, Salesforce, etc.).
  • End-to-end performance KPIs: latency, jitter, packet loss, MOS (Mean Opinion Score).
• Flexible Deployment
  • Software agents deployable on-premises, in branch offices, data centers, or cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP).
  • Hardware probes available for high-performance test points.
• Centralized Management & Analytics
  • Unified dashboard to configure, manage, and visualize performance metrics.
  • Role-based access and multi-tenant support for service providers.
• Integration & Automation
  • API-driven integration with ITSM, observability, and automation frameworks.
  • Integration with Keysight Vision NPBs and Ixia test solutions for unified visibility.

Benefits for the Client

• Proactive assurance: detect performance degradation before it impacts real users.
• Reduced MTTR: synthetic tests accelerate root cause identification.
• Improved SLA compliance: continuously validate service delivery and user experience.
• Hybrid ready: monitor across datacenter, WAN, SaaS, and multi-cloud environments.
• Scalable visibility: deploy agents anywhere — branch, remote sites, or global cloud PoPs.

Why HawkEye is Different ?

• Active, not passive: creates its own traffic to proactively measure performance.
• Wide service coverage: from VoIP to SaaS, unlike tools limited to HTTP checks.
• Cloud-native deployment: probes available in public cloud marketplaces.
• Part of Keysight ecosystem: integrates with Vision NPBs, test tools, and visibility stacks.
• Multi-tenant architecture: ideal for service providers offering managed assurance services.

Typical Use Cases

• Proactively validate SaaS performance (e.g., Microsoft 365, Salesforce).
• Monitor VoIP and collaboration services (Zoom, Teams, Webex).
• Ensure WAN/SD-WAN performance across branch offices.
• Validate cloud application delivery in AWS, Azure, GCP.
• Provide SLA assurance for managed service providers.

Services & Support (What We Offer)

• Monitoring Assessment – identify blind spots and define HawkEye deployment strategy.
• Deployment Services – rollout HawkEye agents across hybrid environments.
• Integration Workshops – connect HawkEye with ITSM, SIEM, or observability platforms.
• Training & Enablement – empower IT teams to configure and interpret HawkEye tests.
• Managed Services – provide HawkEye as a managed assurance solution.

“360° Digital Experience Management for employees and customers.”

What is Aternity?

Aternity is Riverbed’s Digital Experience Management (DEM) platform, delivering visibility into how employees and customers experience digital services.
By combining Employee Experience Monitoring (EXM) and Customer Experience Monitoring (CXM), Aternity provides a unified view of application performance, device health, and end-to-end digital journeys — from the employee’s laptop to the customer’s mobile app.

Integrated into the Riverbed IQ AIOps Platform, Aternity enables IT, business, and digital teams to align on a common source of truth for digital experience, ensuring both workforce productivity and customer satisfaction.

Key Features

Employee Experience Monitoring (EXM)

• Monitors devices, applications, and networks from the employee’s perspective.
• Tracks desktop startup time, app responsiveness, Wi-Fi/VPN performance.
• Measures productivity apps (Office 365, Teams, Salesforce) and VDI performance.
• Provides IT with KPIs on digital workplace quality.

Customer Experience Monitoring (CXM)

• Measures user experience on web and mobile apps in real time.
• Monitors page load times, API responsiveness, transaction success rates.
• Detects app crashes, HTTP errors, and backend delays.
• Enables product and digital teams to optimize customer-facing services.

Benefits for the Client

• For Employees –
  o Improve workforce productivity with proactive IT support.
  o Reduce ticket volume and MTTR through real end-user metrics.
  o Optimize digital workplace investments (O365, VDI, SaaS).
• For Customers –
  o Enhance satisfaction and loyalty with superior app performance.
  o Protect revenue by detecting slowdowns before they impact users.
  o Gain insights to drive continuous improvement of digital services.

 Why Riverbed Aternity is Different

• 360° Digital Experience – unifies internal (employees) and external (customers) experience in one platform.
• Full-stack visibility – from endpoint device health to SaaS, mobile, and cloud services.
  
• Business alignment – bridges IT Ops, Digital Workplace, and CX/Marketing teams.
  
• AI-driven insights – anomaly detection and actionable recommendations.
  
• Part of Riverbed IQ – integrated with AppResponse (packets) and NetProfiler (flows) for full observability.

Typical Use Cases

• Employee Experience – validate SaaS rollouts (O365, Salesforce, Teams), monitor remote work, reduce support tickets.
  
• Customer Experience – benchmark mobile app responsiveness, monitor e-commerce site performance, optimize API-driven services.
  
• Unified – correlate employee and customer journeys to ensure seamless digital operations.

Services & Support (What We Offer)

• Digital Experience Assessment – identify gaps in workforce and customer experience.
  
• Deployment Services – implement EXM and CXM across devices, apps, and services.
  
• Integration Workshops – connect Aternity insights with ITSM, observability, and business dashboards.
  
• Optimization Services – tune KPIs, thresholds, and alerts.

“End-to-end Digital Experience Monitoring across any network.”

What is AppNeta?

Broadcom AppNeta is a Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) solution designed to measure and optimize the performance of applications across hybrid, cloud, and Internet-based networks.

It combines synthetic transactions, path analysis, and active monitoring to deliver visibility into how users actually experience applications, regardless of whether the underlying network is controlled by IT.

By complementing DX NetOps, AppNeta closes the visibility gap between infrastructure performance and end-user experience, offering a complete view of digital service delivery.

Key Features

• End-to-End User Experience Monitoring – Simulate and measure application performance from the user’s perspective, across branch offices, remote workers, and SaaS/cloud applications.
• Path Visualization – Provide hop-by-hop insights into performance over the Internet, WAN, SD-WAN, and hybrid cloud, highlighting latency, jitter, or congestion outside IT’s domain.
• Application Performance Monitoring – Track critical KPIs such as response time, throughput, availability, and packet loss for SaaS and on-premises apps.
• Synthetic Monitoring – Run continuous tests to detect degradations proactively before end-users are impacted.
• Distributed Deployment – Lightweight monitoring points (physical, virtual, or cloud-based) scale easily across global enterprises. This ease of deployment ensures broad monitoring coverage that evolves with your changing environment, including out-of-the-box support for SD-WAN and ISP validation use cases.
• Integration with DX NetOps – Enrich infrastructure assurance with real-time UX and path visibility in a unified platform.

Benefits for the Client

• Visibility beyond IT’s control: monitor SaaS, cloud, and Internet paths that traditional tools cannot reach.
• User-centric monitoring: ensure performance is measured exactly as users experience it. Keep user productivity high and reduce friction with business-critical apps through proactive monitoring. Detect network performance issues before they impact users.
• Ensure successful network transformations: Get the visibility you need to successfully deploy internet-first strategies, SaaS adoption and cloud migration as the needs of your business evolve.
• Reduced MTTR: accelerate troubleshooting with precise path and application data.
• Hybrid workforce support: guarantee consistent performance for remote and distributed users.
• Unified observability: integrate with DX NetOps for a holistic network and experience monitoring solution.

Why AppNeta is Different ?

Unlike traditional monitoring tools that focus only on devices and infrastructure, AppNeta delivers:

• Continuous visibility over unmanaged networks (Internet, ISPs, SaaS),
• Experience-driven insights that align IT metrics with business outcomes,
• Proactive detection of issues before they generate tickets,
• A global-scale monitoring fabric for large enterprises with distributed sites.

“Optimize hybrid and on-prem application performance with full-stack observability linked to business performance.”

Splunk AppDynamics is a full-stack observability and application performance management solution that links application performance to business outcomes. It enables organizations to monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize the performance of hybrid (cloud and on-premises) applications, as well as understand how application behavior impacts key business metrics.

It provides real-time visibility into code, infrastructure, user experience, and business transactions to help teams detect, diagnose, and resolve issues before they affect end users.

Key Features

Some of the standout features of Splunk AppDynamics include:

• Business performance analytics: Correlate application, transaction, and end-user data with business metrics (revenue, conversions, etc.).
• Anomaly detection & root cause analysis: Use AI/ML to baseline “normal” behavior, detect deviations, and pinpoint root causes.
• AI / LLM application monitoring: Monitor compliance, cost, and performance of generative AI / LLM workloads.
• Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM): Track how users interact with applications (web, mobile, API), across devices, browsers, and third-party services.
• Network performance correlation: Identify how ISP, APIs, third-party services, and networking affect user experience and app performance.

Benefits for the Client

• Prevent performance degradation and outages — Detect issues early in the stack (code, network, infrastructure) before they impact users.
• Align IT metrics with business outcomes — Understand which performance issues matter most in terms of revenue, conversions, and business KPIs.
• Improve operational efficiency — Reduce mean time to resolution (MTTR) and the toil of firefighting across silos (dev, ops, infra).
• Secure applications in real time — Detect runtime vulnerabilities and attacks, and respond before they impact business.
• Cost control & resource optimization — Detect inefficient patterns, anomalies, or scaling issues to avoid overprovisioning or waste.

Why Splunk AppDynamics is Different ?

• Unified observability + security — Application monitoring and runtime security are integrated, so you can monitor and protect in a unified way.
• Hybrid & on-prem support — Many observability tools are cloud-native only; AppDynamics is designed for hybrid and on-premises use.
• Flexible instrumentation — Supports both agent-based and OpenTelemetry data collection, giving customers flexibility.
• Business transaction focus — Unlike many tools that monitor low-level metrics, AppDynamics emphasizes key business transactions (login, checkout, etc.).

Typical Use Cases

• Consumer web & mobile applications — Ensure fast, reliable experience across devices and networks.
• Financial services / fintech — Monitor critical transactions like payments, trades, or mobile banking flows.
• SaaS / platform providers — Provide SLAs, detect performance regressions, and maintain uptime.
• AI / Gen AI / ML applications — Monitor models, cost, performance, and compliance aspects of AI/LLM apps.

Services & Support (What We Offer)

• Implementation / onboarding services — Expert help to instrument, configure dashboards, and integrate with your stack.
• Consulting & best practices — Assess your architecture, observability gap analysis, and guidance for observability maturity.
• Continuous optimization — Reviews and tuning to ensure the solution scales, remains performant, and stays aligned to business needs.