Update: See also this new article including a simple template rule:
A Simple Template Rule SteelCentral Web Analyzer - BrowserMetrix
Riverbed SteelCentral Web Analyzer is a great tool for monitoring end-user experience (EUE) of web applications, even when they are hosted in the cloud. And because it is delivered as true Software-as-a-Service, you can monitor application performance form anywhere, and drill down to analyse individual transactions by URL, location or browser type, and highlight requests which took too long to respond.
In order to track statistics, your web application needs to send statistics on each transaction to Web Analyzer (formerly BrowserMetrix) using a small piece of JavaScript, and it is very easy to inject the extra
JavaScript code without needing to change the application itself.
This Solution Guide (attached) shows you how to use TrafficScript to inject the JavaScript snippet into your web applications, by inspecting all web pages and inserting into the right place in each document:
- No modification needed to your application
- Easy to select which pages you want to instrument
- Use with all applications in your data center, or hosted in the cloud
- Even works with compressed HTML pages (eg, gzip encoded)
- Create dynamic JavaScript code to track session-level information
- Use Riverbed FlyScript to automate the integration between Web Analyzer and Traffic Manager
How does it work?
SteelApp Traffic Manager sits in front of the web applications on the right, and inspects each web page before it is sent to the client. Stingray checks to see if the page has been selected for analysis by Web Analyzer, and then constructs the JavaScript fragment and injects into the web page at the right place in the HTML document.
When the web page arrives at the client browser, the JavaScript snippet is executed. It builds a transaction profile with timing information and submits the information to the Web Analyzer SaaS platform managed by Riverbed. You can then analyze the results, in near-realtime, using the Web Analyzer web portal.
Thanks also to Faisal Memon for his help creating the Solution Guide.
Read more
In addition to the attached deployment guide showing how to create complex rules for JavaScript Injection, you may be also be interested in this new article showing how to use a simple template rule wit Traffic Manager and SteelCentral Web Analyzer:
A Simple Template Rule for SteelCentral Web Analyzer - BrowserMetrix
For similar solutions, check out the Content Modification examples in the Top vADC Examples and Use Cases article.
Updated
15th July 2014 by Paul Wallace. Article formerly titled "Using Stingray with OPNET AppResponse Xpert BrowserMetrix" Thanks also to Mike Iem for his help updating this article.
29th July 2014 by Paul Wallace. Added note about the new article including the simple template rule
