With the increasing global use of apps and services, ensuring a smooth user experience across different geographic locations is already a top priority for many DevOps teams. However, traditional setups, such as maintaining servers in multiple locations, can be a costly and inflexible approach, especially for smaller DevOps teams or those with tight budgets.

In this article, we’ll explore how DevOps teams of all sizes can leverage global network testing platforms to set up simple and flexible global monitoring that fits well with existing workflows without breaking the bank.

Operating on a Global Scale Requires Flexibility

To monitor apps and services from various locations around the globe, teams need access to a globally distributed infrastructure.
Typically, DevOps teams consider different setups to meet their needs, including:

• On-premises servers: Larger companies with data centers or offices worldwide can use these locations to set up network monitoring and troubleshooting.
• Cloud service providers: Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) solutions allow teams to deploy virtual servers to multiple locations without needing physical access to those sites.
• Third-party services: Feature-rich monitoring tools with servers in multiple regions enable teams to leverage existing infrastructure that they don’t have to maintain themselves.

While these setups offer various benefits to different project and team requirements, they also come with drawbacks that can impact a DevOps team’s efforts:

• Cost: Infrastructure, whether self-managed or acquired via third-party vendors, can be a significant expense – especially when teams need to monitor and test from multiple locations. Moreover, third-party monitoring services may come with unneeded features, resulting in unnecessary costs.
• Flexibility: Most setups don’t allow users to change the location from which to test or monitor as needed, making it impossible to work on a real global scale. Plus, they can often not cover all the areas from which teams want to make measurements.
• Complexity: Adding new hardware, cloud instances and tools to workflows introduces new complexity and challenges, especially for DevOps teams that already struggle to complete tasks efficiently.

To address these issues, teams should consider deploying a global network testing platform that allows them to run network tests globally and overcome the challenges described.

Leveraging Global Network Testing Platforms

Global network testing platforms such as Globalping or RIPE Atlas provide a reliable solution for effortlessly performing network measurements from any location worldwide. Note, however, that these platforms are quite different from extensive continuous monitoring platforms like Kentik. They are much more streamlined and focus on delivering on-demand network testing capabilities through APIs, CLIs and other integrations.

But how do these platforms enable teams to run network tests from anywhere? They do this by leveraging a dense network of thousands of probes hosted by partners and individuals worldwide. These probes serve as the hosts from which network commands, such as ping, traceroute, mtr or dig, are executed. As a result, platform users can test and examine various aspects of their website, CDN or DNS server – even in the far corners of the world.

This image shows an example of the Globalping CLI displaying ping results to DevOps.com from probes in Berlin and South America:

Transform On-Demand Testing Into Monitoring

While on-demand testing and monitoring are not exactly the same, global network testing platforms can still serve most DevOps teams’ monitoring setups.

These platforms usually provide APIs and CLI tools that let users make measurement requests programmatically so they can use these integrations for their own purposes.

Here are two practical and straightforward use cases to turn on-demand testing into monitoring:

• Teams can create customized global monitoring tools using the platform’s API or extend their existing setups. They can make measurement requests from various locations, collect the data and use it to set up alerts and draw graphs.    
• For a simple and lightweight monitoring solution, DevOps engineers can write a Bash script that automatically makes measurement requests and sends emails if results are not as expected.

Choosing the Right Tool

Want to try network testing platforms but don’t know how to choose the right one for your team? Here’s what to consider:

• Integrations: What integrations does the platform offer? APIs and CLI tools are essential, allowing you to create custom implementations and integrate them with existing tools. Also, look for platforms with user-friendly web-based interfaces that enable non-technical users to run tests.
• Collaboration features: Consider platforms that support collaborative network testing, which is especially important for distributed DevOps teams. For example, Globalping offers a Slack app that brings team members together in a virtual space to solve problems faster.
• Network density: Choose a platform with a dense probe network to ensure reliable measurement results 24/7. You may also want to learn more about the probes themselves. For example, you can review the code to see whether it meets your security requirements if the project is open source.
• Rates & limits: Check the pricing structure and limits carefully, as platforms take different approaches (especially if you need to run custom measurements). Globalping, for example, is a free, open source platform with generous limits that you can extend by becoming a GitHub sponsor. On the other hand, Ripe Atlas uses a “credits” system where you can buy credits or earn them by hosting probes.
• Community & Support: Look for a platform with an active community that supports each other in forums and chat groups. Also, explore the platform’s documentation, tutorials and support channels available to help you get started and assist you in resolving issues along the way.

In summary, choosing a global network testing platform enables DevOps teams to monitor and troubleshoot their infrastructure from anywhere in the world flexibly and cost-effectively. By leveraging the capabilities of these platforms, teams can achieve higher service reliability and a better user experience, even in the most remote corners of the world.