Automatically monitor your websockets

The WebSocket API allows opening a two-way interactive communication session between the user's browser and a server. This session allows sending and receiving data without polling for a server response. With New Relic browser monitoring, you can monitor and track the traffic and health of your websocket sessions.

Websockets data from the API are recorded as WebSocket events by the browser agent. These events include metrics about the connection, messages received, data sent, and how the connection was closed during the lifecycle of the websocket.

Why use websockets monitoring?

Automatic tracking of websockets with New Relic provides the tools and insights into making sure your websockets work as expected. With WebSocket events, you can:

• Monitor bytes sent and received of your network connections
• Examine whether websockets close successfully or not and the reason as to why
• Troubleshoot JavaScript errors that occur during the lifecycle of your websockets
• Build custom dashboards and alerts based on websockets

Prerequisites

• A Pro or Pro + SPA browser agent, version 1.318.0 or higher.

Enable automatic collection

Enhance your application's observability and debugging capabilities by following these simple setup instructions.

Disable websockets collection

To disable websockets for an existing browser app:

Data consumption

WebSocket events follow the same consumption pricing as your other browser bytes. The amount of bytes produced depends on the count and attributes of the data.

Once enabled, the agent will automatically capture websockets as they occur in your application.

Find your data in New Relic

Websockets are stored as WebSocket events in New Relic. See the data dictionary for more information on the fields available for use with WebSocket events. For a quick and useful dashboard, see this quickstart. You can query and visualize this data to gain insights into your application's performance:

Measure total amount of websocket instances over time

FROM WebSocket
SELECT count(*)
TIMESERIES

View reasons why websockets close unexpectedly

FROM WebSocket
SELECT count(*)
FACET closeReason

Track websockets with errors

FROM WebSocket
SELECT count(*) AS 'Errors'
WHERE hasErrors IS true
TIMESERIES

View average bytes sent and received

FROM WebSocket
SELECT average(sendBytes), average(messageBytes)
WHERE messageCount IS NOT null
TIMESERIES

Monitor websocket average duration

FROM WebSocket
SELECT average(connectedDuration)
FACET cases(
  WHERE closeWasClean IS true AS 'Connected - Clean',
  WHERE closeWasClean IS NOT true AS 'Connected - Dirty'
)
TIMESERIES

Use these queries or create your own to build custom dashboards, set up alerts, and monitor the real-world performance of your web applications with precision.