SiteSpect Cloud allows you to view traffic data collected from your benchmarked access logs. Benchmarked logs contain more information than traditional access logs such as origin time, analysis time, and assignments. Information about each data point is described later in this document. Most Domains benchmark five percent of their testable requests, but the visualized data presented by SiteSpect is only data from the most recent fourteen days. This feature is enabled on a per user basis.
The following table describes its different components.
| Type | Controls which dashboard to display. The default dashboard is Points of Presence (POP) Breakdown. An explanation of each drop-down is given in the next section. |
|---|---|
| Start Time | The begin date and time for the data displayed on the page. |
| End Time | The end date and time for the data displayed on the page. |
| Domain ID | Lets you limit the data used in the dashboard to a selected Domain. If you select ALL (the default), data is presented for all Domains. |
| Search | Lets you limit the data used in the dashboard to the results of a search. If you leave it blank or use a star ('*'), all data is returned. The search uses Lucene query syntax. More information about syntax is in the resources section. |
| Run | Loads a new dashboard based on the settings that you have chosen. |
Type
There are several different types of dashboards that present data in a variety of ways.
Points of Presence (POP) Breakdown – Shows a breakdown of traffic across SiteSpect's points of presence. This is useful for understanding where your traffic is flowing at any given time.
- The donut chart on the top left shows the total points of presence breakdown over the given time period.
- The histogram on the top right shows points of presence breakdown over time.
- The bottom contains a sample of the logs used to make the visualization.
Origin Time Histogram – Shows a histogram of time spent getting content from the origin. Requests that had an origin time that is over two seconds are ignored.
- The top contains metrics for the entire time period (average, 50th percentile, and 95th percentile),
- The middle contains the histogram over origin time.
- The bottom contains a sample of the logs used to make the visualization.
Origin Time Trends – Charts origin time over time.
- The top contains metrics for the entire time period (average, 50th percentile, and 95th percentile).
- The middle contains the histogram over time.
- The bottom contains a sample of the logs used to make the visualization.
Analysis Time Histogram – Shows a histogram of time SiteSpect spent making changes or capturing metrics. Requests that had an analysis time that is over 0.5 seconds are ignored. We plan to fix this.
- The top contains metrics for the entire time period (average, 50th percentile, and 95th percentile).
- The middle contains the histogram over analysis time.
- The bottom contains a sample of the logs used to make the visualization.
Analysis Time Trends – Charts analysis time over time.
- The top contains metrics for the entire time period (average, 50th percentile, and 95th percentile).
- The middle contains the histogram over time.
- The bottom contains a sample of the logs used to make the visualization.
Proxy Errors – Charts proxy errors (50x) over time.
- The top contains proxy errors for the entire time period.
- The bottom lists 500 matching errors.
Average Origin Time by POP – Charts average time to get content from the origin across each SiteSpect POP.
- SiteSpect POP is the SiteSpect Point of Presence.
- Average Origin Time is the average time it took SiteSpect to get content from the origin.
- # of Data Points is the number of data points used to calculate the average.
Real User Monitoring (RUM) – Leverages the PerformanceTiming API to capture and record timing information for various events that occur during the loading and use of the current page.
- The top allows you to establish settings for the data displayed.
- A filter dialog allows you to select different fields to focus on.
- Several graphs reflect your selections.
- Logs display data for RUM fields.
Access Logs
Below is a list of the fields that appear in an access log entry. Understanding these fields helps you troubleshoot.
| analysis_rate | The rate at which SiteSpect spent analyzing the response (running Variations, capturing Metrics, and so on). The units are KB/ms/number of Campaigns. |
|---|---|
| analysis_time | Time in seconds that SiteSpect spent analyzing the response (running Variations, capturing Metrics, and so on). |
| ancillary_value | Undefined values are '-'; otherwise it's the value of the ancillary cookie. |
| ard_injected | A value of 1 means that the automatic robot detection test was injected into this request. |
| assignments | This contains a comma delimited list of the Campaigns this visitor is assigned to. Each value in the list has 3 parts separated by colons. The parts are testcampaign_id, variationgroup_id and counted (0 means not counted in the Campaign, 1 means counted). An example of this field is: "15390:527797:0,15391:527799:0,15411:528343: 0,16041:549736:0,16195:555706:0,16524:563602: 0,16525:563604:0,18634:619924:0,19978:662290: 1,19979:662293:0,19980:662297:0,20101:667274: 1,20102:667281:0,20103:667285:0" |
| backend_ip | The IP address and port that SiteSpect proxies to. |
| benchmark_weight | This projects the number of requests benchmarking out of 100 based on the benchmark rate specified when you set up the Domain in SiteSpect. If a benchmark rate is 5%, then benchmark_weight is 20. A value of 0 indicates a health check request that wasn't picked for benchmarking. A value of '-' indicates a request that wasn't picked for benchmarking. You can use this field to compare two Domains that don't have the same benchmark rate. |
| bytes | Bytes of the request. It's the '%B' directive from mod_log_config. |
| cluster_id | The ID of the cluster. For SiteSpect Cloud, this is set to 1. |
| connection status when response is completed | X – The connection was aborted before the response completed. + – The connection may be kept alive after the response is sent. - – The connection will be closed after the response is sent. |
| conversion | A value of 1 if the URL matches the Conversion URL set in the SiteSpect interface and a value of 0 if it does not match. If Conversion URL is not set, then the value is '-'. |
| error_string | For requests that were proxy errors, this field includes the error message. |
| enable_strict_transport_security | Determines whether the HTTP Strict Transport Security Header (HSTS) should be enabled. Used only on systems with a valid SSL certificate signed by a trusted CA. A bad configuration can potentially lock you out from being able to access the SiteSpect Interface until it expires (see strict_transport_security_max_age). |
| fe_keepalive_reqs | The number of keepalive requests handled on this connection after the initial request. |
| host | The hostname that generated this log entry. |
| http_referer | The referring URL for this request. |
| ip | The client's IP. It's the '%h' directive from mod_log_config. |
| log_entry_type | A string that has the following values:
|
| method | The HTTP method for this request. |
| new_backend_conn | Set to 1 if SiteSpect made a new backend connection for this request. |
| node_id | The node_id for the engine that served this request. |
| num_campaigns | The number of Campaigns this request is assigned to. This is useful when trying to gauge the effect of overlay performance. |
| num_rps | The number of Metrics that triggered on this request. |
| num_sitevariationhits | The number of Variations and QuickChanges that were applied on this request. |
| num_variationhits | The number of Variations that were applied on this request. |
| pid | The process ID for this request. |
| processing_time | The total amount of time that Apache spent on this request. It's the '%D' directive from mod_log_config. |
| proxied_request | Set to 1 if this request was proxied to the origin and 0 if this request was served by SiteSpect. This is useful for troubleshooting proxy errors generated by SiteSpect. |
| proxy_time | The time in seconds between when a request is sent from a SiteSpect engine and the response is received from your origin (web server). This is also called origin time. |
| release_order | The order in which releases and other changes are rolled out relative to other Domains. |
| strict_transport_security_max_age | Max age (in seconds) inserted into the HSTS header (see enable_strict_transport_security). We recommend that when you first deploy this, keep a low setting in case there's a problem; a bad configuration has the potential to lock you out of the system until it expires. Once it's verified to work correctly, increase to a large value such as 31536000 (one year). |
| servergroup_id | The ID of the server group that served this request. This is used to look at data center breakdowns for traffic. |
| servergroup_name | The name of the server group that served this request. This field looks at data center breakdowns for traffic. |
| shedded | A value of 1 means this request results in SiteSpect marking this user for shedding. |
| si_average | The average amount of time that the active connections have been running for this Domain on this engine. |
| si_counter | The current number of active connections for this Domain on this engine. This metric is used by the slow origin detection to make decisions. |
| site_id | The Site ID that served this request. |
| siteidentity_id | The Domain ID that served this request. |
| status_code | The HTTP status code for this request. It's the '%>s' directive from mod_log_config. |
| testable | This field has three values: 0 (untestable), 1 (can capture Metrics but can't make changes), 2 (can capture Metrics and can make changes). |
| URL | The URL that was requested. |
| user_agent | The user agent in this request. |
| user_guid | The SiteSpect GUID for the user in this request. |
| visit_count | The SiteSpect visit count for the user in this request. |
| visit_start | A value of 1 means that this request resulted in a new SiteSpect visit. |
Resources
- Check out the Lucene query syntax to learn how to use the Search field.
- Visit mod_log_config to find the documentation for Apache logging. It is useful for understanding some of the access log fields.