Overview

Network Path Testing in Synthetic Monitoring gives you complete visibility into the routes your synthetic tests follow. You can pinpoint where failures happen, whether in applications, on-premises networks, or with ISPs. This accelerates root cause analysis, enables proactive issue detection, and triggers actionable alerts when tests fail. It also provides uptime data to help you measure and communicate the value of your network reliability investments.

Running Network Path tests from managed locations lets you perform TCP, UDP, and ICMP checks on your application. Visualize the Network Path packets follow when executing queries from different global locations.

Test creation

1. In Datadog, hover over Digital Experience in the left-hand menu and select Tests (under Synthetic Monitoring & Testing).
2. Click New Test > Network Path Test.

Test configuration

1. Choose your request type (TCP, UDP, or ICMP) and specify the host or URL to query. Port information is optional.
2. Name your test.
3. Optional: Configure advanced options:
   1. Source service: The label displayed for the source host in the Network Path visualization.
   2. Destination service: The label displayed for the destination host in the Network Path visualization.
   3. Max TTL: Maximum time-to-live (maximum number of hops) for outgoing probe packets. Defaults to 30 hops.
   4. E2E Queries: Number of packets sent to the destination to measure packet loss, latency, and jitter. Defaults to 50.
   5. Traceroute Queries: Number of traceroute path tracings to perform. Results are aggregated in each test run details panel. Defaults to 3.
   6. TCP traceroute strategy (TCP tests only): Choose between Selective Acknowledgement (SACK) and Synchronize (SYN) traceroute strategies. SACK and Force SACK more closely mimic modern application traffic.
4. Optional: Add Tags to your test, including environment tags. Use tags to filter your Synthetic tests on the Synthetic Monitoring & Continuous Testing page.

5. Define assertions to determine the expected results for your test. At least one assertion is required.

   Type	Operator 1	Operator 2	Value type
   latency	avg, max, min	is, <, <=, >, >=	int
   packet loss		is, <, <=, >, >=	int (0 to 100)
   jitter		is, <, <=, >, >=	float
   network hops	avg, max, min	is, <, <=, >, >=	int

6. Select the locations from which to run your test. Network Path tests can run from managed locations to test your endpoints from global locations.

   Datadog’s out-of-the-box managed locations allow you to test public-facing websites and endpoints from regions where your customers are located.

   AWS:

   Americas	Asia Pacific	EMEA
   Canada Central	Hong Kong	Bahrain
   Northern California	Jakarta	Cape Town
   Northern Virginia	Mumbai	Frankfurt
   Ohio	Osaka	Ireland
   Oregon	Seoul	London
   São Paulo	Singapore	Milan
   	Sydney	Paris
   	Tokyo	Stockholm

   GCP:

   Americas	Asia Pacific	EMEA
   Dallas	Tokyo	Frankfurt
   Los Angeles
   Oregon
   Virginia

   Azure:

   Region	Location
   Americas	Virginia

   The Datadog for Government site (US1-FED) uses the following managed location:

   Region	Location
   Americas	US-West

7. Set the test frequency to determine how often Datadog runs your Network Path test. Scheduled tests ensure your most important endpoints remain accessible to your users.

8. Define alert conditions and configure the test monitor for your Network Path test.

Define alert conditions

Set alert conditions to determine the circumstances under which you want a test to fail and trigger an alert.

Alerting rule

When you set the alert conditions to: An alert is triggered if any assertion fails for X minutes from any n of N locations, an alert is triggered only if these two conditions are true:

• At least one location was in failure (at least one assertion failed) during the last X minutes;
• At one moment during the last X minutes, at least n locations were in failure.

Configure the test monitor

A notification is sent by your test based on the alerting conditions previously defined. Use this section to define how and what to message your team.

1. Similar to how you configure monitors, select users and/or services that should receive notifications either by adding an @notification to the message or by searching for team members and connected integrations with the dropdown menu.

2. Enter the notification message for your test or use pre-filled monitor messages. This field allows standard Markdown formatting and supports the following conditional variables:

Notification messages include the message defined in this section and information about the failing locations. Pre-filled monitor messages are included in the message body section:

3. Specify how often you want your test to re-send the notification message in case of test failure. To prevent renotification on failing tests, check the option Stop re-notifying on X occurrences.

4. Click Save Test to save your Network Path test configuration and monitor.

For more information, see Synthetic Monitoring notifications.

View test results

Click on a Network Path test on the Synthetic Tests page to view the Test Details page, which displays comprehensive information about your test:

• Test properties and configuration
• Test history
• Individual test runs
• Aggregated Network Path visualizations across all test runs

The Network Path visualization shows the routes packets take to complete queries during each test run. Drag the health bar handles to adjust the time frame and view a snapshot of end-to-end latency and packet loss for a specific time interval. For more information about how Network Path visualizations are built, see the Network Path documentation.

To view details for a specific test run, click on a test run in the table at the bottom of the page. A side panel opens displaying run information, Network Path visualization, and assertion results.

Retention

Further Reading

Documentation, liens et articles supplémentaires utiles:

Learn more about Network PathDOC Identify slowdowns across your entire network with Datadog Network PathBLOG