The modern online store must meet a large number of performance requirements.Long page load, non-opening pages and errors in the process of using the site disturb potential customers and reduce loyalty of regular customers.
This article is about e-shop performance monitoring which is necessary for the rapid detection of site problems and the prevention of their consequences.The material is prepared for owners and top managers of eCommerce companies.
An electronic store is a complex non-static system that requires regular performance checks. The minor changes on the server, updating third-party modules, changes in the settings and the activity of content managers can cause errors, failures or slow down the response.
Not only the owners make changes to the site. As a result, users activity also accumulates changes in the system. Creating new accounts, ordering, forming wishlist cause database overflow, performance decrease and the fall of the store.
Astrio team provides monitoring services and helps identify and fix problems before customers notice them. We use automated monitoring systems Newrelic and Zabbix.
Monitoring includes:
Weekly system status report
This report contains information on key workload indicators, errors, identifies peak moments during the week. The analysis of these reports represents the dynamics of indicators’ changes.
For example, planned increase in the average CPU load signals the need to optimize the process at the code level. Or the problem is that the server resource is insufficient to support a growing number of users and e-shop needs the technical upgrade. Thanks to weekly reports, the resource owner is always aware of the load on the site and can prevent overload and failure through preventive measures.
Architectural analysis
At this stage, we check the relevance of security patches, view logs for errors and study the Newrelic report. Architectural analysis is performed less frequently than weekly report. It identifies complicates problems, which lead to fails in the work of the site and business processes.
Incident analysis
The incident report contains a detailed description of the incident in terms of performance indicators. Our experts identify and study errors, problem transactions, find the source of the problem and suggest possible solutions to it.
Advertising campaign analysis
When the store conducts an advertising campaign, the number of visitors to the site increases greatly.
Load testing reports
In the season of sales or large-scale advertising campaigns, the e-shop must deal with a large number of customers. Load testing allows to figure out the users maximum, find out weaknesses in the server environment and code.This report helps you plan your server capacity for the future.
As part of monitoring, we measure the size of the tables in the databases, check for the release of new versions of third-party modules and Magento. The list of reports and analyzes can be adjusted depending on the individual needs of the client.
Our portfolio includes highload projects. In the list of our regular partners such clients as:
Online store of one of the largest companies in Kazakhstan, Meloman.kz
This site contains 3 store view and offers more than 300,000 products in the catalog.The store can stably operate with high loads of 700-1000 users at the same time. This is due to the timely monitoring: the emerging problem is fixed and eliminated before it appears visible manifestations.
One of the largest manufacturers of home textiles Togas.
The store had a number of technical defects that caused instability of work.
We identified several problems:
- errors in the logs associated with balances in the database from a module that has not already been used;
- long web transactions;
- slow cache flush;
- the third-party module didn’t work.
The relevance of search results has been reduced all this time.
Now similar problems are fixed and eliminated in time.
The process of monitoring ensured the stability of the site, a positive impact on business performance.
Conclusion
There are two approaches to solving technical problems that arise during the operation of an e-shop.
The first is to eliminate the problems that are already visible and interfere with shopping. In this case, there will always be dissatisfied users.
The second allows you to fix and eliminate the causes of the problem before it becomes relevant for the customer. It ensures the economic stability of the business and positively affects to the mood of users.
Therefore, monitoring of online stores shouldn’t be only implemented in the early stages of project development, but also be a regular part of support. It helps identify all the shortcomings and errors in time and quickly develop your shop.
