Most organizations think of monitoring as a checkbox: set it up once, confirm that it runs, and move on. If the tool says the website is “up,” then the job is done, right? Not quite. The truth is that where you run synthetic monitoring tests from can be just as important as the tests themselves.
Synthetic monitoring works by simulating user actions from pre-defined probes or agents. Those probes might live in a cloud data center, a mobile network, or even inside a corporate office. Their location changes what the test can see. A login page might work flawlessly from a U.S. cloud server but fail for users in Europe. An ecommerce checkout may look fast in Chrome on desktop but struggle on a congested mobile network.
This is why the question of “where should you run synthetic monitoring checks from?” matters. Choosing the right mix of locations ensures you detect issues that affect your real customers—not just the ones sitting closest to your infrastructure.
What “Location” Really Means in Synthetic Monitoring
When most teams hear “location” they think of geography: testing from New York, London, or Singapore. That’s one dimension, but not the only one. In synthetic monitoring, location has two layers:
- Geographic region — the physical location of the probe, usually tied to a cloud region or data center.
- Network type — the kind of network the probe uses to connect: cloud backbone, residential ISP, mobile carrier, or corporate office.
Both dimensions shape the results. A cloud probe in Virginia may show near-instant DNS resolution, but a residential probe in Texas might reveal ISP-level caching or packet loss. A mobile probe in Mumbai may expose an SSL handshake delay that never appears on fiber connections in Frankfurt.
The key takeaway: location isn’t just a technical setting—it defines the realism of your tests. If you don’t align probe locations with your users’ reality, your monitoring will always lag behind customer complaints.
Examining Monitoring Location Choices: Global vs. Local
The first decision is where in the world to run checks. Here the tradeoff is between global coverage and local focus.
Global probes catch regional outages and CDN issues. For example, a content delivery network might fail in Sydney but remain healthy in Chicago. Without a probe in Australia, you’d never know.
Local probes give you deeper visibility in your core markets. A U.S. only bank may not need to monitor from Tokyo, but it does need checks from both coasts to capture latency differences.
Examples:
- A SaaS provider headquartered in the U.S. but with enterprise clients in Europe should run tests from Frankfurt or London, not just Virginia.
- An ecommerce company shipping to Asia-Pacific customers needs probes in Singapore or Sydney to validate checkout speed during peak traffic hours.
- A marketing campaign targeting Latin America may require probes in Sao Paulo or Mexico City to ensure landing pages load quickly in-region.
Ignoring geography can lead to blind spots. A site might report “100% uptime” from its default probe, while thousands of users abroad experience outages. Worse, regulatory compliance in industries like finance often requires multi-region validation.
Bottom line: pick probe locations based on your customer footprint, not your convenience.
Synthetic Monitoring – Network Types Beyond Geography
Geography answers the “where in the world” question. Network type answers “through which kind of connection.” This distinction matters just as much because end-user experience is shaped not only by distance but by the quality and variability of the networks your users rely on. A test from a pristine cloud backbone might show flawless performance, while the same request over a congested mobile network can reveal slowdowns or outright failures. To capture these nuances, synthetic monitoring platforms provide multiple network vantage points. Each comes with tradeoffs in accuracy, stability, and realism, and choosing the right blend depends on who your customers are and how they connect.
Cloud/Data Center Probes
- Pros: Highly stable, low latency, consistent baselines.
- Cons: Unrealistically fast compared to real-world connections.
- Use case: Great for backend availability monitoring, but limited for end-user realism.
Residential ISP Probes
- Pros: Reveal last-mile issues like DNS caching, ISP throttling, or packet loss.
- Cons: More variability; results can be noisy.
- Use case: Validating consumer-facing apps where home internet is the dominant access method.
Mobile Probes (3G/4G/5G)
- Pros: Expose latency, jitter, and performance issues on cellular networks.
- Cons: Less predictable, higher variance in results.
- Use case: Essential for mobile-first apps or regions where most traffic is mobile.
Corporate/Branch Office Probes
- Pros: Validate internal business applications, VPN access, or hybrid cloud connectivity.
- Cons: Not representative of public customers.
- Use case: Enterprises with remote workforces or branch offices relying on SaaS tools.
By combining different network types, you move closer to a full picture of how users really experience your application. No single vantage point is sufficient on its own: cloud probes give you clean baselines, but lack realism. ISP probes expose last-mile problems, where mobile probes highlight how networks behave under variable conditions; and corporate probes ensure business-critical apps function for employees.
When used together, they create a multi-dimensional view that bridges infrastructure health with actual customer experience. This blended approach reduces blind spots, strengthens SLA reporting, and builds confidence that your monitoring reflects the reality of your audience, not just the comfort of your data center.
How to Decide Where to Run Synthetic Monitoring Tests
So how do you choose the right locations? It’s tempting to think more is always better, but effective synthetic monitoring is about precision, not excess. Each probe you configure adds cost, complexity, and noise to your alerting system. The goal isn’t to monitor from every city in the world—it’s to choose vantage points that realistically reflect your customer base, regulatory requirements, and business priorities. A strategic mix balances cost, coverage, and clarity, giving you enough visibility to detect real issues without drowning your team in unnecessary data.
- Match probes to your customer base. If 70% of your traffic comes from North America, ensure multiple probes across U.S. regions. If 20% is in Europe, cover at least one EU city.
- Don’t overspend. Running tests from 30 cities every minute may flood your alert system with noise and inflate monitoring costs. Start small.
- Balance frequency. Use high-frequency checks in your top regions. Use lower-frequency checks in secondary regions.
- Test across network types. Add mobile probes if your analytics show 60% of traffic comes from phones. Use residential probes to mimic real consumer internet.
- Consider compliance and SLAs. Some businesses need proof that uptime was measured from multiple neutral third-party locations, not just their own servers.
A common pattern: run one probe in each major region where you do business, plus at least one residential or mobile probe to capture end-user variability. Expand over time as you learn where issues crop up. The key is to treat probe placement as an evolving design choice, not a one-time configuration.
Your customer footprint will change, your infrastructure may shift, and compliance expectations can tighten. By revisiting your monitoring mix periodically, you avoid both blind spots and wasted spend—ensuring that your tests continue to reflect reality rather than assumptions.
Tools for Multi-Location Synthetic Monitoring
Choosing locations is only useful if your tool supports it. Not every platform can simulate traffic from global regions, different network types, or mobile connections. The right solution should make it simple to match monitoring probes to where your customers actually are.
- Dotcom-Monitor — Provides probes in key global regions and supports both browser-based and API-level tests. It also offers mobile network checks and the ability to segment monitoring views by department (e.g., IT vs. marketing), ensuring each team gets the visibility it needs.
- Grafana + k6 (open source) — Popular for load and synthetic testing in developer-driven environments. Flexible, but requires engineering time to configure and maintain global checks.
- Selenium / Playwright scripts — Open-source browser automation frameworks that can be adapted for synthetic monitoring. They provide deep control but demand custom setup for scheduling, reporting, and alerting.
- Nagios plugins — Longstanding open-source monitoring solution with community plugins for HTTP, DNS, and SSL checks. More suited to infrastructure monitoring, but extensible for basic synthetic use cases.
How to evaluate tools:
- If you need a ready-to-go, multi-location solution with minimal setup, Dotcom-Monitor delivers fast deployment and rich departmental views.
- If you need developer-centric flexibility and have in-house resources, open source frameworks like k6, Selenium, or Playwright may fit.
- If you’re extending existing infrastructure monitoring, tools like Nagios can be adapted for simple synthetic checks.
The best tool is the one that aligns with your operational model. For most organizations, Dotcom-Monitor provides the easiest path to accurate, multi-location monitoring without heavy engineering overhead.
Best Practices for Running Synthetic Tests Across Locations
Once you’ve chosen your locations and tool, the real work begins: turning configuration into a monitoring strategy your team can actually live with. Synthetic monitoring is powerful, but without a disciplined approach it can create as many problems as it solves. Too few probes leave you blind to real-world issues, while too many probes running too often bury your team in noise and false positives. The art is in striking balance—enough coverage to build confidence, but not so much that monitoring becomes unmanageable. That’s where best practices matter. They keep monitoring grounded in business needs, tuned to real user behavior, and sustainable for the long haul.
Start Small Then Expand
Begin with 2–3 regions where your largest customer segments are. Add more probes only as you identify gaps.
Mix Frequency Levels
Don’t run every probe every minute. Use your main market probes for fast checks and secondary probes for slower validation.
Avoid Blind Spots
If mobile is a big share of your traffic, include at least one mobile probe. If your app is consumer-heavy, add residential ISP probes.
Rotate Occasionally
Switch probe locations every quarter to validate consistency and catch ISP-level anomalies.
Segment by Department
IT may care about infrastructure checks, while marketing wants landing page uptime. Assign probes accordingly.
Integrate Alerts Carefully
Configure alerts so that one regional hiccup doesn’t trigger a flood of false alarms.
When properly implemented, these practices keep synthetic monitoring actionable, not overwhelming. They help teams focus on the issues that matter most—outages, degradations, and blind spots that impact users rather than chasing noise. Over time, a steady best-practices framework also builds credibility with leadership: instead of explaining why a “red alert” wasn’t really an outage, you can demonstrate how monitoring aligns with user experience, compliance requirements, and business priorities. The result is monitoring that supports growth instead of distracting from it.
Multi-Location Synthetic Monitoring – Wrapping It All Up
Synthetic monitoring is only as good as the vantage points you choose. Run all your tests from a single U.S. data center, and you’ll miss outages in Asia, DNS failures in Europe, or SSL slowdowns on mobile networks. Spread probes too thin, and you’ll drown in noise without adding much value.
The goal is balance. Monitor where your users are, not just where your servers live. Blend geography with network diversity, and align probe strategy with your business footprint. Tools like Dotcom-Monitor make it straightforward to distribute checks across multiple regions and networks, while tailoring visibility for different teams.
In the end, synthetic monitoring isn’t just about uptime numbers—it’s about trust. By running tests from the right locations, you ensure that when your dashboards say “everything is fine,” your customers agree.