FAQ

IPCheckpoint is an online service that monitors and tests your websites, servers, and applications 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Not only will you know if there is a problem, you will know where the problem lies.  IPCheckpoint goes the extra mile with our advanced technology delivering a multi-stage verification process which reliably detects and accurately diagnoses early problems and errors, followed by real-time multimedia alerts.  IPCheckpoint’s synthetic transactions perform actual customer functions and transactions from numerous locations across the Internet.  You will be the first to know there is a problem and can begin troubleshooting before your customers start calling.  Accurate ongoing reporting will enable continuous improvement and optimization of real customer experience.   We offer instant set-up without capital investment, without software to install, without any term commitment and without the worries of integration issues or technology risks, and IPCheckpoint is capable of meeting all of your growing demands.  IPCheckpoint delivers a feature rich service at an extremely competitive price.

The IPCheckpoint service monitors:

HTTP basic -Simple web server monitoring using an HTTP get.

HTTP advanced - HTTP basic plus: HTTPS secure web servers (SSL), query strings, post data, basic authentication, verification of text, detects page size changes, detects contents changes, follows redirection.

Synthetic Transactions - perform actual customer transactions from our numerous locations across the Internet. 

Synthetic transactions can involve any number of steps e.g. Go to login page, login, request account balance, check balance, logout.

HTTP full page - breaks down the delivery of each component on a page including size, time to download and availability of that component.  This feature is particularly useful for fine tuning your customer’s web experience.

Additional Protocols Include - PING, TCP, POP3, SMTP, DNS, TELNET and FTP.  For checking availability and response time of: email, network connectivity, file transfers and more…

We check and monitor the availability, response time and relative performance of your website and its server protocols. We also check the file size of a particular page or component of a page, the content, and if predefined keywords are found.  In addition synthetic transactions perform actual customer functions simulating a real user.  For more details please refer to: What types of applications are being monitored? and our product overview page.

IPCheckpoint can ensure that your website is up, and performing properly from the end user’s point of view.  We’ll perform synthetic transactions for every function on your website, simulating a real user from the internet, locally, across the country, or around the world.

No, you simply sign up and configure the service online and we take care of the rest. 

Absolutely.  IPCheckpoint is committed to meeting your needs and meeting or exceeding the features and functionality of our competitors at a more competitive price.  Please help us to achieve this by letting us know how we can better meet your needs and win your business.  Contact Us

Please refer to pricing

Yes, for a 30 day free trial just click on “Free Trial”
 and get started.

Alerts are limited to email only during the 30 day free trial (i.e. SMS alerts are only available with the paid service).  Otherwise, all other aspects of the free and paid services are the same.

We accept Visa, Mastercard & American Express.  If you would like to pay in some other way please contact us.

After your 30 day free-trial you will be billed monthly in advance and subsequent months will be billed on the same date as your first billing.

Yes, you can add devices at any time and the monitoring will start right away.

If your monthly charge increases you will immediately be billed the pro-rated difference for the remainder of that month and future months will be billed at the new rate on your standard billing date. If your monthly charge decreases your next charge on your standard billing date will be billed at the new rate. For further details please see our Terms & Conditions under Fees & Payment

No, there are no set-up or cancellation fees.

Yes, you will have access to enable/disable the service directly from your status page, or you can schedule it online if it will be a regular occurrence.

You can be informed of downtime or lack of performance (according to user configurable thresholds) by either email or SMS (a text message to your cell phone).  Paging services can also be used via email.  After an alert the polling frequency will increase to 1 minute intervals and then slowly decrease by 1 minute each hour, until you are back to the frequency for which you subscribed.  This feature of the IPCheckpoint solution is designed to let you know more accurately when an alert is resolved and results in more accurate reporting.  Please also see How do I know my website or service is operating properly again?.

Your alert will include the name of the alert (configured by you in order that you best recognize them when received) and the type of failure.

Any time a failure occurs from a single monitoring location the same test will be immediately performed from numerous additional locations to confirm the authenticity of the error.  This will significantly reduce the number of false alerts and the fact that IPCheckpoint immediately checks from alternative locations means you are informed earlier of an issue.  Many of our competitors’ verification processes involve additional delays. E.g. 2 more checks 1 minute apart.

After an alert IPCheckpoint will test your website or service until the condition that caused the alert no longer exists.  This will occur at an increased frequency of one minute intervals initially, decreasing in frequency by one minute per hour until the frequency you subscribed for is reached.  Once we have confirmed that the alert condition no longer exists we will send a message to inform you your website or service is properly functioning again.  Increasing the checking frequency to one minute after an alert lets you know more accurately when an alert is resolved and results in more accurate reporting.
Example: If you have subscribed for a polling frequency of five minutes and you receive an alert, IPCheckpoint will increase your polling frequency to one minute intervals for the first hour, two minute intervals for the second hour, 3 minute intervals for the third hour and so on until after 5 hours you will have returned to five minute polling intervals.  If the fault is resolved in the first hour, you will be informed of the resolution and polling will increase from 1 minute to the 5 minute interval for which you subscribed.

If an IPCheckpoint monitoring server goes down for any reason, our management system will detect this and move those checkpoints to an alternative monitoring server.  If a monitoring server has connectivity issues then the checkpoints may report errors from that location but these will not be confirmed from other locations so alerts will not be generated (see What is the likelihood of receiving alerts in error? Above).  In either case you will not receive a false alert and your IPCheckpoint monitoring will continue.

No, IPCheckpoint monitors using standard protocols such as HTTP from the customers’ perspective – just as customers don't need to know what your technical platform is nor do we.  IPCheckpoint simulates actual user experience and users don’t care about technical platforms.  Users care about lightning fast response times and a trouble-free visit to your website.  We will assist you to achieve both on a consistent basis.

Yes, IPCheckpoint can detect changes to your website’s pages or functionality by verifying file and page sizes and file and page contents.  In addition synthetic transactions test the actual functionality expected for actual customer use.  If anything you have configured to be monitored changes, you will be notified immediately.

Yes, IPCheckpoint’s capabilities include the monitoring of Web pages that require Secure Socket Layer connections enabling you to monitor all your “https” sites and pages for performance, response time and downtime.  Synthetic transactions can emulate an actual ecommerce transaction and can be performed on SSL pages.

Yes, synthetic transactions can be designed to test interaction with back end databases.  For example a synthetic transaction could be configured to login to a website and check an account balance.  In this example the database is being accessed in order to provide the account balance.  IPCheckpoint will not only confirm whether or not the database interaction is successful but will also report on how long it takes.  So you may wish to be alerted of not just a failure but also if a response is too slow – e.g. if your account balance takes more than say 10 seconds.

Yes, synthetic transactions can be designed to test interaction with third parties.  For example: a $0 credit card transaction can be performed to test the success and response time of an external credit card gateway; or synthetic transactions can be used to perform operations that involve access to third party application servers and/or databases, again reporting and alerting on both the success and response time of such interactions.

Yes, but depending on how it is configured the additional volume of traffic and processing required by you is likely to be negligible.  If you are monitoring activity on your web site such as number of page hits etc…we would recommend you configure your website traffic statistics software to eliminate hits and transactions performed by our monitoring service (or deduct them from your totals) as they are not actual customer statistics. This can be done by using a custom User Agent string in your Checkpoint or by excluding traffic from our monitoring servers’ IP addresses.  Please contact us for a list of addresses as these addresses may change from time to time and it will be necessary to check with us regularly for any updates.

You may monitor IP’s that are dynamically assigned if there is a DNS record that is dynamically updated to resolve to the last IP assigned to your device. There are many companies that provide dynamic DNS services.  Without an associated DNS that is dynamically updated it is not possible.

Once you are logged in to the IPCheckpoint site you may generate reports dynamically via the “Reports” link at the top of the page or via the “Report” link to the right of each checkpoint on the Status page.  Some reports may be scheduled to run and even emailed to you on a regular basis if you so choose.  Reports are available either in HTML via the website or in PDF format.

Our monitoring servers are located in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Dallas, Denver and Auckland, New Zealand.

Checkpoints may have to be changed to reflect any site changes. Most cosmetic changes will not affect Checkpoints. Changes to page names or handling of query string or post data (e.g. form changes) will most likely effect Checkpoints. Checkpoints that have been affected will highlight themselves by starting to report errors.

Please refer to our Pricing page or the What types of applications are being monitored? question above.