A Guide to Integrate Frontend App with AWS Real User Monitoring (RUM)

Overview

In today’s digital landscape, where user experience plays a pivotal role in the success of online applications, monitoring and optimizing performance are critical for any organization. AWS CloudWatch Real User Monitoring (RUM) is a powerful tool that provides invaluable insights into how end-users interact with your applications. This blog post aims to delve into the details of Amazon CloudWatch RUM, exploring its features, benefits, and implementation.

Understanding Real User Monitoring

Real User Monitoring, commonly known as RUM, is a technique that tracks and analyzes the interactions of real users with an application in real time. This type of monitoring provides valuable data on user experience, page load times, and other performance-related metrics, helping organizations identify and address issues that impact user satisfaction.

Key Features of Amazon CloudWatch RUM

1. Customizable Dashboards

• Amazon CloudWatch RUM offers customizable dashboards that allow you to tailor the monitoring experience to your specific needs.
• Users can create personalized views highlighting key performance indicators like page load times, error rates, and user engagement metrics.

2. End-to-End Visibility

• Gain a comprehensive view of user interactions from the client to the backend services.
• Track performance metrics across devices, browsers, and geographic locations to identify patterns and potential issues.

3. User Session Insights

• Amazon CloudWatch RUM provides detailed insights into user sessions, allowing you to understand how users navigate your application.
• Analyze session data to identify common user paths, popular features, and potential bottlenecks.

4. Error Tracking

• Identify and troubleshoot real-time errors by leveraging Amazon CloudWatch RUM’s error-tracking capabilities.
• Receive alerts for critical errors affecting user experience, enabling proactive resolution of issues.

5. Performance Optimization

• Utilize performance metrics to identify areas for optimization.
• Understand how different elements of your application impact user experience and make informed decisions to enhance overall performance.

Benefits of Amazon CloudWatch RUM

1. User-Centric Performance Optimization

• RUM focuses on real users’ interactions with your application, providing real-time insights into their experiences.
• Organizations can prioritize performance optimizations by analyzing actual user behavior based on what matters most to end-users.

2. Proactive Issue Resolution

• RUM allows organizations to detect issues and errors as they occur, enabling proactive resolution before they impact a significant portion of the user base.
• Identifying and addressing performance issues in real-time helps maintain a seamless user experience and prevents negative impacts on user satisfaction.

3. Data-Driven Decision Making

• RUM provides organizations with valuable data and metrics for user engagement, page load times, and other performance indicators.
• Data-driven insights empower teams to make informed decisions about feature improvements, optimizations, and application enhancements.

4. Granular Visibility into User Behavior

• Gain granular visibility into how users interact with your application, including details about popular features, common user paths, and session details.
• This detailed visibility enables organizations to tailor their strategies based on user behavior rather than assumptions.

5. Enhanced User Experience

• RUM helps identify and eliminate bottlenecks, reduce page load times, and optimize the overall performance of an application.
• As a result, users experience faster load times, reduced errors, and a more responsive application, improving overall user experience.

6. Competitive Advantage

• Organizations that leverage RUM effectively gain a competitive advantage by providing a superior user experience.
• Satisfied users are more likely to remain loyal, recommend the application to others, and contribute positively to an organization’s reputation.

Implementing AWS RUM

In this blog post, I will demonstrate integrating a React frontend application with AWS Real User Monitoring (RUM). I will run the front-end application locally and showcase the associated metrics on the Amazon CloudWatch RUM dashboard. Please note that having the Amazon CloudWatch RUM IAM policy or credentials for metric submission is essential. For detailed fine-grant access control information, kindly refer to the documentation below.

Ref: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/monitoring/CloudWatch-RUM-permissions.html

Add App monitor

Amazon CloudWatch RUM is currently available in a few regions. Check the service availability and choose your region. Here, I have chosen the Ohio region.

Specify the monitor’s name and specify your application’s domain name. In this demonstration, I run my application on my localhost, so I have designated localhost as my domain name. Additionally, we can customize the installation of data collection plugins.

We have the feature to customize cookie settings, enabling the Amazon CloudWatch RUM client to establish cookies in the user’s browser. Additionally, it is possible to specify the session sampling percentage. If extended data retention is desired, users can store the data in an Amazon CloudWatch log by activating the data retention feature.

If you already have an Amazon Cognito identity pool or use a third-party authentication provider, you can configure it. In this case, I am demonstrating creating a new identity pool. Additionally, you can specify the pages that require tracking and, optionally, enable X-ray traces. Subsequently, proceed to create an application monitor.

Ref: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/monitoring/CloudWatch-RUM-get-started-authorization.html

Configure code snippet

After creating the app monitor, we can get the code snippet necessary to integrate AWS Real User Monitoring (RUM) with our frontend application. Three types of code snippets are available: TypeScript, JavaScript, and HTML. In this instance, I have opted for the HTML code snippet.

To install the Amazon CloudWatch RUM web client as an embedded script, paste the following code snippet inside the <head> element of your application above any other <script> tags.

After integrating the code snippet into your application, launch the application and inspect the Network tab to verify the Real User Monitoring (RUM) API call. The Network call will be visible if the data is transmitted successfully, as illustrated below.

Note: Kindly allow a few minutes to observe the initiation of the RUM network call.

On the Amazon CloudWatch RUM dashboard, you can observe metrics such as page load time, error and session durations, details on browsers and devices, and insights into the user journey.

Conclusion

As organizations continue to prioritize user satisfaction, Amazon CloudWatch RUM stands out as an essential tool in the AWS ecosystem for monitoring and enhancing real-time user experiences.

Drop a query if you have any questions regarding Amazon CloudWatch Real User Monitoring and we will get back to you quickly.

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