Scheduled Speed Tests Templates

For network performance monitoring, the App uses templates to schedule speed tests. The speed tests are always executed between two monitoring agents so this is why we have two lists. In the background, the systems will schedule speed tests between each agent of the first list with the agents on the second list.

For example, let say we have four agents: A, B, C and D. By creating a template with A and B in the first list and C and D in the second list, the system will create four scheduled speed tests:

• A-C
• A-D
• B-C
• B-D

The scheduled speed tests can be configured with a limit to avoid congestion. The first limit is Mbps which is an absolute limit for the direction (from an agent in the 1st list to the agent in the 2nd list, and vice versa).

The second limit is a percentage (%) of the Historical Maximum Speed of both agents. For example, if the percent is 50% in both directions and the first agent historical Maximum Speeds are 30 Mbps / 20 Mbps and the second agent is 100 Mbps / 100 Mbps, the speed test will be executed at 50% of 30 Mbps (the lowest value between 30 Mbps and 100 Mbps) in one direction and 50% or 20 Mbps (the lowest value between 20 Mbps and 100 Mbps) in the other direction.

The scheduled speed tests pre-set frequencies are:

• Every hour
• Every 2 hours
• Every 3 hours
• Every 4 hours
• Every Day Between...
• Custom (Advanced)

For all of them, the minute is randomized within the hour to distribute the speed tests. However, even if the minute is randomized, it is consistent between all the speed tests for a given agent pair. This means that if a speed test is scheduled every hour between agent A and B, the speed test could run at the minute 23 but it will always run at that minute within each and every hour.

The timezone for the scheduled speed test is always UTC (GMT-0000) except for the Every Day Between... option. In this case, the App will show the user's timezone and convert automatically to UTC.

For users looking to customize the schedule, we support unix-like cron syntax. However, as explained previously in this article, the minute is ignored and randomized to distribute the tests during the hour. Also, the timezone is always UTC. Here are a few examples of what you could do with the advanced syntax:

• Run every hour between 2am and 6am (UTC): 0 2-6 * * *
• Run at 4am (UTC) during weekend: 0 4 * * 6-7

More details on the unix-like cron syntax on Wikipedia and test the syntax with Cron Tester.