Our Editor's Choice, Gomez Performance Network, just edged out Keynote and BMC Patrol Express for top honors. In the middle of the pack, a number of solid offerings from Elk Fork, Dana Consulting and AlertSite performed well; Dana Consulting's service earned our Best Value award. At the lower end of the spectrum, inexpensive but reliable services 1stMonitor and Alert Me First may fit the bill for those with shallow pockets.
How We Tested
We engaged each service as though we were an actual customer and used our NWC Inc. widget-manufacturing site as the target. We don't really build widgets, but users can browse our catalog, purchase widgets and track their orders. The site uses Web services, Java beans and back-end databases and feeds a separate financial-tracking site. For more info on NWC Inc., see inc.networkcomputing.com.
We recorded and specified URLs for each of the services to exercise the critical paths necessary for widget purchase. We gathered data on the availability and responsiveness of the site for several months. We also ran transactions against our nwc.com site. We created service thresholds and reports, and received alerts for the duration of the test. We also administered the site, changing thresholds and tracking problems that we were alerted to or noticed in the reports.
Our in-depth pricing chart can be found left.
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