Uptrends features a vast network of over 233 global monitoring checkpoints, which can be configured to monitor your websites, servers, and web services so you can determine where a problem originates from.
What is a checkpoint?
A checkpoint is a geographic location from which you can have your service uptime and performance checked periodically. At that geographic location 1 or more servers in 1 or more datacenters perform checks. Checkpoints use DNS servers provided by local ISPs when available, to ensure realistic measurements.
Why is it useful to have so many checkpoints?
With so many locations, you’ll be able to represent your user base in the most effective and realistic ways, but our dense checkpoint network also makes Uptrends an excellent tool to:
- Test CDN networks with many endpoints.
- Test the global DNS network. Many of Uptrends' checkpoints are using a local DNS, allowing you to test that your DNS changes propagate across the globe in a correct manner.
- Test if latency introduced by distance or by backbone providers is within acceptable parameters.
Choosing the right set of checkpoints
There is no extra cost involved when you select more checkpoints, so we encourage users to select as many checkpoints as possible.
We enforce selecting at least three checkpoints. If, for any reason, one of these checkpoint is taken down (i.e. for maintenance), you are ensured that at least two checkpoints can perform checks and errors can be verified by another checkpoint.
In the Checkpoints tab of a monitor, you can activate individual checkpoints, but also entire countries and continents. If you select a country or continent, you’ll immediately benefit from new checkpoints when we add additional locations to that region. Your coverage grows automatically whenever our network grows! Even if you want to skip individual checkpoints, you can still benefit from this auto-growth function: rather than selecting individual checkpoints in a country and leaving one out, you can use the Checkpoint Exclusions function instead to have fine-grained control over your checkpoint sets.
Where to find the IP addresses of Uptrends' checkpoints
See a full list of our global monitoring checkpoints, including IP addresses (both IPv4 and IPv6). This list is always up-to-date. If you’re looking to download our IP addresses in JSON or XML format, this guide can help.
We also offer simple lists of IPv4 addresses and IPv6 addresses to download.
Checkpoint issues?
Having issues with a certain checkpoint? Contact us!