How the New Relic Mobile Apps Team Uses New Relic Synthetics to Build Reliable Mobile Apps
Blog post from New Relic
Mobile app developers often face challenges due to dependencies on APIs managed by other teams, which can lead to app reliability issues if API structures change unexpectedly. To address this, the New Relic mobile apps team uses a combination of New Relic Mobile, New Relic APM 360, and custom New Relic Synthetics scripts to ensure robust app performance. Synthetics allows for automated, scriptable tools that monitor real-world performance and test API endpoints to validate expected responses. By employing these scripts, the team can proactively manage API changes, ensuring both staging and production environments remain stable, and address issues through "soft alerts" that notify the appropriate teams during work hours. This approach allows for early detection and resolution of API-dependency issues, thereby maintaining high performance in their mobile applications.