Web Real Time Communications (WebRTC) is transforming the way we communicate online. Fueled, in part, by the growth in remote work and communications, the use of WebRTC solutions has significantly increased.
Enterprises are continually finding new ways to enhance customer service and internal communications using this technology. As its usage expands, organizations must prioritize testing and monitoring their WebRTC infrastructure. This ensures optimal performance and helps to manage this evolving technology.
What Does WebRTC Enable?
WebRTC is an open source project that gives developers the tools to embed live communications streams like voice, video and chat directly into any web page, with relative ease.
WebRTC implementation is readily available for any user to utilize regardless of their geographical location or experience. Additionally, WebRTC has a standardized application programming interface (API), which has fostered a developer ecosystem to be built around it.
And, of course, as an open-source project, WebRTC continually evolves, with new use cases emerging every day.
But, if you already have your WebRTC service offering up and running, what’s next?
WebRTC Testing
WebRTC testing is the crucial next step that simulates the experience of users worldwide. While technology streamlines development, nothing is perfect the first time, and testing and debugging at scale is always a challenge.
In addition to the potential flaws and bugs that could occur in any new application or tool, some of the issues that are likely to arise in WebRTC tools include:
- Ongoing development: One of the key strengths of WebRTC is that it is open-source, and constantly evolving and improving. However, this also raises potential issues. As new features and improvements are continually being made, these can result in breakages of your existing solutions at any time.
- Changes to browsers: Similarly, embedding WebRTC solutions directly into a web page means certain critical elements of the technology are beyond your control. Regular testing of your WebRTC application ensures that browser updates aren’t causing issues to your users.
- Network sensitivity: WebRTC solutions are somewhat reliant on high-speed broadband and good network conditions. Different conditions will mean the performance of your solution will vary across users. Testing across a range of network conditions is essential to optimize for a variety of users.
- Multiple users: The nature of WebRTC requires synchronization between two or more users in different locations. This could be in a video call, a live broadcast, a file-sharing scenario or any other use case. So when thinking about any of the problems that could occur, you should multiply their impact…
Bearing this in mind, WebRTC testing should always include:
- WebRTC stress testing: To simulate load, size and stress on your network.
- Regression testing: To test and retest your WebRTC solution as you adapt and develop it.
- Performance testing: To measure your critical WebRTC metrics.
- Network testing: To test your WebRTC application across different network conditions and optimize for all users.
Testing during the development phase of a tool is standard, and our ready-made WebRTC testing tool can easily automate this.
But what comes next? After your tool is live, how do you ensure optimal performance, track the most-used aspects, and troubleshoot any issues?
WebRTC Monitoring
Once your tool is live, you still need regular WebRTC testing to test new features and troubleshoot any issues. Additionally, collecting a substantial volume of real-use case data is a crucial advantage when people are using your application. Ongoing and passive WebRTC monitoring is an excellent method to continually observe real-world WebRTC tool usage, uncovering the true user experience. This is beneficial for several reasons, as you can:
- Speed up the debugging process: When a developer starts investigating a bug, they typically need to run many tests to replicate the problem and gain enough data to find a fix. But what if they had access to the granular detail of several days’ worth of real sessions at their fingertips? WebRTC monitoring tools, such as watchRTC, provides you with this. It enables in-depth analysis of sessions and users, including metrics like bitrate, packet loss, jitter, and full activity and API call history. This wealth of data allows your developers to troubleshoot and resolve issues faster.
- Gain insights into how users utilize your tool: Real people may use it differently than how you expected them to. Important metrics include usage time, session participation, and the quality of the connections. These factors impact your WebRTC tool’s performance and should inform any future developments. Passive WebRTC monitoring collects data from real live sessions, offering an overview of usage and how people genuinely interact with your service.
- Receive prompt alerts on potential issues: WebRTC monitoring provides high-level usage data, allowing you to set thresholds. When these thresholds are reached, alerts, including usage and quality metrics, offer early warnings. You can also create alerts for any unusual activity. These allow your team to more quickly identify problems and ensure they don’t impact your customers.
- Uncover the true user experience: WebRTC monitoring monitors down to the user level without compromising on privacy. For example, watchRTC does not record any media or store private information. However, it allows a drill down into the precise network conditions at an individual level, giving you a powerful understanding of that user’s experience.
With all these requirements, you might expect WebRTC monitoring to strain your network resources, but with Cyara’s watchRTC, that’s not the case. It simply runs in the background with no impact on the efficiency of your WebRTC service.
Most importantly, by using a ready-made WebRTC monitoring tool, you won’t need to allocate your development resources and time to building your own solution. If you want your developers to be able to focus on improving your WebRTC service for a better user experience, prioritizing WebRTC testing and monitoring is the clear choice.
