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Synthetics

  • Updated on Jul 2, 2026
  • Published on Aug 7, 2025
  • 2 minute(s) read
  • Ben F
  • LZ
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This article covers the Synthetics section of the Kentik portal.

The Synthetics Dashboard provides an overview of your organization's Synthetics testing.

About Synthetics

Kentik’s Synthetics proactively monitors network performance to help you resolve issues before they impact customers. Using a combination of public and private software agents, it continuously evaluates network health across your infrastructure and major cloud regions.

  • Key Metrics & Tests: Agents run continuous ping, traceroute, HTTP, DNS, page load, and BGP tests to measure latency, jitter, and packet loss.

  • Deep Integration: Results are visualized on the Tests page and integrated into tools like Kentik Map and AI Advisor, correlating synthetic metrics with real traffic and SNMP data.

Synthetics Workflows:

  • Dashboard: Accessible via the Synthetics button in the portal’s main nav menu, it provides an overview of test health, deployed agents, and credit consumption.

  • Tests: Manage, configure, and analyze your organization's synthetic tests and credit usage.

  • Agents: Deploy and manage global and private agents.

  • BGP Route Viewer: Correlate network and web-layer issues with BGP routing data.

  • State of the Internet: View the health of common public applications, clouds, and networks without consuming test credits.

Note: A user’s ability to view the above pages and to add/edit synthetic tests or agents depends on the permissions granted by their assigned Kentik roles (see Kentik RBAC).

Tests and Subtests

Kentik's Synthetics testing uses the following terminology:

  • Test: A collection of subtests that are configured, run, and displayed as a single unit on the Tests page.

    Note: For details of available Synthetics test types, see Test Types Reference.

  • Subtest: An individual recurring ping/traceroute combination in a single direction, meaning from one agent toward one other network entity such as an agent, IP address, or ASN (see Subtest Results).

  • Test Preview: A test that lets you preview the test results to confirm you’ve configured your settings successfully. A test preview does not consume any of your monthly test credits (see Test Preview).

Note: The consumption of credits for a given test is calculated based on a count of that test's subtests (see Test Credits).

Supported Testing Configurations

Testing is available for configurations such as the following:

  • From any Kentik global agents to external SaaS, application, and API endpoints.

  • From any private agents to external SaaS, application, and API endpoints.

  • From site (data center, remote office, campus, etc.) to site using private agents.

  • Between sites (private agents) and public cloud (global agents).

  • Between public cloud region instances using private agents.

Test Credits

Synthetic testing in Kentik is enabled by test credits. Every time a test runs, your balance is reduced based on factors like the number of subtests, testing interval, and agent type (Global vs. Private). To view detailed calculation rules and consumption scenarios, see Test Credits.

Test Status

Kentik Synthetics continuously evaluates test results for latency, packet loss, and jitter to determine the overall health of your network paths. Based on these metrics, tests are assigned a status of Healthy, Warning, Critical, or Pending. To understand exactly how these statuses are calculated and to view the default thresholds, see Test Status Reference.

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