Reuse HTTP connections

HTTP persistent connections, also called HTTP keep-alive, or HTTP connection reuse, is the idea of using the same TCP connection to send and receive multiple HTTP requests/responses, as opposed to opening a new one for every single request/response pair. Using persistent connections is very important for improving HTTP performance and is implemented in almost all browsers nowadays.

Enabling this option will instruct the WebSitePulse monitoring agent to keep the connections open and reuse them if possible. The advantages of doing so are less network traffic due to fewer setting up and tearing down of TCP connections and reduced latency on subsequent request due to avoidance of initial TCP handshake.

From a monitoring point of view this means that the response time reported by the WebSitePulse agent will be much closer to the time it takes for a user to view a page on your site and therefore provide more relevant results of your web page performance.

Please note that if your HTTP server doesn't support persistent connections the WebSitePulse monitoring agent will have to open a new connection for every HTTP request even if the "Reuse Connections" feature is activated. Additionally a new connection will be created when the old one expires due to a timeout, due to a limit in the number of requests that can be send using a single connection or when a "Connection: close" header is received .

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Knowledge base

• Simulate Parallel Connections
  
• Enable IPv6 connections
  
• RTSP Basic Target Type
  
• RTSP Advanced Target Type
  
• Connection related alerts
  

Howtos

• Safely Monitor Backend Databases
  

Frequently asked questions

• Does your service support Secure Socket Layer for ecommerce transactions?