On a recent project we were having server performance issues when the load was high. The server usually performed well, but occasionally the server did not respond as fast as we wanted. Locating the culprit was hard since it was fairly sporadic.

To try and locate the issue we added event tracking using Google analytics to every remoting call. One just before the call, one just after the call completed as well as tracking any errors that might occur. The event tracking at the end of the remoting call included the time the remoting call had taken in milliseconds. Voila! A few hours later and Google Analytics located the bugger for us. Google’s event tracking displays the average time for the call to complete. One of the calls took a lot longer than all the others and was quickly blamed.

ExternalInterface.call("pageTracker._trackEvent", "Remoting", "remotingCallName", "complete", time);

Google Analytics is the dog’s bollocks!

Google has just released the public beta of their API. Javascript and Java libraries are already available, and support for other languages are in development. This certainly opens up for tailor made statistics solutions for clients, project managers and consultants.

More information @ TechCrunch