Sentinel: Your Web-Performance Watchman
I focus on site-speed so you don’t have to.
Do performance regressions keep catching you out? Is site-speed unstable and inconsistent? Does your team lack the time or ownership needed to triage performance issues? Sound familiar?
Even the most performance-conscious teams rarely have enough time or resources to:
- define appropriate performance budgets;
- procure and set up monitoring software;
- identify regressions;
- separate signal from noise;
- triage performance issues.
That’s why they use Sentinel.
With Sentinel, you outsource performance monitoring to me: your web-performance watchman.
What is Sentinel?
sentinel /ˈsɛntɪnəl/
noun
A soldier or guard whose job is to stand and keep watch.
Most companies don’t have a dedicated performance team — or even one individual — to watch site-speed constantly. Engineers have product and feature work to do. Even with the best will in the world, performance falls off the radar. Regressions sneak in, go unnoticed, and never get fixed.
Patrick Meenan
Serviceundersells what Harry is providing here. It looks like a comprehensive monitor/triage/root-cause/impact high-touch service from one of the best.
I offer Sentinel to a small number of trusted clients. I become your eyes and ears so you can get on with what you do best.
Using my own monitoring software, I’ll work with you to define performance budgets — the limits we set for each metric — and set up relevant dashboards and alerts. Together, these help ensure you stay fast.
When the monitoring detects a regression, I receive the alert and get to work. Your developers won’t be interrupted by monitoring emails or need to wade through meaningless data for useful insights. In fact, they don’t need to do anything at all — that’s my job.
I’ll use dashboards and performance budgets designed specifically for you to home in on the issue. I’ll identify the problem and report:
- when the regression began;
- what caused it;
- how severe it is;
- what impact it has; and
- how to fix it.
How Sentinel Works
Sentinel has three key stages: setup, monitoring, and reporting.
1. Set Up Monitoring
First, I’ll audit your site to identify and address any current slowdowns. There’s no point monitoring a slow website!
Next, we choose the key metrics and pages to monitor. Want to track Largest Contentful Paint? Sure! Time to First Byte (TTFB)? You got it! Total Blocking Time? Done! We can monitor every metric on every page or any combination of them. It’s entirely up to you.
Once we have our key metrics, I’ll set their performance budgets. Most teams find performance budgets paralysing, but that’s not your job anymore — it’s mine! I’ll calculate a relevant budget for each metric, then set up the corresponding dashboards and alerts.
2. Monitor Performance
Now, we wait.
If a key metric regresses beyond its budget, I get an immediate alert. The alert goes to a priority email address that you can also access, shooting right to the top of my inbox.
I then analyse data, compare charts, and run tests. I’ll cross-reference several sources to home in on the problem, work out what happened, and identify what might have caused it.
Once I have a reasonable idea of the issue and its solution, I’ll prepare a report. I can send it by email or add it directly to your issue tracker. It’s entirely up to you.
3. Report Every Month and Quarter
What if we don’t have any regressions?!
That’s great news! But don’t worry — you’ll never pay Sentinel for nothing. Whether you experience many incidents or none, you’ll still receive monthly and quarterly reports.
Every Month
You’ll receive a general performance report covering:
- how many incidents we had;
- how the site compares with the previous period;
- whether the site behaved consistently throughout the month;
- any patterns we noticed; and
- opportunities outside our key metrics.
Every Quarter
You’ll receive a more comprehensive benchmarking report. We’ll compare your site with competitors and industry peers to determine:
- how we stack up;
- who is making great progress;
- who we need to catch up with; and
- which opportunities we can identify.
Sentinel Costs $5,999 per Month
Sentinel costs $5,999/mo.
- USD
- Billed quarterly
- 20% discount for annual billing
- Minimum commitment of six months
What Sentinel Includes
- Initial performance audit: We’ll conduct a thorough audit before monitoring begins. This gives us a healthy baseline.
- Metric and budget definition: We’ll work out your key metrics and their corresponding budgets.
- Monitoring software: You won’t need to procure your own — I have it covered! I’ll set you up in my SpeedCurve and Treo accounts.
- Always-on monitoring: The main event — I keep an eye on your performance budgets and tackle regressions as they happen.
- Monthly status updates: At the end of each month, I’ll summarise whether site-speed is trending up or down, whether we improved, and whether we had more incidents than normal.
- Quarterly health checks and benchmarks: Every three months, I’ll test your site against its closest competitors and peers. This establishes our position within your industry and shows whether we lead the pack or have opportunities to improve.
Talk About Sentinel
To learn more about Sentinel and how it can help your team, arrange a zero-obligation call:
