APIs live in a lot of different environments. One consistent story we've heard from customers is how many private or internal APIs they have that exist solely behind a firewall. We've been working hard to make it possible to use Runscope Radar API monitoring and testing in these situations:
- Accessing APIs that exist solely behind a firewall without exposure to the public internet.
- Running tests against a development version only running on localhost.
- Monitoring APIs that require a known or fixed IP address (aka IP whitelisting).
- Running your tests from a cloud hosting provider like Microsoft Azure, Digital Ocean, or SoftLayer or in a geographic region not currently covered by a Runscope Service Region.
In each of these cases you need the flexibility to determine which environment your API tests and monitors are run from, without losing the powerful test editor, team access, 3rd-party integrations, notifications and scripting capabilities you've come to expect from Runscope Radar.
Today we're announcing the general availability of the Runscope Radar On-premises Agent for all Team, Business and Enterprise customers. The Radar agent uses a hybrid on-premises approach keeping your test management in the cloud, but executing the requests in the location that makes the most sense for your infrastructure.
Hybrid On-premises API Monitoring and Testing
The agent is a single executable that can be downloaded and installed on a Linux, Windows or OS X host within your infrastructure. All agent communication with the Runscope API is made via standard HTTPS requests, minimizing the amount of firewall configuration needed to only allowing outbound requests on port 443.
Once installed and configured, the agent will show up as a location in the test editor along side the global cloud-based locations we support (screenshot condensed for brevity, we currently support eight global locations):
When a test run starts, the agent picks up the next request to be executed, makes the request and sends the response data back to the Runscope cloud to be processed. Anything the agent can "see" can now be tested and monitored just like the cloud-based tests!
Getting Started
Use of the agent previously required a Runscope Enterprise subscription but due to customer demand we've opened it up to customers on Team and Business plans as well. If you have a Free or Starter account, you can upgrade your subscription here.
The agent is also available to customers during the free 30-day trial, so if you haven't yet signed up for Runscope, get started now to try out the agent for yourself. If you're on the free plan, you can do a one-time restart of your trial here.
Once you're on a qualifying plan, head over to the agent docs page to download the agent for your operating system and follow the simple configuration instructions. If you need any assistance getting up and running, our support team is standing by ready to help.