What is "Real User Monitoring" (RUM) in Akamai?

Real User Monitoring (RUM) in Akamai is focused on assessing application performance based on real-world user interactions. It captures performance data directly from users as they access a web application or service, allowing organizations to gain insight into how their applications perform across different environments and from various geographic locations. By analyzing this data, companies can identify issues that real users face, which can differ significantly from synthetic tests that simulate user behavior.

RUM provides metrics such as page load times, interaction times, and error rates, giving a detailed view of user experience. This contextual understanding of performance is critical for optimizing applications, troubleshooting issues, and enhancing overall user satisfaction. In contrast, other options—like managing server load or caching user data—serve different purposes and do not focus on direct user interactions. Predicting user behavior also falls outside the scope of RUM, which is more analytics-focused rather than predictive in nature.