Beginner’s Guide on Magento 2 New Relic Integration

The modern way of tracking and analyzing data to increase ROI has changed the approach to conducting contemporary businesses. This predicts the usefulness of real-time data monitoring. The e-commerce business has emerged as a crucial segment of the global retail industry. As per a survey by Statista, in 2022, e-commerce retail sales were estimated to increase by 5.7 trillion USD globally. Also, this figure will continue to grow in the following years.

Source: Statista

As shown in the image, the sales growth of retail e-commerce is consistent. Thus, the scope of the eCommerce business is validated. What’s the reason behind this consistent growth? To crack the logic, you need to undertake real-time performance monitoring of your website or web apps and analyze the user data.
Integrating New Relic with Magento 2 can offer you a massive advantage in the existing marketplace.

What is New Relic?

New Relic is a software based on Application Performance Monitoring (APM). It provides real-time data about the web app’s performance and the degree of user satisfaction. It also reports code errors in the backend, allowing you to fix those. Further, it provides one data layer for all traces, logs, metrics, and events.

The primary intent of New Relic is to assist developers and business owners in building and managing great software and user experiences with simple but powerful methods to collect data from any app or website. The data provides scope for business improvement and is accessible to every user.

Source: Newrelic.com

Why Do You Need New Relic?

For consistent functionality, every app requires a connection with the backend. Thus, developers should emphasize the backend operations while creating the app. You cannot find a single app with zero bugs. So, you need New Relic to dig deep into the errors and look for real-time solutions, not based on opinions but on user data.
New Relic is a scalable solution that brings innovative data-driven engineering solutions to the marketplace. With approx 2200 employees working across the 18 global offices, New Relic has earned approximately $768M in the FY 2022. It offers developers and engineers the tools to base a data-driven approach to all phases of the software lifecycle.

What is Magento 2?

Magento is an eCommerce website platform owned by Adobe. It offers a wide range of plug-ins and themes to its users. It is one of the top ecommerce platforms in the United States. The rate of usage is increasing all across the globe. Approx 250K websites already use the Magento platform. It is based on open-source technology, allowing users to manage their online eCommerce store's functionality, content, and overall look. Moreover, it offers a variety of features and tools like SEO, Catalogue, and marketing management. If you want to develop a scalable Marketplace solution, you should choose Magento.

Magento 2 is an updated version of Magento. With the evolution of the ecommerce business, the demand for Magento 2 is on the rise.

Why Magento 2 for eCommerce business?

Magento 2 is suitable for eCommerce business for the following reasons:

• Powerful and feature-rich platforms.
• SEO friendly
• Faster loading speed
• Flexible Content Management
• Highly Optimized.
• Advanced Reporting Support
• It is compatible with third-party tools and payment gateway extensions. It is also compatible with databases, varied PHP frameworks, and cloud and web services.
• Offers a supportive community that will help you navigate issues
• One-step, accessible checkout facility

Magento 2 differs from Magento in terms of flexible website architecture, engaging UX, efficient business experiences, 50% faster loading time, and easier maintenance and upgrades.

Why You Should Go for Magento 2 New Relic Integration?

There is a vast possibility of undertaking Magento 2 New Relic Integration.

• Thorough Visibility - Setup a new Relic into your Magento 2 site and easily monitor key metrics like database performance, response times, and page load duration. Complete clarity on the website performance is possible when you can track the user activities on your site, such as which elements they have interacted with and how frequently they have visited your site. This makes way for comprehensive site visibility. Further, the user-friendly dashboards of New Relic are what you must try to analyze and visualize user data.

• Performance Optimisation - Integrating New Relic and Magento 2 helps optimize website performance. You can also find bottlenecks that may hinder the growth of the website's performance. Given that business growth and expansion are based on data-driven decisions, New Relic offers an innovative solution contributing to the data-driven approach the contemporary ecommerce business is up to. Optimizing performance also requires addressing issues at the correct time. So, the data provided by New Relic makes it easier to trace the errors and brainstorm the right solution.

• Easy Installation Process- One of the main reasons behind the easy installation process of New Relic is its cloud-based service. You don't have to worry about the expenses of its physical infrastructure. It is as simple as creating a basic app; however, the tech stack may differ. The cloud-based nature of the New Relic infrastructure also makes it much more secure than other on-premise infrastructure.
  You may experience a challenge while installing a PHP agent related to New Relic on Magento 2 sites. In this regard, you may take assistance from reliable Magento 2 developers.

• Improved User Satisfaction - Apart from providing data on critical metrics, integrating New Relic on Magento 2 sites maximizes user satisfaction. The New Relic is meant to enhance the user experience.
  You can set performance targets on New Relic's dashboards. It will notify you regarding achieving the performance targets and inform you of the existing bottlenecks. Guided by real-time data, you and your team can work on its improvement. This way, you can achieve greater customer satisfaction and engagement on your sites.

• Quick Identification of Errors - Data-driven businesses grow rapidly rather than instinct-based or opinionated. Given that New Relic is a real-time performance monitoring software, it offers code-level visibility. This further lets you check the performance of your code and identify the inefficiency of your code. Also, custom dashboards and error-alert systems automate the error-tracking process.
  The new Relic also has a transaction-tracing functionality that will let you monitor transactions through the app stack. This enables you to become familiar with bottlenecks and optimize online store performance.

• Easy Accessibility of Data Logs - The seamless logging functionalities of New Relic make the integration fruitful for the owners of Magento 2 websites. In addition to your user experience, you would also like to get a detailed analysis of your Magento 2 sites. Right? On that note, the data log management offered by New Relic software can be helpful. It provides detailed information on the data logs and insights from the dashboard that can drive innovation, agility, and alignment. Thus, try the new relic browser setup on your Magento 2 site to get better visibility of the purchase process.
  The following image shows data logs on New Relic’s dashboard.

Source: newrelic.com

• Increased Revenue - As the New Relic software is built to automate data tracking and analysis, combining this software with your eCommerce Magento 2 site can improve the customer experience. Taking a random approach to enhance your business doesn't work these days. You should be confirmed on your decision. Customer satisfaction is the prime concern of all ecommerce businesses. Get real-time data on the issues your customers are facing. This will improve visibility and is a potential solution to increase revenue.

How to Setup New Relic with Magento 2 sites?

Now, let's discuss the crucial part of the article, i.e., the guide to integrating New Relic with Magento 2. Follow along.
Step 1: Visit the official site of New Relic and set up a new account. You can skip this step if you already have an account on the New Relic site.
Step 2: Keep track of your Account ID, New Relic API URL, Insights API URL, and Application ID. You will need this in the following configurations.
Step 3: Install the New Relic software on the server. Ensure you are using the updated version of the New Relic PHP agent.

Step 4: Open the admin panel of Magento 2 and log into it. Then go to Stores → Settings → Configuration
Step 5: Find the General tab on the panel and press the ‘New Relic Reporting’ option. Now, visit the General section.
Step 6: Activate the option for New Relic Integration.

Step 7: As you can see in the General section, add the New Relic Account ID instead of the ‘%’ in the ‘Insights API URL’ section.
Step 8: Add the Insights API URL, Application ID, Account ID, and New Relic API URL.

Step 9: Insert a suitable name in the New Relic Application Name section. This will display in the admin panel.
Step 10: You may send Frontend and Adminhtml as individual applications.
Step 11: Go to the Cron section and activate it. This way, you get the New Relic Reporting functionality.
Step 12: Don’t forget to save the configured page once done.
Step 13: Now, the New Relic setup is done. You can check the key transactions on your site, track the transaction throughput, and find bottlenecks, if any.

To Wrap Up

For an eCommerce business, every day is profitable if you move towards maximizing user experience. You need to understand the performance of your mobile, web, and all digital channels through which you communicate with your customers. With the New Relic setup on your Magento 2 site, you can understand the detailed performance of your site through real-time data monitoring operations. This provides enough scope to quickly fix errors, allowing unhindered activity on your eCommerce storefront.