Nowadays the use of cloud services have increased exponentially and as it has been proving very beneficial to the companies in terms of managing the whole data, hence, a greater number of companies are opting for this service. Companies hire AWS developers to run their business process on the cloud. Now it has become the responsibility of the cloud-service providers to ensure that the things are going well at the cloud-infrastructure end. And here comes the role of Cloud computing monitoring models which manage, monitor, and assess the overall performance of the computing infrastructure and its applications. So, let us first understand cloud computing and monitoring.
WHAT IS CLOUD MONITORING?
It refers to a process where manual as well as automated tools are used to manage, keep a check, evaluate the cloud computing infrastructure and architecture. This process helps to gain the observance, review the process, and accordingly predict the performance by actually drilling into each and every part of the set-up. When the companies go for cloud services, they Hire Full Time Developers who can work upon the system regularly. So, it is very important for them to invest in the cloud monitoring tools as well to ensure that their investment is worth it.
This overall analysis helps to understand the on-going patterns, if there are any emerging defects or irregular patterns occurring in the work. Thus, the companies which hire a developer can timely take an action and work upon the same before it’s actual occurrence as a major problem in the system. Companies hire AWS experts in order to have a control on the computing process of the business functionalities which makes it more manageable.
BEST CLOUD COMPUTING MONITORING TOOLS:
There are plenty of options available in the market for the cloud monitoring tools. Each of them have their own features, pros as well as cons. Some are good in monitoring aspects, and some are good in presenting the observance result in the form of different metrics and patterns. So, let’s go through different tool options in details as mentioned below:
1- Appdynamics
It is a tool which is available as an on-premises model as well as software-as-a-service. It is more directed for large enterprises and focuses on the management of application performance. It was acquired by Cisco in early 2017. It is considered a strong competitor of Datadog, SolarWinds, New Relic, CA Technologies and many more. Below mentioned are some of the other features of this tool.
Features:
a) Anomaly detection and Root cause analysis are the features which are supported by Machine Learning.
b) Assists in monitoring the high-level business transactions.
c) It supports maximum languages like .NET, Java, PHP, Node.js
d) Overall mapping the application automatically.
e) Monitors the whole infrastructure which includes databases, servers, network components etc.
f) Monitoring the end-user with the mobile and browser and also monitoring the internet of things.
g) Business oriented graphics, stats and dashboards are the major features which helps in analysis of the problem and issues.
Pros:
a) Detects real time corporate transactions
b) Visibility up to code level along with visibility into application and server.
c) Proactive alerts to resolve the problem at priority.
d) For the JVM based stack there are features like tracking object instance and automatic detection of any leak.
e) The complications are injected quicker comparatively.
Cons:
a) Even in their lowest paid plan, the basic metrics of system, CPU or memory is not included.
b) Compatible with only limited languages.
c) It is very expensive, is non-transparent and complex as well.
d) Special training is required to understand the dashboards.
2- Sematext Cloud
It is an on-premises solution and provides visibility of full stack through a glass pane by getting together the monitoring of infrastructure and application. It enables us to identify the problem easily and then resolve the same at the earliest. The auto-discovery feature of this tool enables automatic scanning through the user interface. Some of the other features are given here,
Features:
a) Along with native Sematext UI, Kibana is also integrated.
b) Monitoring of network, databases, processes and inventory.
c) Alerts and dashboards are available in both, unique as well as customizable form.
d) Complete visibility is possible through synthetic monitoring as well as real-user monitoring.
e) In and out log management with other features like full text search, IBM cloud, IBM cloud AWS S3 and many more.
f) Real time update and view on how the components of the application are interacting with each other.
g) Dashboarding capabilities are very strong graphically.
Pros:
a) It is quite quick to set up and even start the logs of shipping
b) The customer care support is ultimate through email, phone, and call.
c) It is open-sourced, light weight and agents are easily pluggable.
d) Free trials of 30 days are available and then the pricing is also generous.
e) The performance matrix and logs are easily co-relatable.
f) ChatOps Integrations are built-in features.
g) Option of multiple locations is given to make a choice of territory where the data is stored.
Cons:
a) Absence of mobile application.
b) Tracing the transaction is supported to an extent only.
c) Full featured profiler is missing in the tool.
3- Datadog
It is a SaaS based cloud monitoring tool and provides extensive features to monitor the network, logs, containers, applications, infrastructure, and other relevant parts. It is used by all the sizes of organizations and caters to a wide variety of industries as well. This helps in easy digital transformation and cloud collaboration which ultimately helps in resolving the problem at a faster pace. Some of the other features of this tool are given below,
Features:
a) Quite easy to set up and get the unique dashboards.
b) Real time tracking of real users as well as synthetic users.
c)The logs are centralized and easy to analyze.
d) Easy monitoring of the host and the network.
e) Monitoring the performance of cloud applications with numerous integrations and distributed support of tracing and tracking.
f) Have fully supported 450+ integrations which are built-in Datadog
g) Seamless coordination among different parameters of performance measurement which are metric, logs, and traces.
h) Pre-alerting feature with the Machine Learning process.
i) Team based discussions can easily be conducted through collaboration tools.
Pros:
a) Data Interaction is enabled through the respective APIs.
b) Quite insightful and flexible features of data analysis along with the customized dashboards.
c) Easy monitoring of the infrastructure which includes, networks, servers, containers, processes.
d) Provides a solution of full observability that includes metrics, logs, real users, synthetics, and security.
Cons:
a) Lacks the number of pre-built dashboards as compared to others.
b) The installation processes needed something beyond the normal metrics, so it is quite overwhelming for the newcomers.
4- Site 24×7
It is a tool which is basically for monitoring the cloud serv
a) In-built automatic fault-resolution systems ease the problem-solving time.
b) Monitoring the firewall, switches, routers, load balancers, storage support and UPS.
ices for AWS (Amazon Web Services), Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure. This shows that this tool manages a multi-cloud environment from a single space only and that too without switching the pages. Other features are listed down for Site 24×7:
Features:
a) Theis cloud monitoring supports hybrid cloud infrastructure.
b) The logs can be managed from all cloud resources, VMs in a centralized manner.
c) The interface has a simple drag and drop option, along with different widgets for visualization.
d) Monitoring the server with the help of Linux and Microsoft Windows and approx. 50 common pins for technology.
Pros:
a) It offers free trial of 30 days
b) The installation is quite quick and easy
c) Single tool can manage a multi-cloud environment.
d) Monitoring through pluggable server which also allows you to create your own plugin as required.
e) Alerting support is there to deal with the complex issues.
f) Through visibility of the performance of the website.
Cons:
a) Huge number of features can always be overwhelming for the users.
b) Constraint of having limited technologies in terms of monitoring the server.
c) When setting up in a larger environment then it consumes a lot of time.
5- Amazon Cloudwatch
It is a tool which is basically for those who are using the Amazon Web Services. This tool can be used to monitor the infrastructure, services, Cloud resource usage and the numerous applications running on AWS. It allows users to have a quick monitoring and give details about the insights of the overall performance. Some of the other features are listed below:
Features:
a) Anomaly detection and pre-alert system
b) Pay only for what one is using
c) Very in-depth understanding of the WS resources.
d) One can get all the information from a single platform only.
e) The mean time of resolution is decreased, and total cost of ownership is increased.
Pros:
a) Amazon Web Service users get unique and updated services.
b) Information regarding graph billing and that too is under control.
c) The automated activities and troubleshooting issues increase the performance of the application.
d) Logs, metrics and events include all nutshell of overall data.
Cons:
a) The interface is not very user-friendly.
b) The dashboards can be customized only to an extent.
c) Even if one selects the paid service, metrics granularity is limited.
d) The visualization capabilities are also limited.
CONCLUSION:
Other than the tools which are mentioned above, we have plenty of other tools available in the market. But the ones which we discussed above are the best among all and have their own distinguishing features. So, now the company has to judge these tools as per their requirements, if it fits into their budget, are they solving their prime requirement or not. All of the tools help in gathering the observance and information regarding the on-going process but all of them have their own approach so which one suits you better is the factor which can help you to decide upon the cloud monitoring tool.
