Leonard Onojedje - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Engineer at Oxdit Technologies
Real User
Top 5
It has alerts that notify us when resource use is approaching the limit
Pros and Cons
  • "The alarms are one thing I love about AWS CloudWatch. It has alerts that notify us when resource use is approaching the limit."
  • "The graphical interface has room for improvement. CloudWatch only gives you a breakdown of what's wrong. However, it would be nice if it could automatically remedy the problems it identifies. You should be able to configure it so that when a specific condition arises, it will take a predefined action."

What is our primary use case?

We use CloudWatch to monitor our infrastructure and resources, such as bandwidth, etc. It comes with the AWS package we use, and it's easier when all your services come from one vendor. 

What is most valuable?

The alarms are one thing I love about AWS CloudWatch. It has alerts that notify us when resource use is approaching the limit. 

What needs improvement?

The graphical interface has room for improvement. CloudWatch only gives you a breakdown of what's wrong. However, it would be nice if it could automatically remedy the problems it identifies. You should be able to configure it so that when a specific condition arises, it will take a predefined action.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using CloudWatch for two years.

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How was the initial setup?

I rate AWS CloudWatch nine out of 10 for ease of setup. Deployment is practically instant. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price is worth it because it saves you money in the long run. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate AWS CloudWatch nine out of 10. It gives me an idea about my resources through logs, metrics, etc. I recommend it. It's easy to understand, with graphs showing the services running on your applications and the resources they're consuming. You can also track your billings, and identify the services consuming too many resources and terminate instances if necessary. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Principal Cloud Security Consultant at Pegasystems
Real User
Top 5
The product is very stable and enables users to set alerts, but the technical support must be improved
Pros and Cons
  • "We can set CPU thresholds using the solution."
  • "The technical support must be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution to set alerts. We can set up thresholds to trigger alerts if an instance in AWS reaches the threshold value. Based on the alerts, we check the issue in the instance.

What is most valuable?

We can set CPU thresholds using the solution.

What needs improvement?

The technical support must be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for more than two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The tool is very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have more than 600 customers hosted in the AWS environment.

How are customer service and support?

Recently, we faced a payment issue in AWS. Our payments were not happening through the default account. My organization contacted the support team. Sometimes, we get good support. Sometimes, we do not get good support.

How was the initial setup?

We have the complete documentation to set up AWS. We use Confluence for our documents. The steps to set up AWS are clearly mentioned in the documentation.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution charges $0.09 for 1GB of data we store in AWS.

What other advice do I have?

We use AWS for our infrastructure. Overall, I rate the product a six out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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May 2024
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Shaamil Ashraff - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect - Database Administration at Mitra Innovation
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Robust, easy to use, and good monitoring
Pros and Cons
  • "We have found the pricing to be reasonable."
  • "I do not know whether or not CloudWatch can be integrated with on-prem services."

What is our primary use case?

The majority of the use cases are monitoring of all the AWS services, which can be integrated into CloudWatch. Also, the application logs also can be integrated. Due to that, if there are multiple instances they can be monitored through CloudWatch. The monitoring can be automated as well. It has automated thresholds that can be set for alerting. Therefore, we use CloudWatch for monitoring and incident alerts.

What is most valuable?

It's simple to use. It's not complex. The simplicity of the configuration is great. The product is also easy to set up.

It's stable.

The scalability is good.

We have found the pricing to be reasonable.

The technical support is good. 

The dashboards and monitoring have been great. It's user-friendly. 

It offers good security in general. 

What needs improvement?

We haven't come across any shortcomings. 

The costs could always be cheaper. 

I do not know whether or not CloudWatch can be integrated with on-prem services. I would like to see, for example, if it's a hybrid environment, that potential, however, I'm not quite sure whether it's available or not. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution for eight months. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I haven't come across any unavailability of CloudWatch monitoring services. It's a very stable solution. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. I have a total of three clients that I'm managing. All three clients are using CloudWatch as well.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is very good. 

How was the initial setup?

The solution is very simple to set up. It's not overly difficult or complex. It's also easy to configure. 

How long it takes to deploy depends. CloudWatch is just a click away, however, integrating other services into CloudWatch, takes time and it all depends on what kind of complex scenarios you need to monitor. It's an iterative thing. For example, when we pinup other parameters that we are going to monitor on CloudWatch, it all takes different time limits and it takes a little bit of learning of the specific application. We cannot actually tell, on the implementation level, how long it will take. We cannot give a specific time range. However, activating CloudWatch is a few minutes and just a few clicks. 

You don't need additional staff for configuration, you would need only one. Of course, it all depends on their specialty. For example, if a person who's doing a program would like to integrate into CloudWatch, that specific specialized person would know what needs to be done. The DBA would want to send some monitoring parameters into CloudWatch, so that person would do that part of it. CloudWatch is segregated into different roles. It's not the same person most of the time who does all the configuration. 

What was our ROI?

There is a clear return on investment. You can reduce a lot of manual staff and physical staff monitoring. You can get CloudWatch to do that work for you and you can save a lot based on that.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The cost is all based on usage and processing. There's no separate licensing cost request.

What other advice do I have?

I'd recommend the solution. Whoever is using Amazon services has to consider using CloudWatch as a bundled solution so that the systems are properly monitored and notified. If anybody is using any other Amazon services, they definitely should consider using CloudWatch. That's my recommendation.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. It's a robust service. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Implementer
PeerSpot user
Sourabh Pardhi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Information Security Analyst at Everbridge
Real User
Top 5
Provides valuable monitoring features and documentation, and the support team is helpful
Pros and Cons
  • "The monitoring feature is valuable."
  • "The product should provide more features."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for monitoring the traffic. We analyze any suspicious traffic detected by AWS.

What is most valuable?

The monitoring feature is valuable. AWS provides a detailed document of how CloudWatch works and how we can integrate and utilize it. We get a summary of all the logs explained in the documentation.

What needs improvement?

The product should provide more features.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for one and a half years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate the tool’s stability a nine out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I rate the tool’s scalability a nine out of ten. Almost 100 people from three to four teams use the solution in our organization.

How are customer service and support?

We have reached out to the support team a few times. The technical support is very good. Sometimes, we don’t even have to reach out to the team. If they detect any issue, they email us about it.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was quite easy.

What was our ROI?

I have seen an ROI on the solution.

What other advice do I have?

People who want to use the solution can follow the AWS documentation for configuring the product. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Technical project lead at a tech consulting company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Impressive stability but the storage-based pricing model can be expensive
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution effectively monitors golden signals like CPU, page requests, and queues."
  • "The solution's integration could be easier for laypersons."

What is our primary use case?

Our company used the solution for a project that included data message and data lake architecture, performance testing, and an engineering solution to monitor virtual machines or the S3 bucket. 

The solution monitored key performance indicators for almost all services including Aurora, Fargate, Lambda, Snowflake NoSQL databases, and Sumo Logic.  

What is most valuable?

The solution effectively monitors golden signals like CPU, page requests, and queues. 

What needs improvement?

The solution's integration could be easier for laypersons. 

The solution should move from being a performance monitoring tool to a full stack content management system with a hybrid DPM tool that integrates front-end, browser-specific, and footprint-specific monitoring metrics and synthetics. 

The solution's interface could be improved to enhance user experience by including Kendo UI or React.js frameworks. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for four years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is quite impressive with a 99% availability rate. 

The solution uses metrics and measurements to scale data which then gets routed to a NQ at an Amazon data center. 

Data on the front end takes time to appear because of how the solution is designed. The UI interface takes some time to refresh large volumes of data so on occasion there is a lag. 

I rate stability an eight out of ten. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is based purely on your stack and requirements. 

Our project involved processing billions of records and performance expectancy was 99% which is pretty impressive. 

I rate scalability an eight out of ten. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was a bit complex because we were new to AWS. 

It took us time to integrate EHNs because we had difficulty discovering traffic and TCP connections. 

The KPIs that needed to be monitored were books of medium to high complexity. 

As we became more proficient, we progressed quickly but that always depends on the complexity of the stack. 

For example, Java is easy but .Net is complex because many services are not API exposed so they have their own DLS running on machines. 

What about the implementation team?

Our company worked with the client's IT operations team to implement the solution. 

More than ten architects worked both onsite and offshore to conduct engineering, performance testing, integrations, and monitoring. 

A big management team consisting of 30 onsite and offshore developers, QA technicians, and performance managers monitor the enterprise because it processes billions of records. These user groups have restricted access based on their roles. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing model is pay-as-you-go so you have to be mindful of usage to manage costs. 

Scalability is not limited because you can add components and integrations at any time.

Data gets stored on your EBS in RSN S3 buckets. Some free space is provided based on your configuration, but additional space is paid. Storage fees can be per unit or by the minute. 

The pricing model can get very expensive as the project's scope grows. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

The solution is expensive so a better option might be to use New Relic, Dynatrace, or Zabbix for open source monitoring. 

A central repository lock trail and analytics dashboard could be created in Tableau that stores metrics in one particular location and analyzes data using one particular dashboard. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate the solution a seven out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Emi Laetitia TAKOUDJOU FOKOU - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at Scasicomp
Consultant
Useful intrusion prevention, scalable, but assistance needed for installation
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is intrusion prevention."
  • "The solution could benefit from a price decrease."

What is our primary use case?

The solution is used for monitoring systems and for protection. For example, there are ransomware attacks and other threats that need to be secured.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is intrusion prevention.

What needs improvement?

The solution could benefit from a price decrease.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used Amazon CloudWatch within the last 12 months.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is stable.

We have approximately 10 people using Amazon CloudWatch in my organization.

How are customer service and support?

I have not used the support from Amazon CloudWatch.

What about the implementation team?

We used assistance for the implementation of the solution.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution is expensive.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Amazon CloudWatch a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
DevOps Engineer at Talabat
Real User
Good for infrastructure monitoring and workload monitoring on AWS, but doesn't support application monitoring and reports generation
Pros and Cons
  • "You can enable alarms and metrics, and it has robust integration with AWS services. You can also trigger events. For example, if the CPU utilization is above 80%, it can launch a new instance for you."
  • "For monitoring applications or for APM, CloudWatch has some limitations. You cannot monitor application performance from CloudWatch, and you have to go for a third-party tool."

What is our primary use case?

We are kind of consultants. We maintain our customers' environment on AWS. 

What is most valuable?

CloudWatch is good to use for infrastructure monitoring and workload monitoring on AWS. It is good for monitoring AWS infrastructure and services.

You can enable alarms and metrics, and it has robust integration with AWS services. You can also trigger events. For example, if the CPU utilization is above 80%, it can launch a new instance for you.

What needs improvement?

For monitoring applications or for APM, CloudWatch has some limitations. You cannot monitor application performance from CloudWatch, and you have to go for a third-party tool.

A major drawback of CloudWatch is that you cannot create reports. They should add the functionality for creating some reports so that the users can download those reports. Currently, you can see the old data, but you cannot generate reports. So, if some of our customers ask us for monthly or weekly reports, there is a limitation, and we have to go for a third-party tool to generate reports.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Amazon CloudWatch for two years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. You can do alarms, and you can send logs. 

We have many customers. We have enterprise customers, and we also have medium-sized customers.

How are customer service and technical support?

Their technical support is good. If you have AWS business support, AWS technical guys can support you a lot.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have worked with Datadog and New Relic. New Relic is pretty good in application performance. It gives you a lot of insights. Two of our customers use it.

How was the initial setup?

Its setup is easy. AWS documentation is there, and you can find a lot of guidance on it. You can configure it easily.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Its pricing is reasonable. It is sometimes tricky, but it is reasonable as compared to others.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend it depending on what a customer wants to achieve or what is the requirement for monitoring. 

I would rate Amazon CloudWatch a six out of 10.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
PeerSpot user
Olhbe456 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Infrastructure/Systems Admin at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Stable platform with efficient cloud monitoring features
Pros and Cons
  • "The product helps us collect and store various metrics to set test alarms."
  • "Amazon CloudWatch's pricing needs improvement."

What is our primary use case?

We use the product to monitor resources for reporting purposes. It alerts us when we are required to scale up resources.

What is most valuable?

The product helps us collect and store various metrics to set test alarms. The metrics allow us to apply the configuration changes in our environment.

What needs improvement?

Amazon CloudWatch's pricing needs improvement.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Amazon CloudWatch for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The product is very stable.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup process is easy.

What was our ROI?

The product generates a return on investment.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The product's cost is relatively inexpensive.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Amazon CloudWatch an eight out of ten. I recommend the product if you want a system to monitor the resources. It provides proper metrics and manages workload efficiently. It offers features for real-time cloud monitoring. You can view the activities on the network set for a specific timeline.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free Amazon CloudWatch Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: May 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Amazon CloudWatch Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.