Jawed Iqbal - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager of Systems at Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
A stable solution for monitoring resources and resource utilization
Pros and Cons
  • "Technical support is good and helpful...The initial setup is easy."
  • "The scalability could be improved as there are some limitations."

What is our primary use case?

Azure Monitor helps monitor resources to get alerts on the usage or incident's generation. One can also use it to log the events in the event's hub or analyze them through Azure Log Analytics workspace and SIEM tools available to analyze your resource utilization.

What is most valuable?

The logs, analytics, alerts, and Azure Log Analytics workspace are valuable features in Azure Monitor.

What needs improvement?

Improvement is a continuous process, and Azure Monitor should keep improving the solution per the evolving trend and technologies. The scalability could be improved as there are some limitations.

For how long have I used the solution?

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

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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution. I rate its stability a nine out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a scalable solution but needs some improvement because of its policies.

Azure Monitor is useful at the enterprise level because it already has many resource monitoring solutions.

I rate its scalability an eight out of ten.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is good and helpful as the services they provide us are based on the SLA we have with them.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easy. Those who opt for Azure Monitor should use it as per needs. For example, one can use it to monitor resources, administrative operations, or log events. The solution was deployed on the cloud.

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

My company is okay with the current pricing of the solution.

What other advice do I have?

I recommend the product to those planning to use it. I rate the overall product an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Automated Tester & Test Manager & AnalystSenior at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 5
It has tons of valuable features, and we are able to detect database performance issues with its help
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution has tons of valuable features."
  • "They should include advanced logging on the database level in the Azure pool."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution for Application Insights logging, Database logging, etc. We also use it to analyze charts on the dashboard to get an overview of the issues found in the logs. The solution helps us in monitoring, analytics, and logging.

How has it helped my organization?

With the solution's help, we can detect database performance issues, like which tables are missing in the indexes on some columns, etc. It helps us monitor timeout in the database, such as performance issues of the queries. If the queries timeout in five minutes, we can analyze the problem with the help of Application Insights. We can detect the problem of a specific step or reason responsible for letting the application fail or crash. For example, if the application crashes during Selenium's end-to-end test on the UI, we can find the reason by going through the logs.

What is most valuable?

The solution has tons of valuable features.

What needs improvement?

They should include advanced logging on the database level in the Azure pool. Presently, we are not able to catch the transaction logs. The preview mode is available only for dedicated SQL servers and not for a database pool. They should improve this particular area of the solution. 

They should add a built-in feature for tracing the request and responses. Currently, it does not get measured automatically, and we need to write down the custom solution to check the request and the responses in the logs. They should create a log utility to log the request and send it to the Application Insights in the integration as a custom attribute. 

There should be default parameters and headers, which we can customize. It'll be beneficial because, at present, we only have responses, but not the requests. It is the solution's downside.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using the solution for six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate the solution's stability as a five for the European region and ten for other regions.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I rate the solution's scalability as a ten.

How was the initial setup?

A part of the setup process was straightforward. At the same time, a part of the process required some guidance because the Azure monitor evolves constantly. Most of the time, the blog post or guidance article on how to set up gets outdated quickly. Sometimes many things don't work as expected or as written in the Microsoft documentation.

What other advice do I have?

If you have a solution built on Microsoft technology, go for Azure Monitor. I rate it as a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
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Azure Monitor
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Azure Monitor. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
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Senior Solutions Specialist (Network & Security) at Ooredoo Qatar
Real User
Top 20
Excellent visibility options but integration could be better
Pros and Cons
  • "Azure Monitor's best features are its graphs and charts, the different visibility options, and reporting."
  • "Azure Monitor's integration with applications could be improved."

What is our primary use case?

I mainly use Azure Monitor to monitor my WordPress site for availability, performance, and error logs.

How has it helped my organization?

Azure Monitor provides visibility and proactive alerts, which means that if anything happens, I get automated alerts from the performance monitoring tool and can fix the problem.

What is most valuable?

Azure Monitor's best features are its graphs and charts, the different visibility options, and reporting.

What needs improvement?

Azure Monitor's integration with applications could be improved. There is limited support in terms of what it can monitor, and the connectors are built in a way that only monitors a specific area. In the next release, Azure Monitor should improve its visibility features, especially for WordPress websites.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Azure Monitor for over a year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Azure Monitor is very stable - I'd rate its stability ten out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Azure Monitor is very scalable - I'd rate its scalability ten out of ten.

How are customer service and support?

Microsoft's technical support is ok, but its response time is quite high, and you have to buy very expensive support to get a better response time.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

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

I previously worked with SolarWinds and ManageEngine, but both were developed for on-premise environments.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward, and deployment took around thirty minutes. I would rate the process nine out of ten.

What about the implementation team?

I implemented Azure Monitor myself.

What was our ROI?

Given its low price, Azure Monitor gives good ROI.

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

Azure Monitor's price is minimal to the point of being almost negligible. I would rate its pricing eight out of ten.

What other advice do I have?

Azure Monitor is simple and cost-effective, but make sure that it can provide you with the information you're looking for, the right metrics, and what you need in advanced and application monitoring. I would give Azure Monitor a rating of seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

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

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Senior Manager at Accenture
Real User
Helps to monitor applications and deliver dashboards but could be better at reading logs in the database
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a move-in powerful feature compared to other market-leading tools."
  • "The solution should have cross-connection or cross-communication between tech partners."

What is most valuable?

We use this solution for recording the logs and generating dashboards using Azure broad view insights. It is a great solution.

What needs improvement?

The solution should have cross-connection or cross-communication between tech partners. For example, it should be able to read the logs in the database and GCP environment by enabling a couple of hooks to collect information from cloud vendors to Azure Insights.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Azure Monitor is scalable, and we have not encountered any issues.

How are customer service and support?

We have used Microsoft support for one or two usages regarding our area integrations. We already have some education with Microsoft Azure, and I believe a couple of engineers from Microsoft work on the technical support.

What other advice do I have?

It is a move-in powerful feature compared to other market-leading tools. It has the capability to not only monitor your applications but also deliver dashboards. We can pinpoint different areas for improvement and it provides the ability to identify precisely what dash metrics are failing. It is introspective on contextual logging and delivers good dashboards. This helps senior management manage, alert, debug and look at operational insights.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Lokesh Goyal - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at Infosys
MSP
Top 10
Straightforward to implement with good monitoring and good reliability
Pros and Cons
  • "You can scale the product."
  • "They need to work with other cloud providers - not just Azure."

What is our primary use case?

I use Azure Monitors and Azure monitoring to monitor our applications.

It is used for balancing how your servers are working and how your servers are responding to the end user in the form of your inputs and output responses, your gate input responses and post request, and how your server is working about the workload, et cetera. We can monitor all of this by using Azure monitoring tools. There are some application insights also that we can use to put in more detailed metrics as related to the logs and the failure of the servers, and downtime, et cetera.

What is most valuable?

We like the monitoring. We can look for the downtimes and look at the log to see whenever there is a crash and all the information around it.

It's very straightforward to set up.

The solution is stable.

You can scale the product.

The pricing is less than Dynatrace.

What needs improvement?

They need to work with other cloud providers - not just Azure. We'd like them to work with clouds such as GCP, AWS, and Alibaba, for example. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution for quite a long while, however, recently we moved from on-premise to the cloud. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's quite stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable.

How are customer service and support?

I've never used technical support. I can't speak to how helpful or responsive they would be. 

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

We are moving our applications to Azure Web Apps.

Earlier we used Dynatrace, however, it was quite costly.

How was the initial setup?

The solution is very straightforward. It's very easy to implement. 

We can use different services by Azure, such as virtual machines or Web Apps. These are all quite frequently deployed and it's not difficult. 

What about the implementation team?

We handle the initial setup in-house. 

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

I'm not concerned about the pricing. Actually that is handled by a different team.

It is a pay-as-you-go service. We pay as needed.

What other advice do I have?

I'm not sure which version of the solution we're using. A centralized team handles that aspect.

I'd recommend the solution to others. 

I'd rate the product eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior System Administrator at BCBS of Kansas City
Real User
Good and stable for collecting data and monitoring the environment and the infrastructure
Pros and Cons
  • "Azure Monitor is really just a source for Dynatrace. It's just collecting data and monitoring the environment and the infrastructure. It is fairly good at that."
  • "There are a lot of things that take more time to do, such as charting, alerting, and correlation of data, and things like that. Azure Monitor doesn't tell you why something happened. It just tells you that it happened. It should also have some type of AI. Environments and applications are becoming more and more complex every day with hundreds or thousands of microservices. Therefore, having to do a lot of the stuff manually takes a lot of time, and on top of that, troubleshooting issues takes a lot of time. The traditional method of troubleshooting doesn't really work for or apply to this environment we're in. So, having an AI-based system and the ability to automate deployments of your monitoring and configurations makes it much easier."

What is our primary use case?

We're using Azure Monitor end connection as a hybrid model where it's integrated into Dynatrace. Azure Monitor monitors the infrastructure of Azure within our cloud environment. It doesn't give you any explanations or anything like that. It's just metrics, just data. We've integrated this data into Dynatrace so that the Dynatrace system and AI can give accurate response times, performance on metrics, and things like that. 

What is most valuable?

Azure Monitor is really just a source for Dynatrace. It's just collecting data and monitoring the environment and the infrastructure. It is fairly good at that.

What needs improvement?

There are a lot of things that take more time to do, such as charting, alerting, and correlation of data, and things like that. Azure Monitor doesn't tell you why something happened. It just tells you that it happened. 

It should also have some type of AI. Environments and applications are becoming more and more complex every day with hundreds or thousands of microservices. Therefore, having to do a lot of the stuff manually takes a lot of time, and on top of that, troubleshooting issues takes a lot of time. The traditional method of troubleshooting doesn't really work for or apply to this environment we're in. So, having an AI-based system and the ability to automate deployments of your monitoring and configurations makes it much easier.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Azure Monitor for nine months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's pretty stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I haven't scaled it. We're still building things.

How are customer service and technical support?

I didn't personally have to deal with them. I did contact them once or twice earlier on. It was okay. It seemed like the usual Microsoft kind of approach. You submit an email and all of your information, and then you get a response back the next day. I'm sure it would be better if you had a support plan, but I don't know that specifically.

How was the initial setup?

There needs to be a better process or method to deploy and configure it. Currently, there's a lot of manual intervention. It is not really an out-of-the-box solution.

If you want to get help, you will have to pay for it. Otherwise, you just do it on your own. The problem with doing it on your own is that if you're not so familiar with it, then you have to first familiarize yourself with Azure and setting up different alerts, etc. You really don't get a whole lot of these complexities with Dynatrace.

What about the implementation team?

I wasn't a part of Azure deployment. My area of focus is Application Performance Monitoring, and I was involved with that. For the rest of the Azure environment, there were several teams.

What other advice do I have?

There is Azure Monitor, and then there is Azure Application Insights, which is a component of Azure. Azure Application Insights does similar things as Dynatrace, but just not as good as Dynatrace. There's a lot of manual configuration for Azure Monitor and Application Insights, which isn't there with Dynatrace.

I would rate Azure Monitor an eight 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?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Vice President - Network Management at ADS Securities LLC
Real User
Top 20
A well-integrated solution with good troubleshooting features
Pros and Cons
  • "It has good troubleshooting features."
  • "If it is configured incorrectly, you can end up with a huge bill."

What is our primary use case?

We use this solution for basically everything. For example, we use it for infrastructure, application and resource monitoring.

What is most valuable?

It has good troubleshooting features like automated troubleshooting. It is also a flexible solution and a low-cost product. It includes all the features that are required for multi-cloud and public cloud.

What needs improvement?

If it is configured incorrectly, you can end up with a huge bill. Sometimes, a lot of data is collected and stored, and we may get charged for that kind of storage which is an issue.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for more than two years and are currently using the latest version. It is a cloud-based solution and deployed on public cloud. Our cloud provider is Microsoft Azure.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's stable and constantly updated with new features and functionalities.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable and can scale to any size. Five people use this solution in our organization, primarily administrators, DevOps and security personnel. It requires about two to three people for deployment and maintenance. We have dedicated people from the monitoring team that do this. We plan to expand the number of users eventually.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is quite responsive. Microsoft support is pretty good. I rate the technical support an eight out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward and not complex. Deployment took a couple of days, and it was deployed in-house.

What was our ROI?

We have seen an ROI. It is a helpful tool and provides proactive information about the infrastructure.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate other options. Azure Monitor is one of the most non-native tools from Microsoft, and it's well-integrated.

What other advice do I have?

I rate this solution an eight out of ten. I recommend this solution to others. They should try Azure Monitor to see if it fits their requirements gradually. Additionally, there isn't a lot of upfront investment required to set it up.

The configuration could be improved in the next release because it takes a little time. However, they regularly update their scalability and features.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Shivam Saraiya - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Specialist at Diebold Nixdorf
Real User
Effective support, beneficial custom queries, but network performance monitoring could improve
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features of Azure Monitor are the login analytics workspace and we can write any kind of custom queries in order to receive the data that is inserted into the login analytics workspace, diagnostic settings, et cetera."
  • "Azure Monitor could improve network performance monitoring and make it more advanced."

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features of Azure Monitor are the login analytics workspace and we can write any kind of custom queries in order to receive the data that is inserted into the login analytics workspace, diagnostic settings, et cetera.

What needs improvement?

Azure Monitor could improve network performance monitoring and make it more advanced.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Azure Monitor for more than two years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I would rate the scalability of Azure Monitor a six out of ten.

It might be a case that there are certain services that are not available in other regions, but it's available in certain regions. You can face certain issues in one place and not another. You can't implement the same solution in all the regions. However, it might be a limitation of the cloud provider.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is good. In terms of supportability, Microsoft gives a good level of support if the company has a business account and an enterprise level of support. I believe that could be sufficient.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of Azure Monitor was in the middle range of difficulty.

What about the implementation team?

We did the implementation of this solution. We have automated everything using the infrastructure or provisioned.

There is a team required for the maintenance and support of the solution.

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

The cost of Azure Monitor application performance should be less expensive.

What other advice do I have?

My advice would be if you can maintain the configurations that you have done, and if you have automated it, then Azure Monitor would be the best solution. The support is anyways good, but if you do not want to maintain the overhead of operations, then it should be outsourced.

I rate Azure Monitor 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
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Azure Monitor Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Azure Monitor Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.