Software Developer at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Easy to manage with nice dashboard but has a steep learning curve
Pros and Cons
  • "Technical support has always been quick to respond."
  • "Due to the fact that you doing a lot, you have a problem with the learning curve. We're really looking for ways to make this product more accessible."

What is our primary use case?

The solution is primarily used for user happiness monitoring. Basically, we look at how well we'll use it to run some arbitrary metrics over the website's behavior. I'm trying to understand how the user experience is going. Therefore, we're doing user experience monitoring. We're also using it for monitoring and listening, where we fire off specific test cases against that site with it. 

Typically, it does quite a lot. We can also do health monitoring of the actual service hosts, and servers, and dependencies.

Dynatrace provides us with the ability to actually map out the whole ecosystem and our websites and services that exist within it. You have that whole picture even though it's now a distributed network of products and things. We use Dynatrace to just monitor the health of that ecosystem and manage, and identify where the dependencies are. In doing that, we can also look at hotspot monitoring, so that we can determine bottlenecks within our system. We can use it to follow metrics to help us figure out how fast things should occur, to identify slowdowns of speed - or potential slowdowns - which can cause us to have those little mysterious bugs where suddenly the user experience drops out because something three or four levels down is not behaving itself.

Basically, it's a lot of use cases based on the user experience. There's lots of user monitoring. Lots of looking at where they're entering the sites from, where they're exiting the sites from. The behaviors can sometimes help us detect failures in our overall user experience. It's a lot of user experience management that's assisted via AI. We can use AI to develop, identify, establish, buy, and build trends so that we can look forward to purchasing requirements. Ideally, the AI will make it that we can identify where the system is going to fail in the future. We're still working on that side of things, but we're getting there.

What is most valuable?

The ability to play back individual user sessions is very helpful. I can look at what people actually do when they interact with our product when I use that website.

The solution has a lot of use cases based around the user experience that helps us make a better product.

The AI is great. In the future, we hope it will help us predict problems before they arise.

They provide a lot of quite useful training equipment for training materials for it. 

The initial setup is pretty straightforward.

The solution is very easy to manage.

You can set access fairly easily so users can see only parts that are relevant to their roles.

The solution is quite stable.

The product scales well.

Technical support has always been quick to respond. 

It does do nice dashboards.

What needs improvement?

Due to the fact that you doing a lot, you have a problem with the learning curve. We're really looking for ways to make this product more accessible. That comes back to training and also having the information within the system presented well. Right now, quite a lot of time is spent learning the idioms of the system.

That said, they work very hard on taking the edge off it. However, the reality is that it will take time to learn. It does take time to come up to speed with this product. Most of the problems I've had are just a lack of familiarity with the product so far.

I haven't pushed it far enough to discover that my answers are not met by the product fully. I still need time to explore it before giving it a full review. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've personally been using the solution for about seven months or so. It's been less than a year so far.

Buyer's Guide
Dynatrace
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Dynatrace. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of the product is very good. It's rock-solid. there are no bugs or glitches. We haven't had any issues at all. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution can scale quite well.

Basically, the way it works is you put in it, you put an agent into each of the deployments you're using it to monitor, and then it just gathers data. It doesn't really impact the operations of things. The majority of its work is actually done by the parent in the cloud.

We have one or two administrators and various people in the company have various levels of access. We have quite a fine-grained control over what people can see, however, at the same time, we can provide some useful information to them to know what they need so that they can know what they actually do need to know to do their jobs.

How are customer service and support?

We haven't been in touch with technical support lately. However, when we have contacted them in the past, they have been helpful and responsive. We're quite pleased with their capabilities so far. 

How was the initial setup?

I wasn't actually involved in the deployment itself. It was a case of just coming in and seeing it was available for various use cases.

However, looking back, it's a relatively straightforward process. It's often as simple as installing an agent with your deployment, and it takes off from there. My understanding is the deployment was very seamless and quite quick.

There's definitely a maintenance contract with it. It's a case where you subscribe to it, and they provide regular updates. You've actually subscribed to a service and there's regular maintenance happening organically.

What about the implementation team?

We got a lot of support from the vendor. There was a lot of ongoing support from the vendor at that time.

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

The solution is a SaaS. If we were to stop paying the subscription entirely, the service would end shortly afterward, based on the contractual arrangements we have with them. Assuming we were not to renew our contract, the facility would just go away.

I was not a party to the actual license negotiations or costings. I can't fully answer to the exact cost, to any degree of certainty, other than to say it's not a free product. It's a business. I believe that we have been getting value for money. We do have to watch how we use it. We have to watch that the costs are not substantial. We do restrict where it's actually deployed and how it's deployed. That's part of our management strategy and that's kind of informed by a budget. That said, I'm not aware of the actual budget numbers.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

App Dynamics is a product in a similar space. 

It compares well to other instrumentation tools such as Prometheus and Grafana.

What other advice do I have?

We're a customer.

We tend to use the most up-to-date or stable version of the solution. 

I would recommend Dynatrace as an application performance management tool. It does its job quite well. I am able to see a wide range of the application I'm looking at, and what other applications it is interacting with. We do get quite a lot of information, which allows us to better understand what's going on. I would recommend exploring an IPM tool. I haven't used one of the IPM tools yet. 

I'd be interested to see how it handles a security event or security incident and event management. That is a bit of a gap for me at the moment. I'd love to know if it does that. There are other tools available, however, it is kind of nice to be able to sort of stop in one spot.  

I need to learn more about the tool. I was kind of running up against my limitations with the tool, rather than the limitations of the tool itself.

I'd rate it seven out of ten, simply due to the fact that I still need to explore it more. 

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?

Other
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
CEO at Rufusforyou
Reseller
An easy-to-install solution with weak integration capabilities
Pros and Cons
  • "If you look in the APM sector, it is a very nice package to install."
  • "The flexibility when it comes to integrating with other tools is very low."

What is our primary use case?

Our network and security managers used this solution. They had many problems with it because of the injection. 

What is most valuable?

If you look in the APM sector, it is a very nice package to install. It's very easy to install. It's also locked up. You can not do a lot of things yourself.

What needs improvement?

We were planning to use it to assess things from Jira, but after we installed Dynatrace, Jira was not working anymore because of the injections that were put in Jira — we could not integrate with Jira.

The flexibility when it comes to integrating with other tools is very low.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have not used it for a long time. We had problems with it so we used it for about six months and then we decided to throw it out the door.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's both scalable and stable. We've never had an issue.

How are customer service and technical support?

There is room for improvement, support-wise. We have a lot of experience in many different areas — I worked for years in the IT industry. I missed in-depth knowledge of audit tools. They know Dynatrace very well, but when it comes to solving problems, for example, in PeopleSoft, they don't know anything about PeopleSoft — that's what's causing the problem in my opinion. You need to know the tools to able to resolve the problems.

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

Yes, we had IBM Tivoli in place. We still use Tivoli — they were running at the same time. We wanted to compare the results from both tools.

APM is nice for application performance, but there are a lot more problems you need to resolve. You need a helicopter overview of the total environment. That's what we were missing from Dynatrace.

We stayed with the IBM solution (Netcool) but combined it with Riverbed. Netcool is a new tool that can do everything.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was very straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented it ourselves.

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

The pricing is a concern because the price of Dynatrace depends on how much memory is in a system. Our customers have systems with over 300 84 gigabytes of memory. In addition, you have to pay the head price, too.

What other advice do I have?

If you're not working within real big enterprise environments, then it's a nice tool to implement; however, if you have a huge assignment enterprise, then I think Dynatrace is not suitable and would be expensive.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of six.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Dynatrace
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Dynatrace. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user815277 - PeerSpot reviewer
Platform Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
I am confident in the tool's scalability because it easily deals with .NET Applets
Pros and Cons
  • "I like the PurePaths dashlet the most. This is mostly because as soon I open the PurePaths dashlet and sort by response time, there is the problem. Every time."
  • "I have never been more confident in a tool's scalability because I've seen how easy it is for it to deal with the .NET Applets."
  • "I would love to see a better data export, because AppMon's charting capabilities leaves a lot to be desired. You have about a 5,000 line limit. I would really like to see the ability to export, in Dynatrace and AppMon, in essentially in a nice format of whatever you want to whatever else."
  • "For AppMon, there is always room for improvement: charting, dashboarding, and user management."

What is our primary use case?

I mostly just onboard different applications in the company under the Dynatrace platform. Occasionally, they will have issues, then I use AppMon in order to tell them what the issue is. It usually is something simple: The URL, this particular service is slow, or your database is not responding correctly. 

It is performing well.

What is most valuable?

It is different for me than other users. I like the PurePaths dashlet the most. This is mostly because (and I can count a handful at times where this has not been this scenario) as soon I open the PurePaths dashlet and sort by response time, there is the problem. Every time.

If the PurePaths dashlet pulls up 750,000 PurePaths, I really only needed to know about seven or eight of them. Then, being able to look into the code-level dive about it, that is just a sanity check. Just to make sure that it is the same issue multiple times, not a random anomaly where everything else was crap.

Also Errors dashlet, I use that a ton.

What needs improvement?

I would love to see a better data export, because AppMon's charting capabilities leaves a lot to be desired. The dashboarding capabilities leaves a lot to be desired. There are a lot of times, for example, at my last company, they wanted Dynatrace data in addition to a bunch of other stuff dumped into one place. It was not just performance metrics. The CEO wanted his business metrics in the same place as the performance metrics along with a lot of other stuff. However, Dynatrace could not export this type of stuff. 

You have about a 5,000 line limit or you have to set up your CSV file just exactly. DC RUM can do it. It might take like an hour sometimes, but DC RUM can do it. I would really like to see the ability to export, in Dynatrace and AppMon, in essentially in a nice format of whatever you want to whatever else. That would be fantastic.

For AppMon, there is always room for improvement: charting, dashboarding, and user management. However, that is pretty much our fault with LDAP. The onboard process itself is a pain, even though we have scripted so much it, it is just very repetitive. There is a lot of alerts and things like that out-of-the-box that do not need to be there or that just do not do the right things.

For Dynatrace, I feel like it just needs a lot more technology support. I know they are trying to essentially get rid of AppMon and move toward the Dynatrace way of doing things. However, we are a multibillion dollar bank. We are not up-to-date. We are not going to be microservices for a long time. We are not going to be container for a long time, and we are probably one the most expensive clients that they have.

We are the ones who are going to drive a lot of the money factor so they need to have that. They need to have integration between the current set of tools so we have the ability to onboard five or six apps, then we'll also put the AppMon agent on it and show people the difference between it. It needs to be better integrated.

All of our team will go to a five minute sales meeting, if they were like, "Look, you can do this with a script." We are sold.

We do not want to do any of the regular AppMon stuff. However, when you have to convince the CTO that we are going to completely rip out the entire monitoring solution which we just spent the last 15 years trying to get a process set up for, and now we are going to redo it. That is not going to go over well. That is not a good conversation. 

You need to have that ability to do MQ. I don't care who uses MQ, but apparently we do. If you can't look into those messages, then you just lost a half of our organization which can't be monitored with it.

For how long have I used the solution?

Three to five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

With stability, I have never run into issues with Dynatrace causing an issue yet. 

I have run into AppMon causing issues. There have been a lot times when I have waited for a release. AppMon does the release, then it ends up taking down our application. Now, the fix is immediate, but I have already loss face. 

The last time, I took down the main application that lets you call tow trucks. It was just a monitoring loop, a simple thing. They fixed it in a patch. They knew about the issue and they told me immediately what the issue was. I got it fixed in 15 minutes. It took me six months to convince the team to install it in the first place and took me another seven for them to give me another shot at it. It was not a problem that showed up in QA, for whatever reason. So, I could not convince them that it does not exist anymore, because I could not show them any evidence that it existed in the first place. Let alone that I fixed it.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have never been more confident in a tool because I've seen how easy it is for it to deal with the .NET Applets. That is a big problem in AppMon. Unless every single person is naming their Applets, the exact same way and following the exact same pattern, it becomes an issue. The new tool does not run into that at all. Similarly, you can script it so it just automatically blasts across the organization. As long as it has the PurePath capabilities, somebody who is running, for example, the actual web application that tells people their accounts, that might be a different, more in-depth use case for AppMon versus Dynatrace. So far, the scalability of the solution is phenomenal. 

How are customer service and technical support?

Anytime I can't find the answer immediately in docs or answers, I just open a ticket. They are very good about giving you a response. 

Initially, I am talking about two or three years ago, I think they did not have enough personnel staffed there. Therefore, it would take them maybe two or three days to get to your ticket. Now, it is maybe the next day you will have a pretty reasonable answer and that is provided you did exactly what it says in the support ticket. For example, make sure you upload your support archive. Otherwise, you will burn a day and they will send you an email requesting you just upload this. That is shooting yourself in the foot, and that is not their fault. 

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

I have previously used siloed monitoring tools. I have used SiteScope. My current company uses ITCAM. They are okay. They get the job done.

At my previous employment, we used SiteScope and that was quite literally the way that I thought about it in day-to-day life, if you do not really give a crap about it, just put SiteScope on it. However, if you actually need to know if it is working, it needs to have Dynatrace.

I was always pushing for that sort of thing. There is stuff like Wiley where you are not getting 100% monitoring. There is another tool, one is a very new company, and it seemed to get the job done but that was only because we were using Citrix Xenapp. It was specifically able to decode the traffic for Xenapp and XenDesktop, which was what we were looking at. Apart from that, I have never had a situation where I was like, maybe we should not put Dynatrace on this. I have never run into that. 

How was the initial setup?

I was not involved in the initial setup at my current company, but I was at a previous company.

For upgrading at my current company, that is in process. We are trying to figure out if it is better to blast it across the organization. We have five Dynatrace servers. They are all completely at capacity. They are all set at large. It is a really big deal for us to try to switch anything over. Right now, we are trying to figure out, do we just upgrade our collectors and hope for the best, or do we do it in QA and then in production? 

A lot of people do not run the right thing in QA. It is never the case that their QA is identical to production. So, is that a good indication? I have run into issues before when upgrading from 5.6 to 6.1 expecting that all the bugs were ironed out. That is when I took down that application. Now, I do not have confidence in this upgrade process.

For the Dynatrace Managed version, that setup process was incredibly easy. It took 15 minutes. 

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

Just go with Dynatrace. Just start with Dynatrace. Do not go into AppMon. Start with Dynatrace, because AppMon is going to give you so much extra stuff that 99% of your user base will not need it, including yourself.

You don't need AppMon. I am a hardcore AppMon guy and I am still saying this. It is a lot nicer to be able to start with the Dynatrace solution, be able to script everything, and start integrating the new thing than it is to try to do the old tool set. 

What other advice do I have?

I started in the PDP program at Dynatrace. That was when they were still Compuware. Then they became Dynatrace, and I went to a different company, now I am at PNC. I have done the exact same thing for several years in different places.

In my current and previous positions, AI is not important when it comes to IT's ability to scale in the cloud and manage performance problems.

The previous company bought it, and they did not even set it up. I onboarded a bunch of apps. So, they were way too fledgling to try to start looking into it. 

What I would use AI for is if it could assist me in saying, "These are your common PurePath patterns." A lot of times in the ending part of an URL, they will have /apps, /data/, then they will put something lie the date or some big custom code. For example, we had one application for tow trucks, which would tell them the URL contained in PurePath, for the actual seven decimal place of the geographic coordinates of that tow truck.

This is not a good way to look at data. If the AI could tell me something about it, just mask it out, or just know this is the same type of data as these other ones and not worry about the extra text part of the piece. That would be the foremost use case for me. After that, I am not sure. 

I would need to use it a lot more to maintain my own trust factor in it before I would want to try to tell somebody that is asking me what the problem is. Just immediately saying AI says this. I do not have a high confidence enough factor in it, because I have never really used it.

If my organization had just one solution that could provide real answers, not just data, it would probably put me out of a job. Most of the time, when I get a ticket, they will ask me what the problem is. I will point out the problem, and it is something which is you need to code this better or you messed up these settings. Therefore, as far as helping me not have those mundane sort of tickets where I don't really want to waste my time with people. It is fine for the first few, but after the thirtieth or fortieth person, you tell them that you wrote this very poorly. It is better to just have some tool tell them that this is probably not the best way to do this.

That would be the initial benefit of the one solution. A part from that though, all I am doing is onboarding. The new Dynatrace already takes care of this. So, I am not really sure what my role would be afterwards. Right now, the APM is siloed off from the development teams. If you are going the full Dynatrace route with AI and getting the opportunity of the AIs already going to tell them what the issue is. Then, the APM team does not really need to exist anymore, apart from doing migrations.

Most important criteria when working with a vendor: That initial pairing of sales versus FTS. If I could reach out to them and get answers within a day, or better yet, within an hour. That is one of the best things because a lot of times that initial conversation can get derailed so quickly. You are not going to get more than five or ten minutes to pitch it to your boss. They are always at meetings. For example, my boss, at my previous place, I would be able to sit with him and talk to him about this thing. Then he would get, maybe, five minutes a week of his bosses level. That is the person who is going to sign the paycheck. 

Therefore, when he goes to a meeting, and it is a week later, he gives the spiel and has it all ironed out. Then, his boss asks him, "What about this?" Now, he does not know the answer, and I can't get the answer, then I need to get somebody on the phone stat to give him an answer. Otherwise, we have to wait another week. That is a big deal for us to have that communication open. 

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
it_user520278 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
It is limitless when it comes down to being able to scale up or even scale back
Pros and Cons
  • "It allows you to better utilize and focus your talent, and tell management that you are not only looking at problems, but how you can ultimately make the product better for the end user."
  • "It is limitless when it comes down to being able to scale up or even scale back, if we need it to."
  • "We have not had any stability issues with it at all. This has been the most stable solution that I have worked with."
  • "I was hands on in the setup of the solution. Initially, it seemed a little daunting."

What is our primary use case?

We are using AppMon UVM and Dynatrace synthetics, which we recently implemented. We are looking forward to using the new releases of Dynatrace in the future, where the use cases then will look at the following:

  • User actions
  • Analyzing PurePath to see what the user is doing.
  • Transactions on our website since we have an eCommerce website.
  • Availability and response times
  • Drill down to see if there are any issues
  • Gather old clients.

How has it helped my organization?

Being able to identify quickly what the problem is. It allows you to better utilize and focus your talent, and tell management that you are not only looking at problems, but how you can ultimately make the product better for the end user.

Business Case: In our implementation, AppMon and UVM are fairly infantile. The implementation was less than six months ago which means that we have been able to scale down some of our infrastructure. Not needing as much infrastructure to run compared to what we have been running in the past. From this perspective, it has been cost effective in allowing us to scale down infrastructure.

It allows us to make better business decisions based on what we are seeing, not what our customers were telling us was going on, but what we are actually seeing. Using this, I have been able to identify what the customers are experiencing. It allows us to optimize our site, our eCommerce solution, to better suit the needs of our customers. We can actually see what they are seeing and almost feel what they are feeling, because of the eyes that we have into their experience. It allows us to better code and better develop, allowing us to be able to optimize our website based off what we are seeing the customers truly experiencing.

What is most valuable?

The ease of use. Being able to readily identify a problem and be able to get someone there to fix or manage it properly and quickly. Our eCommerce website deals with users and time is critical. One of the best things, we are able to identify problems quickly and are able to resolve them.

What needs improvement?

They have had years developing this technology. When we go through it and we use it on a day-to-day basis, we see some things and think, "Hey, if they just had this, man this application would be a lot better." Then, in the next release, it comes out and it happened. We are using AppMon 7.0.15 right now, so AppMon 7.1 is coming out. Everything that I have identified in the version that I have as needing to be improved/fixed has already been addressed in the newer versions. Therefore, I can't think of anything that they have not addressed.

One of the things that find to be a challenge is I tell everybody that you almost have to be a private investigator to try to figure out what it is you want and how to get it. What I would have wanted was a solution that makes that process less cumbersome. 7.1 has already identified that. The Dynatrace solution has already identified that because of the way that PurePaths were looked at in Dynatrace compared to what they were looked at in AppMon. That would have been the one thing that I would have said, "If this product could be better, it would be from that perspective," but they have already identified it. They have already come up with the solution because I was not the only one that thought of that. Other people have thought of that using it, and they said, "Okay, this was a gap in Dynatrace, that gap has already been closed." That was the one thing that I had and they have already identified it.

For how long have I used the solution?

Less than one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have not had any stability issues with it at all. This has been the most stable solution that I have worked with. I have been in IT for over 22 years and the solution that we have implemented here in the last six months has been the most stable solution that I have worked with in all my 22 years in IT.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is limitless when it comes down to being able to scale up or even scale back, if we need it to. 

How are customer service and technical support?

I have definitely had to use technical support. The technical support team, customer service team, and Dynatrace altogether have been the best team that I have worked with industry-wide. Whenever I have a problem, most of the time they are hounding me for more feedback on the problem than me having to hound them. They have been great. I have a monthly call with technical resources, and I also have sales resources on a monthly call. Whatever our need is, they are there to help us, hold our hand, and walk us through it. It has been amazing.

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

We have used siloed monitoring tools in the past. I will not mention any particular names, but the challenges have been that they are silos. It does not give you a holistic view of everything that is going on in your application as compared to a solution like Dynatrace which allows you to see from start to finish. With Dynatrace, you get a complete holistic view of the application, and it helps you not point fingers, but be able to identify visible problems.

How was the initial setup?

I was hands on in the setup of the solution. Initially, it seemed a little daunting. Once we started working with it, it was a very easy solution to implement and put in place.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

The vendor that we brought in to help us move our platform from Legacy to NextGen was using Dynatrace in their dev testing. So, just for amount of consistency, we continue to use Dynatrace, and we can see why they chose Dynatrace to use as their dev testing. It was the best tool out there. I do not know what tools they have considered in the past, but I know that was the one that they brought to the table and it has proved to be a valuable tool for us.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend to give Dynatrace a call if you are looking for an APM solution.

AI is the solution of the future. I say the future but actually right now moving into the future. It is interesting looking at some of the applications using AI to solve problems, like betas, and being able to integrate that with Alexa for things like adding voice control to identify and solve problems. I think going forward it will be the way that IT works.

It would be invaluable to have one solution which would allow you not only to gather data, but to be able to make intelligent solutions based off of that data. It would be industry changing.

Most important criteria when selecting an APM solution: Cost is one of them, but we also needed something that did not just collect data. We needed something that provided a true benefit. If I am going to spend my day focusing on what a user is doing and what is that user's experience like on my website, then I need a application that can go and figure out the things that I am not seeing and what I am missing, so the tool that I am using provides the information right now. What I have seen from Dynatrace is that it takes that to a totally different level.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
it_user815403 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Analyst Senior at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Dashboards have been eye-opening for management, allowing them to see the problems
Pros and Cons
  • "The dashboard gives us something to show managers and our business where the problems are. That's really been eye-opening for them. They can see, yes, this tool has been a good investment. They can see where the problems are and how we can take advantage of it for making those necessary corrections."
  • "I think the design is pretty scalable. It's pretty easy to add additional nodes if we need to. Also, it's easy to migrate changes from one environment to another."

    What is our primary use case?

    Our company primarily uses the AppMon product and we have it divided up in different business units: line support, corporate systems support in our organization. We primarily use it to monitor internal HR applications, enterprise document applications, anything that involves Java, database SQL. We're trying to monitor and make sure that we're tuning performance.

    We have an initiative going on this year, high-availability, so we're trying to get as many applications in our organization to be monitored through this tool as, much as possible, to make sure they're all running most efficiently and performing the way that the management would expect.

    So far it's going well. Quite a learning experience for us.

    How has it helped my organization?

    The dashboard gives us something to show managers and our business where the problems are. That's really been eye-opening for them. They can see, yes, this tool has been a good investment. They can see where the problems are and how we can take advantage of it for making those necessary corrections, so it's been helpful to us.

    What is most valuable?

    I like the end-to-end monitoring - we can see. Also the user experience, that's been really helpful for us because a lot of times things just aren't detected and I hear from the users. This isolates some of the issues from their experience, so that's definitely been useful for us. 

    We're also starting to learn some of the Synthetic monitoring, hoping to do some performance testing in the future.

    What needs improvement?

    We'd like to see them continue to develop the AI, what they introduced today here at the Perform 2018 conference, with the whole Synthetic monitoring. I'm glad that they're starting to merge a lot of the tool-sets into one to make it easier.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    There's definitely been some challenges around stability, as far as PurePaths sometimes. Also the history, we've got so much data being built. We have to be careful to keep a short amount of history available to our users, so it's been challenging.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    I think the design is pretty scalable. It's pretty easy to add additional nodes if we need to. Also, it's easy to migrate changes from one environment to another. That makes it so you can scale it. I think it's met our expectations for scalability.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    I personally have not used tech support, but we have other people on the team that do engage with the vendor more avidly and they've said that support has been pretty adept at meeting their needs, time-wise. We're pretty pleased so far with the way the vendor has handled problems we've proposed to them.

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

    We've used SiteScope for monitoring a lot of our web applications. I know we've used Tealeaf and Splunk. They're great tools but there's quite a learning curve there. 

    This one, Dynatrace, seemed to be a little bit more straightforward. It's certainly more robust in what it can do as far as the end-to-end monitoring. You can also see how big these conferences are, like here at Perform 2018. There are a lot of other users for networking who are familiar with this tool, so that's helped us adopt it a little bit more easily and to push that incentive towards our directors.

    SiteScope is limited. It doesn't do Angular apps as much. It doesn't do single-page apps, so it's more just one web page; it's easier to write scripting for that. But when you have something that goes through a whole set series, it's been challenging. With Dynatrace it has been a little easier to monitor those types of situations. That's the primary reason.

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

    I would like to see them improve on their licensing and the cost. It's been a challenge for us because the way they have it broken out right now, you have to buy it by units. It's hard for us to know where to put those units because our company is broken up into all these different business units, so it's been challenging in that sense. I just would like to see them improve that model a little bit.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    I wasn't really involved in the process, but when we saw what the tool is capable of, it certainly went to the top pretty quickly. It has met most of our expectations since we purchased it. 

    I do believe that they evaluated one other vendor, product but I don't remember who.

    What other advice do I have?

    When it comes to the nature of digital complexity, the role of AI when it comes to IT's ability to scale in the cloud and manage performance is certainly a big thing going on right now. It's very important to us. I want to make sure that there's not only learning when there are issues, but also that there is taking action automatically to correct it. That's where the intelligence is at, and once you program it in, it knows how to fix the issue and you don't have to troubleshoot and find out what the issue is. That's a big initiative that's going on, it's very important to us, this AI.

    In terms of one solution that could provide real answers, as opposed to just data,
    any solution that could tell us, definitely, when there's something going on across our organization - not just in one area, one department - something that could tell us from each point when there's a communication such as sign-on; we want to know if it's something with the network, it's something with the area that supports that application, or if it's something on a host server. Something that tells us, all the way across the board what the issue could be. That's what we're driving towards.

    I'd rate Dynatrace about a nine out of 10. There are some things that they need them to improve upon, but they are pretty close to the top.

    Talk with them, go out and seek, look at all the options you have. Make sure that you talk with your business and discuss what is most important when you're looking to invest toward performance issues. Look at a tool that spans across the company, that can meet multiple areas of needs, not just your own.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Senior Analyst APM at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
    Real User
    The technical support has always been responsive
    Pros and Cons
    • "For cloud, AI has been pretty useful so far when it comes to IT's ability to scale."
    • "I can get everything on a single page."
    • "The technical support has always been responsive."
    • "There is still a bit of redundancy in Dynatrace."
    • "I would like to see AppMon also integrated in the Dynatrace portal. There are certain features, which I am not saying are not there in Dynatrace, but I am used to in AppMon."

    What is our primary use case?

    The primary use case is to monitor and make sure all the crown jewel applications are up and running. If there is an error, then I will pinpoint what the error is, take it to the application team and developers, and ask them to fix it.

    It is performing well, so far. So well that we actually had a company program wherein we wanted to promote Dynatrace for as many applications as we can. We have our hands on all the tools of Dynatrace, and whichever is the best fit based on the application, we go ahead. 

    How has it helped my organization?

    I can get everything on a single page. 

    What is most valuable?

    That varies from product to product. Every product has its charms. I like AppMon a lot. The new solution that they have, the Dynatrace solution, which is integrated with the browser plugin and agentless monitoring. That is pretty exciting. 

    What needs improvement?

    I would like to see AppMon also integrated in the Dynatrace portal. There are certain features, which I am not saying are not there in Dynatrace, but I am used to in AppMon. I would like to see something a bit familiar in terms of UI. It could be five to six clicks away (I don't mind), but something familiar would be helpful. 

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    Stability is pretty good. Comparatively, I do not see too many downtimes, and the response time is good. The communications for any downtime is also pretty much on time.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    No scalability issues.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    I have used technical support a lot of times, mostly for technical stuff. For example, on challenges that I am facing for configurations based on technical tools. 

    They have been pretty helpful and very responsive, Compared to other tools that I have used in the past, Dynatrace's support has always been responsive. 

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

    They were all scattered, because we were getting a lot of information from different tools, but no integration. Also, there were a lot of redundancies, so that is why Dynatrace is good, but there is still a bit of redundancy in Dynatrace as well. A little bit of it across platforms, but overall, it has been better than the other tools that I have used in past. 

    How was the initial setup?

    Dynatrace has so many different tools, so some of them are a bit complex, like AppMon. However, your OneAgent, your browser plugin, and so on are pretty simple setups. 

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We get access to the early access programs. So, we evaluate. We do PoCs, and based on our customer feedback, then we proceed. 

    We were working with Catchpoint, because for the synthetic device management, it is simpler for Catchpoint. However, the setup and the configuration were so much easier than Dynatrace that we are still in a bit of debate on what to do. 

    What other advice do I have?

    If you are looking to implement it, just go for it.

    For cloud, AI has been pretty useful so far when it comes to IT's ability to scale. To manage performance problems, we have not actually used it.

    If I had just one solution which could provide real answers, not just data, the immediate benefit would be continuous checks for a lot of hardware. There are a lot of applications, so if Dynatrace could provide this, that would be awesome. 

    Most important criteria when selecting a vendor:  

    • Performance
    • Availability
    • Scalability.

    The company that I work for is huge, growing every day. So, I think availability and scalability were the primary parameters.

    Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
    PeerSpot user
    PeerSpot user
    Sr.Tech.Analyst Monitoreo at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
    Real User
    Allows you to discover all libraries and technologies that exist on the market today
    Pros and Cons
    • "The solution can be deployed quickly on-prem. Once it's deployed, you can use discovery and review the process and service on this application."
    • "It would help if Dynatrace allowed more features that work with metrics like Grafana or New Relic."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use the solution in server monitoring, application monitoring, and roam and synthetic monitoring. We have 1,000 Dynatrace users in our organization.

    What is most valuable?

    The solution can be deployed quickly on-prem. Once it's deployed, you can use discovery and review the process and service on this application.

    What needs improvement?

    Dynatrace would be closer to a perfect tool if it could bring an interface similar to a standard for metrics like Prometheus and Grafana, New Relic, and Datadog, and the way they present these panels. It would help if Dynatrace allowed more features that work with metrics like Grafana or New Relic because the data is there in Dynatrace. Dynatrace collects all the information but some companies consider integrating, for instance, Dynatrace metrics with Grafana.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've been using this solution for more than one year. It's a SaaS solution, and it's deployed on a private cloud.

    How are customer service and support?

    Support is okay but could be better and faster. The documentation for the tool could be better. The documentation with Elastic and Datadog is more detailed.

    How was the initial setup?

    Initial setup is simple but it depends. In the server monitoring, it's only install and discovery. That is very quick. To install with a cloud like OpenShift, it requires some Sandcastle configuration about tokens and operators, but with old data, it's fast.

    What about the implementation team?

    Two people were required for deployment.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    I have a little experience with Datadog, but it doesn't have the power to discover with some libraries like Dynatrace. With Dynatrace, you can discover all libraries and technologies that exist on the market today. With Datadog, that's not 100% the case. Datadog is a very good product but it works differently. Datadog has machine learning, too, but not in all discovery options of SQL and in all layers of our monitoring like infrastructure, service, process, and applications—like Dynatrace. With Dynatrace, 100% of all options are included in your machine learning, in your AI.

    For development, Datadog is a little more friendly to your front end and development teams. There are some areas, particularly the Apdex of Datadog, that are more understandable for the development teams. Dynatrace is a little more difficult to understand for development teams. It requires some more learning.

    The APM feature in Datadog is easier to understand. It works manually, like New Relic, Grafana, or Elastic. That's more understandable for software development teams.

    I tested New Relic between 2019 and 2020. Like Datadog, I tested and did proof of concept for New Relic in about one month. New Relic is strong and the APM is easier for teams of dev to write. The scope of New Relic is like Datadog. It doesn't cover all technologies and all libraries and just works efficiently with all items of applications for work with QA and dev.

    I have not tested the integration of New Relic. I know some colleagues that integrated between the tools for the infrastructure coverage in Datadog and the APM coverage in New Relic.

    What other advice do I have?

    I would rate this solution a 9 out of 10. It's not a 10 because there are some little things that could be enhanced. Otherwise, the product is great.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Private Cloud
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Associate Director, Application Performance Management Solution Design & Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
    Real User
    OneAgent platform that is scalable, stable, easy to install, and has good support
    Pros and Cons
    • "We like the on-premises platform and the horizontal scalability."
    • "They could also, develop an observability platform where you could have the ability to inject events, locks, and traces."

    What is our primary use case?

    In the six months that we were using Dynatrace, it was a proof of concept.

    It's used for full-stack monitoring, automated instrumentation, APM, and byte code injections, as well as infrastructure performance monitoring and the virtualization layer.

    What is most valuable?

    We really liked the OneAgent technology automated instrumentation. It is impressive, better than the competitors, AppDynamics.

    We like the on-premises platform and the horizontal scalability.

    What needs improvement?

    In the next release, other than the price being reduced, I would like to see some improvements in open telemetry support, the open standards support.

    They could also develop an observability platform where you could have the ability to inject events, locks, and traces.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    We have been using Dynatrace for six months.

    We used the Dynatrace managed service. It was the latest version when we used it.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The stability was fine. We did not encounter any issues. It was working as designed and expected.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    It's a scalable solution with a true cluster platform that can be expanded. It works very well.

    We have 200 users in our organization who are using it.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    We are satisfied with the technical support.

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

    We were using AppDynamics and CA APM in the past.

    How was the initial setup?

    It was a straightforward installation.

    It took two to three days to configure and do the proof of concept.

    We had a team of two or three to deploy this solution.

    What about the implementation team?

    We completed the installation ourselves.

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

    Financially, Dynatrace was a lot more expensive than AppDynamics.

    Our business case wouldn't resolve, which is why we decided to renew the licenses with AppDynamics.

    Dynatrace should reduce their pricing. It should be cheaper.

    We are no longer using Dynatrace because it was too expensive.

    What other advice do I have?

    If the price were reduced then we would use this solution again.

    For those who are interested in using this product, we would recommend it.

    I would rate Dynatrace a nine out of ten.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
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    Updated: March 2024
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