Azure Monitor Reviews

I am an Azure architect and present the solution to customers for use in monitoring infrastructures, applications, and containers.

The solution very easily integrates with Azure services and in one click you can monitor your resource. You do not need to set up any virtual machines.

The visualization of logs, metrics, and the workbook is easy. 

The solution supports services from past YAZ functions or containers.

The APM needs to be improved to compare with Dynatrace or Elastic. For example, monitoring user sessions is interesting in Dynatrace or Elastic but is not dynamic in the solution. The static view is very basic. 

The monitoring of Kubernetes clusters needs improvement to be on par with competitors. With the solution, you need to monitor the process, deployment, application, and the security inside the cluster. This is not the case with other products. 

The solution should monitor or integrate with other cloud providers like AWS or DCP. That would be valuable because some customers have multi-cloud environments so they go with third parties to accommodate their needs. Because of this, customers say the solution is not interesting for them. 

I have used the solution for four years. 

The solution is very stable. 

The solution is very scalable by design. 

I have not needed technical support. 

The setup is easy. The solution is cloud native so there is no deployment. You just configure the solution in Azure and it is ready to go. 

Configuration can take one to five days depending on the complexity of your environment. 

My customers hire Azure consultants, engineers, or infrastructure administrators for configurations.

One technician can handle ongoing maintenance. 

The solution is a pay-as-you-go consumption service and is the least expensive in the market. 

I rate pricing an eight out of ten. 

Most of my current customers are oriented to Dynatrace. 

If you use Azure as a cloud provider, then I recommend the solution. It is easy to setup and integrate.

If monitoring the performance of applications is very important to you, then I recommend Dynatrace or Elastic APM. 

The solution has improved over the years and things are coming in the roadmap like container integration. Application monitoring was improved in the past. Some things need improvement but a lot of things have improved already. 

I rate the solution a seven out of ten. 

Our company is a service integrator and we use the solution to monitor logs, metrics, and applications for customers. We have 200 users throughout our company. 

The tools for logs and metrics are pretty good and easy to use. We can do metric monitoring, log monitoring, and prepare queries to monitor something based on  customers' requirements.  

The Kusto query language is powerful and similar to SPL. We can do a lot of things with the language. 

The solution is very easy to use and maintain. 

Alerts cannot be configured to monitor at a certain point in time. For example, we might want to alert people at zero hours but that is not possible. Splunk can accomplish this and its alerts are far better than the solution's options. The alerting mechanism is not up to the market. 

The default interface should be improved. You can prepare your own dashboard by using custom query language, but the default interface is not good. 

I have been using the solution for almost three years. 

The solution is very stable. 

The solution is scalable. 

Technical support is good and very helpful. 

Support does have some limitations or challenges because they can only help with things they know. For example, we contacted them about an alert issue because we could not log off the solution's Event Hub component. Unfortunately, they were not able to help. 

Overall, support is very helpful and provides an immediate response. When they cannot help, it is a product issue. 

I have experience with Splunk, AppDynamics, BMC Proactive Document Management, Microsoft ACCM, New Relic, and Grafana. 

The setup was challenging initially because we were not familiar with the solution. Now that we have experience, everything is easy. 

We implemented the solution in-house.

Ongoing maintenance is performed by three members of our team. 

The solution is very costly because you have to pay for various things such as adding to logs and internet alerts. 

Logging costs are very high so should be lowered. Companies who log one TB or more will have very high costs. We should be able to log in a storage account to save costs.

Splunk is also very costly. 

The best solution depends on use cases.

AppDynamics or New Relic are the best products for application performance management.

Splunk is the best for logging and the solution is the second best. 

If you have a Microsoft environment, then you should use the solution as much as possible.

Azure Metrics is free and covers a lot of features. You can set it up and use it for monitoring.

You can definitely use the solution for logging but be aware that there are costs. 

I rate the solution a seven out of ten. 

I am not using the product by myself. I recommend the tool to our customers. Our company's customers use Azure Monitor in their DevOps practices since it offers easy-to-monitor components. Usually, we augment the product since DXC has its own tool. In our company, we also deploy our own tools on Dynatrace. We also have our own set of tools called DXC Platform X, which gets deployed to the cloud, and the native cloud tools like Azure Monitor are augmented by our own tool.

I don't know what specific features the customer gets from the tool. I know the standard monitoring is done on Azure Monitor. In our company, aside from being active with the setup, we also take care of the notification setup so that the help desk and right people are alerted in case there is an issue.

It is not just Azure Monitor that my company deals with since we augment it with our own DXC Platform X, which DXC developed for the cloud. DXC Platform X has its own set of tools for the cloud.

It would be good if there could be an integration between Azure Monitor and Azure Arc. The integration between Azure Monitor and Azure Arc can create a different product. Using Azure Monitor and Azure Arc separately to monitor different environments can be complicated. I think there is a need to blend everything into one product so that you can monitor everything, like the on-premises, AWS or Azure with one tool.

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

The tool's pricing is very good. I could say that Microsoft offers different cost models, which are listed on the product's website. It starts free of cost and goes up to a certain level, and then one just needs to pay above that. Usually, clients don't have to pay to choose anything, which is the biggest advantage of the hosting model.

The tool is a native product of Azure. Some good integration capabilities are present in the tool. It also offers availability, and the tool's pricing is very good.

I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

I use the Azure Monitor in my company since it is a part of every solution we send to our customers. From a monitoring perspective, the use cases attached to the tool are enormous. Usually, my company uses it to monitor all Azure services that our customers use. My company also uses Azure Monitor if we want to monitor our customers' on-premises environment. In the case of any third-party cloud environment, my company suggests that customers have Azure Arc implemented in their environment. With it, they can monitor usage and monitoring while having one single dashboard for all their environments.

The solution's most valuable features are its ease of use and support for multiple environments. With the tool, the customer can have a single dashboard for all the environments.

The product should integrate well with other tools or clouds in the future, as it is one of the areas where the product currently has certain shortcomings.

I have experience with Azure Monitor.

It is a pretty stable solution.

It is a very scalable solution.

I am actively working with around 20 to 25 customers, and I know that the monitoring process is a part of every solution. As a part of our company's best practices, we provide a pitch associated with Azure Monitor to each and every customer.

The solution's technical support team is fast, knowledgeable, and customer-friendly.

I have experience with Azure Backup.

The product's initial setup phase is straightforward.

To have a simple monitoring system in place, I don't think it will take more than a day to enable it with the basic dashboards. If customers have a very unique requirement and need a dashboard of a specific type, then in such cases, it takes some time to develop the dashboard and publish the data. The deployment and time to create a dashboard can keep varying.

The solution is deployed on the cloud. The tool supports another cloud on-premises as well.

The product offers a pay-as-you-go model to users. The charges are to be paid according to the usage of the product.

Azure Monitor's integration capabilities make integrations very easy. The tool supports on-premises and other cloud environments.

I suggest that for each and every solution in place, one should have a monitoring tool because it is a crucial component of any solution.

I don't think that much about AI-related stuff when it comes to the tool since I don't think it would make much of a difference.

The value provided by the product stems from the fact that its customers can monitor their environment on a single dashboard and can look at areas like usage, triggers, and IOPS and CPU memory utilization. If there are any alerts, one can set certain triggers in the tool.

I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We use Azure Monitor to monitor all the infrastructure that we have in the cloud.

Azure Monitor gives us the observability to check everything that we have in the cloud. We can set up some alarms to better manage what we have in the cloud.

Azure Monitor has a direct connection with the infrastructure in the cloud. It's like a built-in feature in public services.

It's really complex to retrieve or query the logs in Azure Monitor. They have another query language, and it's messy. It never works the first time. You have to check a little bit of queries. It's really hard to make queries in Azure Monitor.

I have been using Azure Monitor for five years.

We never had issues with the solution's stability. I rate Azure Monitor a nine out of ten for stability.

I rate Azure Monitor a nine out of ten for scalability. It's a cloud service, and we don't have any issues with it.

Azure Monitor's technical support overall is not perfect.

Neutral

We have seen a return on investment with Azure Monitor because it's a tool that's out of the box in the cloud.

Azure Monitor's pricing is tied to the services. The Azure Insight is a little bit expensive. It's a little expensive if you want to avail all the features.

I am using the on-cloud version of Azure Monitor.

If they are using the cloud, users can use Azure Monitor as the first tool because it already has integration with all the services. However, the query language that I use is really complex. So if users haven't built queries before, they will have several issues with it.

Even for technical people, they will have issues if they don't have experience using a query language. So if they are using Azure, they should use Azure Monitor initially. Later, they can improve the monitoring environment by applying some other tools.

Overall, I rate Azure Monitor a seven out of ten.

As an Azure solution architect, I am currently assisting a client who requires a quote for a report comparison between New Relic and Azure Monitor. Given my experience with Azure Monitor, my goal is to showcase its capabilities and potentially eliminate the need for New Relic in their environment.

Azure Monitor is primarily a web application that offers comprehensive monitoring capabilities for Azure resources. It encompasses various aspects, including logging and application insights. With Azure Monitor, you can configure alerts and rules based on specific conditions, such as triggering an alert when CPU usage exceeds 80%. The cost of alerts and notifications in Azure Monitor is relatively affordable, typically charging around 10 cents per alert per rule, allowing for a large volume of SMS notifications, such as up to a hundred thousand.

Comparatively, New Relic also offers cost-effective solutions. However, it is important to note that New Relic's pricing structure includes charges for user creation. Normal user creation can cost around $50, while admin users may incur a charge of approximately $99. 

On the other hand, when using Azure Monitor, if your organization already has an Azure subscription with Azure Active Directory (AD), you can leverage the existing user access and permissions, granting appropriate rights and access to the Azure portal as needed.

Among the valuable features of this solution, Application Insights stands out as one of the most significant. It provides insights into application performance and helps identify issues and bottlenecks. 

Azure Monitor offers a notification feature that enables proactive monitoring and alerting. This feature proves particularly useful in ensuring timely responses to critical events and maintaining overall system health.

In terms of pricing, Azure Monitor's billing based on data size can sometimes lead to increased costs, especially when developers need to purge data frequently.

While there are mechanisms in place to track and manage this, there is room for improvement in terms of optimizing data pausing and related processes.

Enhancements in this area could help mitigate potential billing concerns and provide a more seamless experience for users.

I have been working with Azure Monitor for three years.

I would rate the stability of Azure Monitor an eight and a half out of ten. It's pretty stable.

During the early years of 2017 or 2018, the server faced significant challenges in terms of flexibility and stability. However, in recent years, notable improvements have been made, resulting in a much more stable environment.

I would rate the scalability an eight and a half out of ten.

Overall, I find Azure Monitor to be quite impressive. It's worth noting that there may be some aspects I haven't explored yet since learning opportunities arise daily. However, based on my experience with the features I have utilized thus far, I am genuinely satisfied with Azure Monitor's performance and capabilities.

Azure Monitor is applicable to companies of all sizes, ranging from small to mid-size to enterprise-level organizations. However, it's important to exercise caution and use it wisely, as Azure can become costly if resources are used unnecessarily. By utilizing Azure Monitor efficiently, you can effectively manage costs, optimize licensing, and ensure that resources are allocated appropriately to maximize value. 

When anticipating high traffic on virtual machines or app servers, you have the flexibility to adjust memory usage and CPU utilization accordingly. This allows you to effectively manage resources based on varying traffic patterns. Additionally, if you need to track logs and gain insights into application behavior, utilizing Application Insights is recommended. However, it's important to consider the data retention period carefully. Storing data for seven or fifteen days strikes a balance between retaining necessary information and managing costs, as charges are based on the storage size in gigabytes (GB), which can be relatively expensive.

I would rate the technical support a nine and a half out of ten. 

The technical support provided for Azure services is highly commendable. Whenever a critical support ticket, such as a P1 level issue, is raised, the response is prompt and efficient. The support team promptly reaches out, assigns a dedicated engineer, and provides assistance to resolve the issue effectively. My personal experience with Azure technical support has been excellent.

The response time of Azure technical support is commendable. They have a system in place where you can create tickets based on the severity of the issue. If you designate a ticket as P1 (indicating the highest priority), they will promptly reach out to you, ensuring immediate attention and allocation of a dedicated engineer to resolve the matter efficiently.

The initial setup is straightforward.

Our focus is on migrating from an on-premises environment to Azure, as we aim to leverage the benefits of the public cloud. Given my extensive experience with Azure and multiple successful cloud projects, I can confidently say that Azure offers significant advantages in terms of cost-effectiveness, performance, and comprehensive services. 

By using Azure, we can consolidate all our requirements in one place, benefiting from the comprehensive suite of Microsoft offerings available within the Azure ecosystem.

As an Azure Solution Architect and Azure DevOps Engineer, my role revolves around overseeing and managing Azure solutions. I am responsible for designing and implementing Azure-based architectures, as well as ensuring the smooth operation of Azure DevOps processes.

As part of your project analysis, you are tasked with determining whether Azure Monitor or New Relic is better suited for your specific project requirements. This comparison will help you evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each solution and make an informed decision based on your client's needs and project background.

In our evaluation, our primary focus has been on comparing Azure Monitor with New Relic rather than considering other alternatives. Given my extensive experience with Microsoft technologies, particularly in Microsoft Azure, I aim to promote Azure and showcase its capabilities as a robust alternative to New Relic. My goal is to eliminate the reliance on New Relic and emphasize the value and benefits of leveraging Azure in our project.

In case you encounter numerous application issues, such as errors or performance concerns, Azure Monitor offers the solution of enabling Application Insights. This feature allows you to gain valuable insights into your application's behavior. Additionally, Azure Monitor provides the flexibility to create rules and set up alerts. With up to ten alerts per hour across ten distinct rules, you can effectively monitor and respond to critical events in a timely manner.

I would rate Azure Monitor an eight out of ten.

Azure Monitor is utilized for observability purposes, specifically for monitoring and alerting Azure states to customers.

Log analytics and log queries are the most valuable features of Azure Monitor.

We encounter some difficulties in monitoring the operating system on its own. Therefore, we require additional tools to obtain a comprehensive view of the entire application chain.

The technical support can be faster and has room for improvement.

The dashboarding and reports could benefit from improvements, as Microsoft seems to prioritize Power BI as their main dashboarding tool. Perhaps these enhancements could be integrated natively into Azure, as there is certainly room for improvement in that area.

I have been using the solution for seven years.

I give the stability a ten out of ten.

Azure Monitor is scalable.

The technical support is not always perfect. Sometimes it takes a long time to get the right person who actually understands the issue to work on the case.

We find the initial setup to be straightforward as we have extensive experience in it. However, configuring Azure Monitor may prove to be complex for those who are less experienced. The deployment takes about 30 minutes. The deployment process is using a CICD workflow that is fully automated.

The implementation was completed in-house. I work as an integrator and am responsible for implementing solutions for our customers.

There is a monthly fee for the alerts triggered and the data stored.

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

We have 35 customers using the solution.

We have a small DevOps team of about ten developers that maintain this life cycle.

The reason for using this solution is to align with the hyperscaler's capabilities as close as possible, and this is the best-integrated solution we can find.

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

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.

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. 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.

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

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

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

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.

Neutral

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

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

I implemented Azure Monitor myself.

Given its low price, Azure Monitor gives good ROI.

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

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.