I use this service for log analytics of application and SQL database
Chief Technical Officer at Evangelist
Excellent security features, good technical support, and easy to use
Pros and Cons
- "The solution works well overall. It's easy to implement and simple to use."
- "I'd like the solution to do more around vulnerability assessment. It's lacking in the product right now."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
It has improved the quality of application and through this we are able to analyze application performance, it gives alerts and insights of the application which helps us so much
What is most valuable?
The solution offers excellent security features.
The product provides us with useful alerts that makes recommendations about the security and the platform.
The solution works well overall. It's easy to implement and simple to use.
What needs improvement?
I'd like the solution to do more around vulnerability assessment. It's lacking in the product right now.
Buyer's Guide
Azure Monitor
December 2024
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For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for about one year so far.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is quite stable on the cloud. We haven't had issues. There have been no bugs, crashes or glitches. We've found it to be quite reliable so far.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is quite scalable, especially on the cloud. If a company needs to expand, it can easily do so. There aren't constraints.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is excellent. I have premium support, so when I need assistance I'm able to easily get it.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is not complex and is, in fact, quite straightforward. It's good.
What other advice do I have?
We're using the latest version of the solution. I'm not sure of the exact version number.
Basically, it's a service. I'm a partner of Microsoft. I'm using this solution for monitoring for my customers. I believe it's a good product for me, to monitor all the services across many clients.
The businesses I assist are all small or medium-sized companies.
I would recommend the solution. Any company can just buy the product and use it straight away. There is no need for a proof of concept.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
Manager - Infrastructure at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Requires out of the box monitoring, real-time monitoring, and better network mapping
Pros and Cons
- "The solution is quite stable."
- "The process of implementation needs to be easier."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution as a Server monitoring service.
What is most valuable?
The solution can be scaled.
The solution is quite stable.
What needs improvement?
Overall, we're not too enthusiastic about the solution.
The solution is administration heavy, and very cumbersome. Using it is a lot of work on the admin side. It doesn't do things out of the box the way other products do.
The new data ingest pricing model is wrong. They should scrap that all together. It should be a flat rate per year. As of right now, it fluctuates month to month, so it's hard to really know how much you will be charged.
The solution needs a lot of work. It needs out of the box monitoring, real-time monitoring, and better network mapping. There are many features that are lacking.
The process of implementation needs to be easier.
The problem is the solution only does Azure. It can't monitor any other SAAS products. That's a very limiting design flaw.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been dealing with the solution for three years at this point.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is okay. I just think it doesn't have the same agility as its competitors like ExtraHop, New Relic, or Dynatrace.
It's nowhere near as good as those products.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of the solution is pretty good. A company has the capabilities of expanding if they need to.
How are customer service and technical support?
I personally have never contacted technical support. However, we haven't had any issues. We haven't really used the solution in any great detail and therefore haven't run into many issues simply due to it being complicated to administer its features.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
The solution is currently replacing SCOM, and SCOM is a very admin heavy product. Azure Monitor seems to require a lot of admin as well.
Neither are out-of-the-box solutions. Both require a lot of work.
How was the initial setup?
I didn't participate in implementing the solution, so I can't personally evaluate how the process went. I'm not sure if it's complex or straightforward. However, one of my technicians handles the process, and it's my understanding that it's very complicated to set up.
What about the implementation team?
In House
What was our ROI?
None, it cost more to run than any benefits gained
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Due to the fact that the pricing has changed to a date ingest model, it can get very expensive. The costing can fluctuate quite a bit month to month. There isn't a way to really say this costs so many dollars a month.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
No unfortunately as this product came with our bulk licensing agreement.
What other advice do I have?
We're just a Microsoft customer. We don't have any special relationship with the company.
We use a mixture of hybrid, public, and private cloud in terms of deployment models.
The product is not as good as a lot of market-leading products.
We haven't used the solution a great deal yet. We've only just scratched the surface. because we don't have the time to spend on it.
I'd rate the solution four our of ten.
I wouldn't recommend the solution at all. I would direct other companies to go to either ExtraHop or New Relic. I would go to Dynatrace as well if I had the choice.
Microsoft Azure Monitor would be one of the last things on my list to recommend to others.
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.
Buyer's Guide
Azure Monitor
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about Azure Monitor. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.
This integrated add-on for Microsoft Azure helps monitor performance of the base product
Pros and Cons
- "A product that is well-integrated for monitoring Microsoft Azure."
- "As a younger product it still has room for feature improvement and enhancement."
What is our primary use case?
I use Monitor for up-down (up time / down time) monitoring and tracking performance events within Azure. Essentially, I use it for log analytic searches, backend searches, and also to provide insights into Azure Monitor.
What is most valuable?
I find that the new dynamic alerting is a pretty good feature now. It bought the product up to date. Response times for alerts are much better than they were. Also running event searches within Azure Monitor. They're quite handy features and I find them all valuable.
What needs improvement?
I'm quite involved in the automation of dynamic alerts so I really can provide some insight into how that can be improved. They did have an alerts feature before and it was quite well automated, but since they've gone to a dynamic model and did a few updates, it broke a few things. Some commands that were used before no longer work. But some things that could be improved are:
- Feedback should really be feeding back to MSFC (Windows Server Failover Cluster).
- Make it so you can actually create more dynamic alerts on the fly.
- Add capabilities to export templates dynamically.
- Integrate better with Terraform — which everybody seems to be using these days. The integration with Terraform is broken on the Terraform side as well so it's not working as well as it should be from either point.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for more than three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of the product is okay. We've got to do some further testing with alerting. It is something we are at the point of using now with our customers. A client was previously getting flooded with alerts but not when we were able to suppress alerts in the right way. So, I think it's pretty stable compared to how it was. There is still more room for improvement.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I think the scalability is pretty good and you can plug-and-play pretty well. I'm not sure how well the product talks to other third-party tools, but overall the scalability is good. I don't think they are going to scrap the current model but they've got a lot of things that you can embed now with service help metrics. I think it is a pretty good bonus. There is a new upscale function as well, so scalability is pretty good.
How are customer service and technical support?
The technical support is pretty good. They have been getting better. A lot of the call center operations are offshore these days, but that situation has been getting better as well. I would say there is an improvement in technical support in response time to tickets. They usually get to things within four to eight hours. Even if the technicians say there is going to be a 24-hour response — like a class C ticket — it still goes through.
How was the initial setup?
The product is in the portal, so you don't really need to set it up. When you get your subscription it is all built-in. If you're setting up customized resources and alerting, then you need to set up the action groups and some other things. For example, I put automation on group creation which sets the alerts and additional parameters. It isn't necessary but it is a good option to take advantage of. The only thing that gets in the way during setup is the integration. I think the setup is getting better and easier than it was.
What about the implementation team?
I implemented the product myself with customizations and building it out for our needs.
What other advice do I have?
I have been using this product almost since it was first released. It changed in the last two or three years to be officially launched. I think the initial release of Monitor came out about four years ago and has improved a bit. So on a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate Azure Monitor further up there than I would have before. It is eight now. It is really production-ready. I'm not going to give it 10 out of 10 cause nothing's ever that good but I'll give it an 8.5 out of 10.
To get closer to being a ten they would need automation of alerting. What I mean by this is adding a feature where you drag-and-drop what you want and then you can click and it exports the template. That would be ideal. I think there is actually a way to do that template export, but there isn't a dedicated export function. You can do that without a dedicated function when you deploy, but you can't do that with a visual monitor at the moment.
In any case, I would definitely recommend the product for Azure users because it is seamlessly integrated into the platform.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
Senior Java Developer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Stable but difficult to use
Pros and Cons
- "Azure Monitor is very stable."
- "In my opinion, they should improve the overall user experience, especially when it comes to indexing and searching collective logs."
What is our primary use case?
I use the SaaS version. I use Azure Monitor to collect and index logs for my systems. It allows me to search through my logs and find bugs and mistakes. From there, it helps me report these mistakes.
We use this solution every day. I plan on continuing to use this solution for specific parts of projects but for other portions of my projects, I plan on using DataDog or something similar.
What needs improvement?
It's difficult to say as I only use a small part of this solution; however, It can be quite difficult to use at times. I think there are better solutions available.
In my opinion, they should improve the overall user experience, especially when it comes to indexing and searching collective logs. The search language they've developed is quite difficult to understand.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Azure Monitor for roughly two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Azure Monitor is very stable.
How are customer service and technical support?
I've never had to contact technical support for this solution. I haven't encountered any issues that required their assistance.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used to use an on-premise solution, but I cannot remember the name of it. We switched over to Azure because it was better suited to our needs.
How was the initial setup?
As this is a cloud solution, the initial setup was very easy. Deployment took only 10-15 minutes — it's very simple.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I was not involved with the licensing of this solution.
What other advice do I have?
In my opinion, Azure Monitor is not the best solution available on the market. My advice is to check out other solutions before you decide to implement Azure Monitor.
Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give Azure Monitor a rating of five. The user experience needs to be improved. It takes a lot of time and organization to learn how to use it properly. It's much more difficult to use compared to other solutions.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
Managing Director at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Good monitoring of infrastructure and applications. The capacity reservations is a great way to cut costs by up to 25% compared to USE-BASED PAYMENT.
Pros and Cons
- "We like this searchability and availability of the data."
- "The price could be lower but it is not a must."
What is our primary use case?
We are a consulting and software development firm and we have a lot of experience with Cloud solutions. In 2019 we start our Solutions in Microsoft Azure. The Azure Monitor is one of the products that we used for our solutions and client tools to monitor the relevant infrastructur, applications and problems. Azure Monitor is a usefull tool to have a dashboard with all metrics information over all using enviroments.
How has it helped my organization?
Azure Monitor has made it much easier for us to constantly monitor the infrastructure and applications with possible problems. With regular use and maintenance, the emerging scope of evaluation data can also be clearly arranged.
Downtimes are no longer desirable these days and with Azure Monitor the undetected downtime has been reduced to a few minutes.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the survey of surveillance data in real time and the useful dashboard.
We like the performance display of the applications and the ability to identify problems as well as resources on which they depend.
Service Health is very helpful in identifying existing service problems and leading to a quick solution.
What needs improvement?
Sending multidimensional metrics through diagnostic settings should be supported.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been working with Azure Monitor for the past year. In 2019 we starting in the Azure Cloud with our solutions.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Azure Monitor is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
To this point, my impression is that it is scalable and it is a good tool to find infrastructure and application problems in realtime. We are in the B2B market and our clients are enterprise-level companies.
How are customer service and technical support?
We do not generally use technical support. The linked help and built-in assistants can often provide immediate help. We look for tutorials and search the web using Google/Bing to find solutions to our problems if we have them.
In the Azure Monitor case, everything was self-explanatory and the additional online help was completely sufficient.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to Azure Monitor, we did not work with any similar solutions.
How was the initial setup?
I would say that the initial setup is somewhere between easy and complex. It starts a little bit easier with the wizards, but if you want to achieve the best performance then you have to know the product well.
What was our ROI?
Find infrastructure and application problems in realtime.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Using the capacity reservations.
What other advice do I have?
My advice for anybody who is implementing Azure Monitor is to look for the tutorial before starting. Then, to install and set up the monitor, use the wizards. The combination will help you to find the best ways to use the tools.
I would rate this solution a 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
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Updated: December 2024
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