We are an operation center so we use this solution mainly to monitor all of our clients' environments and to help them with technical issues. So it's mainly promoting clients' environments, technical issues, and being proactive.
Partner / Consultant at Procomix
Monitors all of our clients' environments and helps them with technical issues
Pros and Cons
- "I am impressed by the reporting on the average eight ports that we get from this solution."
- "They need to work on a more hybrid deployment that will allow us to monitor local on-premise deployments and connect to different systems. I would like to see more integration."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
I am impressed by the reporting on the average eight ports that we get from this solution.
What needs improvement?
They need to work on a more hybrid deployment that will allow us to monitor local on-premise deployments and connect to different systems. I would like to see more integration.
In the next version, I would like to see more mobile applications. The current support is based on email so customers don't have full support. I think the developers need to put some effort into the support team to put skilled people in place and provide phone access.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have teen using the solution for almost two years now.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We've had no major issues, so the program is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I believe the program is scalable.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was not that complex but it was definitely not straightforward. You need to have certain design planning in place. We are integrators, so we have an internal team who was responsible for it.
The duration of deployment depends on the size and the number of servers that you need to monitor. Sometimes it takes 20 or 30 days, sometimes takes five days or even less. So it depends on the client size and how much he or she wants to evolve and develop.
I would say that one person is enough to do the deployment; it really depends on the kind of business.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Azure offers more intelligence than other solutions. Other solutions mainly focus on the network with hardware, but Azure is more open to other platforms.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to others would be to do design planning. I believe there is room for improvement, especially when it comes to mobile applications. That is why my rating is eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller.
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.
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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?
I use this service for log analytics of application and SQL database
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.
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 technical 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
Cloud Advisory Senior Manager at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Data collection solution used for infrastructure monitoring and comes with out of the box functionality
Pros and Cons
- "One of the most useful aspects of this solution is the out-of-the-box functionality on all areas, especially on Application Insights, zero instrumentation, and artificial intelligence for event correlation."
- "This solution could be improved with more out-of-the-box functionalities and artificial intelligence to complete event correlation."
What is our primary use case?
The main use case for this solution includes infrastructure monitoring, Application Insights and APM.
What is most valuable?
One of the most useful aspects of this solution is the out-of-the-box functionality on all areas, especially on Application Insights, zero instrumentation, and artificial intelligence for event correlation.
What needs improvement?
This solution could be improved with more out-of-the-box functionalities and artificial intelligence to complete event correlation.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used this solution for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This is a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This is a scalable solution.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have previously used Dynatrace and Datadog. Dynatrace is the most expensive solution but also the fastest to produce results. I would rate Datadog to fall between Azure Monitor and Dynatrace. Azure Monitor is the most cost-effective of the three solutions.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is relatively easy. It requires time and involves a lot of work.
What other advice do I have?
Azure Monitor is a full-scale solution that could work for small to larger size companies. For a large enterprise, Azure Monitor may require additional tools to complement the offering.
I would rate this solution a seven 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
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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