Datadog Reviews

The product is used for APM solutions for the metrics and traces for the REST API requests and service maps to understand the upstream and downstream services.

We are creating dashboards and widgets to monitor the status. We are creating alerts and monitors as well. We integrated the alerts and ticketing system in our organization with SNOW and Netcool.

We are using Kubernetes, AWS, and infrastructure metrics. We are using Kafka and Aurora Postgres logs as well, and we are using HTTP status codes to identify the error types.

So far, the solution works very well and solves most of the problems we have. Currently, we are trying to integrate the trace ID into Datadog and correlate the logs and metrics. However, Datadog is not supporting the spring-generated trace IDs, and they are not shown in the Datadog UI. It works in reverse. This means Datadog injects the DD-specific trace ID into the application logs, and those logs can be in other tools, for example, Cloud Watch and Splunk. 

The most valuable aspect is the APM which can monitor the metrics and latencies. There's a low error rate, and any alerts can be tagged to the service requests and sent via email to the required DLs. 

We can create incidents as well in our internal tools, like SNOW and Netcool.

The monitoring enables different dimensions of metrics to monitor the services and infrastructure. 

We have cloud infrastructure monitoring in Kubernetes nodes, pods containers, and ingress metrics.

Alerts are sent to an email in case of any issues. The metrics are used to create alerts.

The solution offers good dashboards, service maps, traces and flame graphs, HTTP status codes, power packs, service catalogs, and profiling.

While the logs module is not activated, we are using all other modules.

The correlation between the logs and the metrics needs improvement as most cases, we might use another logging tool (that is cheaper in cost) which then we have to link together. 

They can improve the SSO logging as well. Currently, we are logging in every two to three days by sending the login link explicitly.

I've been using the solution for two years. 

The stability is awesome. 

We are expanding beyond observability right now.

They offer pretty awesome customer support.

We did not previously use a different solution.

The initial setup was easy.

We implemented the solution with the help of a vendor team.

I'd rate the ROI ten out of ten.

I would recommend Datadog to others.

We also evaluated ECE and Splunk.

The solution has a great support model.

The RUM is implemented for customer support session replays to quickly route, triage, and troubleshoot support issues which can be sent to our engineering teams directly. 

Customer Support will log in directly after receiving a customer request and work on the issue. Engineers will utilize the replay along with RUM to pinpoint the issue combined with APM and Infra trace to be able to look for signals to find the direct cause of the customer impact. 

Incident management will be utilized to open a Jira ticket for engineering, and it integrates with ITSM systems and on-call as needed.

The RUM solution has improved our ability to triage faster and hand more capabilities to our customer support.

The RUM is implemented for customer support. It can quickly route, triage, and troubleshoot support issues that are sent to our engineering teams. 

Customer support can log in and start troubleshooting after receiving a customer request. The replay and RUM help pinpoint the issue. This functionality is combined with APM and Infra trace to be able to look for the cause of the issue. Incident management is leveraged to open a Jira ticket for engineering, and it can integrate with ITSM systems and on-call as needed.

RUM with session replay combined with a future use case to support synthetics will help to identify issues earlier in our process. We have not rolled this out yet but plan for it as a future use case for our customer support process. This, combined with integrated automation for incident management, will drive down our MTTR and time spent working through tickets. Overall, we are hoping to use this to look at our data and perfection rate over time in a BI-like way to reduce our customer support headcount by saving on time spent.

I would like to see retention options greater than 30-days for session replay. I'd also like to see forwarding options for retention to custom solutions, and a greater ability to event and export data from the tooling overall to BI/DW solutions for reporting across the long term and to see trends as needed.

I've used the solution for about nine months.

So far, stability has been great.

I'd like to see more bells and whistles added over time. Widgets are coming soon to help with RUM.

Support is very good. They are responsive and gave us the help we need.

Positive

We have utilized New Relic, however, not for RUM. We went with Datadog to potentially switch the entire platform into an all-in-one solution that makes sense for a company of our size.

We started on the beta, and the documentation was lagging behind. We also needed direct instructions and links from the customer support/account representative that was not immediately available by searching online.

We implemented the solution ourselves.

Ideally, this will inform our strategy to not increase our customer support headcount as significantly into 2023 and beyond.

The pricing is a bit confusing. However, the RUM session replay, in general, is very inexpensive compared to whole solutions.

We looked into LogRocket and New Relic.

I'd advise other users to try it out.

We use metrics to track the metrics of our application. We use logging to log any errors or erroneous application behavior as well as successful behavior. We use events to log successful steps in our pipeline or failed steps in our deployment. We use a combination of all these features to diagnose bugs. 

It makes it much more efficient to look at all the data in one place. This speeds up our development speed so that we can be agile.

This spectrum of solutions has allowed us to track down bugs faster and more rapidly, which allows us to limit revenue lost during downtime. 

It also allows us to accurately record and project current and future revenue by measuring the application's metrics. This way, my team can accurately and rapidly create reports for upper management that are easy to read and understand. 

Datadog is also easy to read by non-technical personnel. This way, if there are any erroneous readings, everybody has a chance to find them.

We use metrics to track the metrics of our application. We use logging to log any errors or erroneous application behavior as well as successful behavior. We use events to log successful steps in our pipeline or failed steps in our deployment. 

We use a combination of all these features to diagnose bugs. It makes it much more efficient to look at all the data in one place. This speeds up our development speed so that we can be agile.

These features are the features that I use the most since it is incredibly difficult to track down intermittent bugs if I were to look directly under the hood in a CLI.

Datadog could make their use cases more visible either through their docs or tutorial videos. There are different implementations of certain features that we utilize to customize Datadog functionality and in that way, we sometimes get results that are not conducive to what Datadog thinks their features' use cases are.

I've used the solution for at least one year.

We have only used Datadog. We did not previously use a different product.

Log aggregation for us was a key component since we have a fairly old-school app running on VMs on bare metal. We previously didn't have much insight into our logs unless we manually tunneled them into each server.

The solution is reducing manual labor in troubleshooting problems in our environments server by server.

We also needed to monitor our Java app and MySQL database to understand their problems so that we could take action and resolve them.

Our use cases have since expanded to encompass all aspects of monitoring.

Before Datadog, all we had to go on was the gut reaction of the old guard on our team. While useful, the reactions and inherent knowledge only benefited a few folks.

Datadog has allowed us to create comprehensive dashboards and proactively send out alerts. We used the knowledge of people very versed with our products to help set up the platform and have since benefited from that.

The operative word here is visibility, and we've seen a huge improvement in that.

Seeing log trends and patterns and aggregate search was a huge first step for us. We then began using other features of the Datadog platform by enabling APM. After that, we did other integrations.

For us to have visibility into our app stack and the hardware we run has been highly beneficial.

We leverage APM, log management, and at least ten other integrations. Our DB, web servers, network, storage, and other areas are now monitored and hooked up to dashboards.

Dashboarding has also proven useful when information is going to be viewed by anyone in the organization.

Our experience has been overwhelmingly positive so far. That said, there is one area that could benefit from some polish. For example, I want to applaud the efforts in making the UI extremely usable and approachable. My suggestion would be to take another look at how the menu structure is put together, however. Even after using the platform mostly every day for months, I still find myself trying to find a service or feature in the menus.

I've used the solution for around six or eight months. We've had the Datadog agents deployed on our various environments.

So far, we have not had any issues with stability. It should be very stable and easy to update.

The solution is currently deployed on a limited scale. That said, we see the potential and benefits of deploying this in a cloud scenario.

Customer service and the support teams have been very responsive when we need them. They are very professional.

Positive

This was our first solution in this space.

The initial setup steps with the agent are only confusing when using the config files for the first time. The main file includes a lot that you can specify elsewhere and it's not readily apparent which one to use until you dig in more.

We did an in-house implementation.

Our ROI with Datadog has been very high. It's given us the ability to see how we're performing, which we didn't have before.

Ensure you have your ingestion pipelines dialed in, or you'll likely spend more than you were expecting.

We evaluated free and open-source options, however, ultimately, we decided that we didn't have the manpower as a small company to maintain them.

There is nothing that the documentation cannot help with; it's very good.

We use the solution for monitoring time spent on views and events triggered. For example, for one of our products, we have created a custom dashboard that lets us track all the custom events and multiple entry points in the same part of the application.

Knowing the entry point helps us choose which part of the program should be improved next. It also helps us with collecting important data about the overall usage of each module within our application. 

The solution has helped our organization with custom events to track specific cases.

It's helped with monitoring time spent on views and events triggered. For example, for one of our products, we have created a custom dashboard that lets us track all the custom events as well as multiple entry points into the same part of the application.

Knowing the entry point helps us choose which part of the program should be improved. It's collecting important data about the overall usage of each module within our application. 

The most valuable feature is the custom events to track specific cases.

Monitoring time spent on views and events can be triggered. For example, for one of our products, we have created a custom dashboard that lets us track all the custom events and multiple entry points in the same part of the application.

Knowing the entry point helps us decide on improvements. We can collect important data about the overall usage of each module within our application. 

We look forward to the next features from Datadog. We need to learn more about the session reply feature inside of DD.

I've used the solution for two years.

We collect all data logs from all operating systems, such as Windows, Linux, VMware, and bare metal data centers. We also automatize the installation of the agent on servers. 

Now we are starting a POC to analyze the APM module. In the feature, the next step is to do a POC of security modules. 

The final idea is to have a unique portal for observability. This will make it easy to troubleshoot and for layer levels 1 and 2. 

We are looking into a lot of modules. We collect all data logs from all operating systems, including Windows, Linux, VMware, and bare metal data centers. We also automatize the installation of the agent on servers. 

We're developing POCs for APM and security modules. We'll also have a unique portal for observability. This will make it easy to troubleshoot. 

The most valuable aspect is for us to have everything in one place.

We're investigating many modules. We collect all data logs from all operating systems (Windows, Linux, VMware, and bare metal data centers). We also automatize the installation of the agent on servers. 

We're doing POCs in APM and security. 

Soon, we'll have a unique portal for observability. This will make troubleshooting easy at levels 1 and 2. 

The most valuable aspect for us is to have everything in the same place.

We need a lot of modules since we collect all data logs from all operating systems. 

The most important module for us is log management. The second is the security module. The third one is the APM.

We've used the solution for one year.

We use Datadog for observability and monitoring primarily. Various cross-functional teams have built various dashboards, including Developers, QA, DevOps, and SRE. 

There are also some dashboards created for senior leadership to keep tabs on days to day activities like cost, scale, issues, etc. 

Also, we've set up monitors and alarms that kick off when any metrics go beyond the threshold. With Slack and PagerDuty integration, correct team members get alerted and react to solve the issue based on various runbooks.

Using Datadog metrics has helped the organization a lot in many manners. With one centralized monitoring place, it's a lot less effort to keep track of the system and applications' health. 

Using this also helps teams be proactive in dealing with any issues before they get escalated by customers. 

Lastly, having so many integrations makes the DevOps and SRE's lives a lot easier when automating the detection and resolution of any issues hidden in the system or applications. Overall, it has helped a lot.

My favorite feature is creating dashboards as that empowers me to sleep calmly at night and not to keep watch on critical system metrics. Be it DB metrics or computer-related metrics, it's always easy to view them. 

The ease of correcting these dashboards and widgets when needed is amazing. 

The only issue I face is when more than one person editing these dashboards simultaneously, one or the other person sometimes loses his/her work. That said,  they will resolve that soon. With the variety of widgets, it's so easy to plot the data in a timely manner, and that makes monitoring a lot easier.

The solution can be improved in a few areas. 

The parallel editing of the dashboards should not cause users to lose the work of another person. 

Secondly, we would like to see more demos of tools that are in beta version, when they come live. I am sure they will help us a lot.

I've been using the solution for slightly over two years.

I find the solution to be very stable.

I totally love it. It is scalable. 

We previously used Sumo Logic.

The initial setup is not so difficult.

We implemented the solution in-house.

The ROI is very fair so far.

I can't recommend the licensing.

I was not involved in any pre-evaluation process.

I use the solution to manage security-related logs and metrics, as well as create detection rules for security events. I am a security engineer, so one area of interest is the CSPM product, giving us the ability to look at findings across the cloud environment. 

The great part about the Datadog security products is that they incorporate the context of the resources/hosts where the security event is found. This allows us to see exactly what is running on a host that we see as a security alert.

The greatest impact it has had is on the ability to democratize observability and put monitoring into the hands of the people. Teams can quickly get the information they need, without needing a bunch of training, since the UI is super intuitive and easy for beginners. This helps reduce time to resolution during incidents and gives context to developers quickly and easily. Context is really important since seconds matter when the ship is down, and you don't know why.

I find the greatest feature is being able to search across logs from various microservices. As a member of the security team, I find that I often need visibility into other teams' services in order to get a good picture of our security posture.

I also am a fan of the ability to easily create monitors and get alerts into Slack quickly, without too much overhead. For example, I often need to create monitors where I am not too sure where the baseline lies. Having the ability to create anomaly monitors makes this process much more straightforward. Anomaly monitors are great for a security team.

One area where I was really looking for improvement was the CSPM product line. I had really wanted to have team-level visibility for findings, since the team managing the resources has much more context and ability to resolve the issue, as the service owner. However, this has been added to the announcement in a recent keynote. 

Personally, I've used it my entire time employed here, more than three years.