For large, cloud-native enterprises, choosing a monitoring solution comes down to the handful of tools really set up to provide a comprehensive, full-stack service on a global scale. A few options fit the bill, but today, we’re focusing on household names:
- Dynatrace
- Instana
- Datadog
Moreover, we’ll be explaining how a 24/7 support provider can add value to an enterprise team at the implementation and incident response stage.
What’s unique about application monitoring in the enterprise context?
A few constants stand out.
- Enterprises need full-stack monitoring from a primary tool. A team may or may not sub in something like BugSnag for niche uses, but mostly, enterprises want exhaustive coverage
- Enterprises are interested in standout features. Buying at the peak of price means buying at the peak of performance. Enterprise monitoring solutions boast features that suit them perfectly to certain use cases
- Enterprises value integration and automation range. An application monitoring solution is a moving part among many. A good tool needs to synchronise with a large and diverse environment
- Enterprises can often benefit from working with a support specialist on their monitoring and incident response. They have the budget, and complexity of need to justify it
We’ll be covering all this, as well as a typical use case and ballpark costs. On to the tools.
Dynatrace
Ballpark cost for a typical use case:
Based on Dynatrace pricing at time of writing:
- Full-Stack monitoring: $0.08 per hour for an 8 GiB host
- Infrastructure monitoring: $0.04 per hour for any size host
- Kubernetes monitoring: $0.002 per hour for any size pod
- Application security: $0.018 per hour for an 8 GiB host
- Real user monitoring: $0.00225 per session
- Synthetic monitoring: $0.001 per synthetic request
- Log management & analytics: ingest & process at $0.20 per GiB, retain at $0.0007 per GiB per day, and query at $0.0035 per GiB
Based on a typical enterprise use case this may tot up to circa $150,000-$170,000 manually.
What is a typical use case?
A large multinational enterprise business with a static IT environment looking for an all-in-one monitoring platform, often with an interest in AI and automation. A bank might be a prime Dynatrace customer.
Full-stack monitoring
Like other tools on this list, Dynatrace is more than capable of handling the full stack: code, cloud, and third-party integrations. Where Dynatrace excels is in its AI-powered root cause analysis and enhanced capabilities in discovery and mapping powered by Smartscape. Users praise Dynatrace’s comprehensive, full-stack monitoring prowess but note it can be quite difficult to set up.
Standout feature: Davis, the Dynatrace AI
Dynatrace’s AI engine Davis delivers:
- Automatic anomaly detection
- Root cause analysis
- Predictive analytics
Users say Davis really does deliver and add value. However, it adds to the bill and can be complex to set up and manage.
Integrations & automation
Dynatrace can be integrated seamlessly with cloud-native tools, platforms, and DevOps pipelines. The ability to gel with DevOps environments is particularly helpful to enterprises delivering at speed and scale. As in each other category, users commend the functionality but criticise the cost and complexity.
Scalability
Dynatrace is built to handle 30,000 servers within a single environment and to manage environments with over 50,000 hosts. With a unified data model, elastic cluster architecture, and distributed tracing and storage mechanisms, Dynatrace is optimised for sheer scale.
Instana (now powered by IBM)
Ballpark cost for a typical use case:
Instana doesn’t give costs per unit at time of writing but they do offer a handy price estimator.
Based on a typical enterprise use case we’ve come up with $90,000-$110,000 annually.
What is a typical use case?
An enterprise-grade media, streaming or gaming company. Essentially, anyone with a highly dynamic, often microservices-driven environment.
Full-stack monitoring
Instana is also a full-stack application monitoring tool, but it has a tighter focus than Dynatrace. Like Dynatrace, Instana provides monitoring across the cloud, application, and user level in real-time, along with synthetic monitoring. However, it’s the standout features that make it a specialist in rapidly changing ephemeral environments.
Standout feature: automated instrumentation
Although Dynatrace has some automated instrumentation capacity, Instana is stronger here.
Automated instrumentation refers to a tool’s ability to detect and hook into new services as and when they’re deployed. Instana’s AutoTrace technology is one of the most advanced examples, making it perfect for large, changeable environments where manual detection is not only undesirable but downright impossible.
Users love that AutoTrace offers comprehensive service detection and monitoring without a big impact on performance.
Integrations and automation
Instana integrates seamlessly with a wide array of DevOps tools and platforms such as Kubernetes, Docker, Jenkins, and various CI/CD pipelines. Users appreciate the efficiency and comprehensive integration capabilities, which simplify monitoring across complex, distributed systems.
Scalability
Like all enterprise-grade application monitoring tools, Instana can scale to cover global environments. However, where it differs from Dynatrace is its focus on automation. Instana can scale more quickly and with less configuration due to a variety of factors (adaptive sampling, lightweight agents, and of course automated instrumentation) but might not be able to handle the same absolute volume as Dynatrace.
Datadog
Ballpark cost for a typical use case
Datadog pricing at time of writing:
- Pro starting at $15 per host, per month, billed annually or $18 on-demand
- Enterprise starting at $23 per host, per month, billed annually or $27 on-demand
- DevSecOps Pro starting at $22 per host, per month, billed annually or $27 on-demand
- DevSecOps Enterprise starting at $34 per host, per month, billed annually or $41 on-demand
Put together, we expect a typical enterprise use case to cost approximately $90,000-$110,000 annually.
What is a typical use case?
Where Dynatrace favours static environments and Instana microservice-driven architectures, Datadog excels at detecting performance issues in changeable environments across various architectural types — all with trademark ease of setup. This makes it a great choice for companies with diverse, changeable environments such as enterprise-level eCommerce platforms, particularly those without specialised technical staff.
Full-stack monitoring
Like Dynatrace and Instana, Datadog is a full-stack application performance management solution. However, what sets Datadog apart is its extensive array of integrations and the ease of setup and deployment.
Standout feature: robust integration capabilities
Datadog is recognised by users for the breadth and ease of its integrations and reporting functions. While both Instana and Dynatrace are highly integrable tools with robust features, Datadog allows users to connect to a wide variety of tools and produce out-the-box dashboards with relative ease.
Throughout the industry, it’s recognised that Datadog’s documentation and intuitive design set it apart.
Automation and integration
While we’ve already covered this point, it’s worth restating that Datadog integrates with and provides a wide variety of tools and functions, for example, Intelligent Test Runner (a Datadog tool) and Google Cloud Armour (no points for guessing who makes this one). In terms of automation, although less highlighted than Dynatrace, Datadog’s automation also leverages AI, with its machine-learning-driven incident management (IM) capabilities.
Scalability
Datadog is able to scale to cover complex, dynamic environments. Like Instana, Datadog offers automatic service detection and monitoring. However, unlike Instana, Datadog is a generalist, able to detect, scale with, and monitor a cloud-native environment. Datadog may face challenges at the extreme end of ephemerality, where Instana specialises.
How application performance monitoring can be outsourced as a managed service
Broadly speaking, external managed service providers add value in one of two ways when tagged into an APM project with an enterprise client and a high-investment, broadly capable tool.
Way one: implementation
You’ll notice one consistent theme in user feedback is that implementation can be tricky. They’re not wrong.
Even teams who know their underlying solution through and through can struggle with the ins and outs of a complex implementation: gearheads around the world can go into the nitty gritty on their cars’ mechanics. But those onboard diagnostic scanners are few people’s raison d’etre.
Moreover, when runbooks and break/fix processes aren’t defined clearly to begin with, it can be difficult to know what to point these tools at in the first place.
At Just After Midnight, we’ve helped countless teams improve monitoring implementations on:
- Configuration and set up
- Cost management and optimisation
- Licensing and compliance management
- Continuous improvements and iteration
Way two: expanding the incident response function
One of the key use cases for a tool like Dynatrace, Datadog, or Instana is to alert devs to P1 and P2 incidents.
However, information is only as good as the action it generates.
Outsourcing or partially outsourcing your use of an enterprise-grade monitoring tool can mean outsourcing the incident response, too.
A good third-party 24/7 support provider will build a detailed and intelligent incident response process. This means multiple runbooks, the ability to properly prioritise incidents and, of course, resolve them to a tight SLA.
In some cases, choosing and configuring the right monitoring tool is just half the battle.
How we can help
We’re the cavalry in that second half.
At Just After Midnight, we’ve helped enterprise partners from DLA Piper to Volvo monitor and support complex environments around the clock.
With full-stack engineers across 4 time zones, we offer true full-stack, follow-the-sun support. Meaning if your issue’s at the code, app, or integration layer, no matter the time of day or night, we’ve got you covered.
Read here to find out more about our work. If you have any questions, just get in touch.