The worlds of application performance management (APM) and infrastructure management continue to converge. The latest example involves Datadog, which has extended its cloud-based monitoring solution to support APM. The move sets the stage for a showdown with New Relic, one of the fastest-growing providers of APM technology.
In recent months, New Relic has been extending from APM down to infrastructure monitoring, according to a New Relic briefing ChannelE2E attended in August. Now, Datadog is returning fire -- extending from infrastructure monitoring up to the APM level.
Datadog APM "is specifically built to help DevOps teams quickly troubleshoot issues in complex, distributed applications that use hybrid clouds, microservices or containers," the company claims.
Moreover, customers and IT services providers can use Datadog's infrastructure and APM capabilities in tandem, examining "changes in both the infrastructure and code simultaneously," according to Datadog Chief Product Officer Amid Agarwal.
Datadog APM Features
Datadog says the SaaS-based APM platform also offers:
- Automatic tracing of individual requests from end to end across hosts and services;
- flame graphs for quickly and accurately identifying the most frequently used code paths;
- customizable dashboards for data aggregation and correlation;
- Built-in collaboration between teams spanning dev and ops organizations;
- smart alerting via email, SMS and cloud-based collaboration tools;
- machine-learning based anomaly detection; and
- transparent tag-based aggregation of performance data from microservices, containers and ephemeral hosts.
Datadog’s APM offering is now in beta for select Datadog customers. Customers can request beta access here. Pricing is undisclosed.
APM, Cloud & Infrastructure Monitoring
No doubt, cloud and mobile computing are shaking up the worlds of IT management. Many APM an IT management platforms, originally designed for client-server settings, date back to the 1990s and early 2000s.
Amid the cloud services wave, dozens of new IT monitoring and management tools have surfaced for Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and other platforms. AppDynamics and New Relic generate most of the APM headlines these days. Both companies also have growing channel partner programs.
As new management tools emerge, MSPs and IT service providers must carefully consider how they'll navigate and coordinate multiple dashboards. A few companies -- such as SolarWinds and ManageEngine -- offer RMM (remote monitoring and management), APM and service desk tools for MSPs. And there are signs that Kaseya is pushing beyond RMM heritage with its PSA and Traverse cloud management tools.
Still, APM and infrastructure upstarts like Datadog don't have any legacy code bases to slow them down. We've been watching Datadog closely since the day we launched ChannelE2E. The company, based in New York, has grown to 250 employees.
Among the interesting twists: Datadog customers range from large enterprises to small, pure-cloud businesses. I believe more than half of Datadog's customers use the monitoring platform to maintain on-premises infrastructure.
Next up: Datadog wants to help those customers -- and plenty more -- with their APM needs...
PS: Memo to every provider of RMM and IT management tools for MSPs... Datadog, AppDynamics and New Relic are heading your way...
