I've described the application performance monitoring (APM) wave multiple times to MSPs. The wave will grow larger this week when AppDynamics and New Relic (NYSE: NEWR) host their respective customer and partner conferences. But how about a practical example of APM benefitting resellers?
Here's one: Resellers can now leverage New Relic to monitor Vodia Networks PBX software. According to a statement from Vodia:
"Consulting companies that resell telephone systems become responsible for server responsiveness and up-time, but have no way to monitor and track problems. Now with Vodia Networks, they will get metrics and alerts through an integration with the entire suite of New Relic tools."
Among the capabilities to watch, according to Vodia:
- New Relic APM for single-site installations and New Relic Servers for cloud hosting will provide server metrics built into Vodia PBX.
- New Relic Synthetics will allow resellers to test server response times around the world.
- New Relic Alerts will plug real-time alerts into notifications or triggers to third party applications.
Vodia officially announced the New Relic integration this month, though clues about the work emerged in August 2016. In a blog at the time, Vodia described the New Relic integration as an ideal replacement for SNMP (simple network management protocol), which gained popularity in the 1990s. But as Vodia pointed out in August:
SNMP has its problems. First of all, like all UDP-based protocols, packet loss and repetition makes it a pain to program. And then SNMP is not very firewall friendly, because of the network translation issues introduced by the shortage of IP addresses and the flourishing firewall business. Authentication was obviously fixed in SNMPv3; however the standards used there did not really make it into the mainstream like we see it today with anything based on HTTPS.
To be honest, if SNMP disappears from the Internet, we will not cry many tears.
It seems that New Relic understands this very well and has build a service around the reporting. Like so many other web services, it is just using HTTPS for the reporting. Obviously the model that the server gets polled every so-and-so seconds does not work any more when most servers are operating behind firewalls; so the reporting has been turned around. Now it is up to the server to report numbers.
Fast forward to present day and the New Relic integration is official.
New Relic Channel Partner Strategy
New Relic, like many of its APM rivals, is diversifying its product portfolio while building out a partner program. The company last week expanded from APM to infrastructure monitoring, potentially rewriting the rules for server monitoring along the way.
Moreover, New Relic Channel Chief John Gray -- an Oracle veteran -- is opening his arms to MSPs. True believers include names like 2nd Watch, CloudReach and Rackspace.
“MSPs are springing up everywhere” to use New Relic’s platforms, Gray told ChannelE2E in August. In particular, he sees major systems integrators leveraging New Relic to branch out into managed services.
So what's next? More partner surprises at the New Relic FutureStack 16 conference. We'll be on hand for the event. You can track all developments here.
