All You Need To Know About Cloud Monitoring Tools

Attention, agents! It's time to learn about all the most important tool in your arsenal — your cloud monitoring arsenal, that is.

So, what are Cloud Monitoring Tools? Thankfully, this doesn't mean you need a screwdriver and hammer to fix anything — take your Tim the Toolman belt off and save it for another day! The job Of Cloud Monitoring Tools is to ensure that any issues in your cloud environment are found and fixed so that the end-user experience is top-notch. You need a 20/20 spy vision for your cloud software, processes and infrastructure to guarantee a high-level end-user experience.

So, without further ado, it's time to get the lowdown on what Cloud Monitoring Tools are and how they work.

Let’s get to it!
 

What Are Cloud Monitoring Tools, Ethan?

Cloud Monitoring Tools are software that watch over your cloud infrastructure, collect and report data to make insightful predictions about your cloud infrastructure's performance. It also keeps an eye on the availability of your cloud infrastructure, which makes sure your services are readily available and scalable as your customer demands change. These bad boys (read: Cloud Monitoring Tools) affect your cloud-based software performance, services and applications.

Additionally, the tools report their findings through alerts and detailed graphs so that you can understand them easily. There is a myriad of Cloud Monitoring Tools offered by different companies. Some may only target one area of cloud infrastructure monitoring, while others will give you a high-level overview of logs, metrics and key performance indicators. Yet, every tool aims to give you the right information to improve your cloud processes and revenue. Got that, soldier?

Now it's time for a history lesson – don't worry, we won’t go as far back as the Punic Wars, agent!
 

Where Do Cloud Monitoring Tools Come From?

Popping in our favorite NSYNC CD, we embark on a journey that starts in the 1990s. To get some reference, we need to look at the history of cloud computing and monitoring in general, General!
 

• The early 1990s

  Unix helped operating systems move into the world of real-time. In doing so, Unix provided examples of the first modern monitoring tools that included system logs. Vmstat was one such system monitoring tool that collected and displayed information about the operating system’s memory, processes, interrupts, etc.  .

• The mid-1990s

  The world saw the practical application of real-time graphic monitoring tools. They soon became a normal part of the desktop operating systems of the time.

• The late 90s

  With internet monitoring coming into the picture, people realized that local area networks wouldn't be the only game in town. Hurray, because it was now time for monitoring tools like Zabbix and Cacti to come into the picture. These tools were scalable and adaptable to multiple platforms.

• The 2000s

  Internet commerce became prominent during this year. In fact, it quickly started to become the primary platform for which businesses created revenue. With the rise of internet commerce came the need for monitoring tools — solutions that would give insights into traffic on a website during a particular time of the day, for example.

• The present

  Internet commerce moved to the cloud as it cost less, had a higher uptime and allowed scalability that hardware did not. This led to the development of Cloud Monitoring Tools.

Next, you'll get the skinny on how these tools actually work. Let’s go!
 

How Do Cloud Monitoring Tools Work?

"How does all this work?" asks the green recruit at the IMF.

You see, Cloud Monitoring Tools are either in-house or provided through Software as a Service (SaaS) delivery. Often, organizations will use Cloud Monitoring Tools offered by cloud providers such as Oracle Cloud, AWS or Microsoft Azure. That makes it convenient by alleviating the need for additional installation or integration.

However, SaaS is an excellent option because of the expertise offered by these service providers. That being said, you may have to pay more for them as it entails additional subscription to services. Either way, once these tools are installed, they observe your cloud infrastructure's behavior 24/7, find issues and errors as well as ways to improve the overall cloud performance. 

Cloud Monitoring Tools improve the agility, reduce errors, discover potential issues and offer robust security — now do you know why we called it the all-seeing eye!

Yet, this also means there are several features – let's take a look!
 

Features Offered By Cloud Monitoring Tools

Here are the different types of Cloud Monitoring Tools:
 

• Unified Monitoring

  Allows you to get a comprehensive look at your cloud infrastructure. With this kind of vision available to businesses, IT teams can address issues faster.

• End-user Experience Monitoring

  Examines the cloud metrics that affect end-users' experience. For example, web and application performance.

• Cloud Server Monitoring

  Offer contextual visibility for cloud-based servers, allowing for a faster diagnosis of issues and the ability to find their root cause.

• Virtual Infrastructure Monitoring

  Observes the entire virtual infrastructure for potential issues and performance improvement areas.

• Database Monitoring

  Is a critical aspect too as most cloud applications rely on databases. This type of tool monitors the data integrity, usage, availability and queries of cloud databases.

• Application Performance Management

  Helps you see how your cloud applications and deployments are performing. This is done by looking at metrics such as uptime, transaction times, revenue generation, etc. which impact your business.

Now, it's time to look at the real and tangible benefits of Cloud Monitoring Tools.

Why Are These Tools Important?

We are all in awe of the awesome technologies we see in the Mission Impossible franchise – and we bet they use Cloud Monitoring Tools too! How can we be sure?
Well, read on about its benefits:

• Cloud Monitoring Tools are cost-effective as they're usually subscription-based.
• Businesses do not need to buy new tools when their cloud infrastructure expands as these tools scale with your cloud environment.
• This tool includes scheduled reporting capabilities so maintenance and reporting takes place regularly at a predetermined time. This can be automated within the Cloud Monitoring Tools.
• Anomaly detection reporting can help identify unusual behavior within the cloud infrastructure and applications.

Impressive, right? However, just as we are waiting for the next Mission Impossible movie, we are looking forward to the future of Cloud Monitoring Tools!

The Future Of Cloud Monitoring Tools

Before we get into that, here are some clouds for your pleasure:


The cloud is slowly becoming the norm in industries thanks to its benefits. We expect Cloud Monitoring Tools to keep pace by integrating better features soon. Better observability of the cloud will be the next big thing concerning cloud monitoring. It will enable businesses the ability to look at cloud systems, software, data, processes, etc. From a single application and glean  better insights. Further, as the cloud environment grows, the tool will get better at monitoring networked assets and assessing their behavior. Even third-party applications will be viewed from a security aspect before allowing access to the business cloud.

Organizations will need Cloud Monitoring Tools that can scale with their fluctuating workloads. This is why run-of-the-mill monitoring tools just won't cut it. We’re excited for the future of Cloud Monitoring Tools!

Conclusion

Think of Cloud Monitoring Tools as the watchdogs for your cloud; sniffing the entire territory, identifying potential issues and reporting back their findings in an easy to understand manner. They ensure that all things within the cloud are running smoothly, while finding ways to improve workflows. It's time to put your cloud knowledge into practical application, agent! Are you ready?