Four Keys for Monitoring Cloud Services

8/6/2019 Four Keys for Monitoring Cloud Services

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Four Keys for Monitoring

Cloud ServicesWhite Paper rom ManageEngine





Introduction

Organizations are becoming increasingly interested in leveraging cloud computing services to improve fexibility and scalability o the IT services

delivered to end-users. However, organizations using cloud computing services ace the ollowing challenge: decreased visibility into the peror

mance o services being delivered to their end-users.

Many cloud providers oer dashboards or tracking availability o their services as well as alerting capabilities or identiying service outages in a

timely manner, but these capabilities are not sucient or end-users who need to have a ull control o the perormance o cloud services in use

More importantly, organizations cannot rely on monitoring capabilities oered by their cloud service providers, and they need to deploy third-

party solutions that allow them to monitor the perormance and levels o SLA achievements o cloud services.

Overview of Cloud Computing

The term Cloud Computing stands or a type o service that allows organizations to deliver business-critical applications to their employees, cus

tomers, and partners over the Internet. End-users are able to access this data using a web browser, while organizations are able to improve fex-

ibility and scalability o IT services and pay only or computing resources that they actually use.

There are three types o cloud computing services: public, private, and hybrid.

Public cloud computing services are hosted by third-party service providers, such as Amazon, Google, Rackspace, GoGrid, and VMWare and allow

organizations to use externally hosted computing resources while paying only or computing resources that they actually use. This method o

cloud computing ts the most common denition o cloud services, and it is most appealing especially or small and medium sized organizations

Private cloud services are hosted by end-user organizations themselves to support their internal needs and allow their business users to access

business-critical data services over the Internet. Even though this type o cloud computing does not completely all under a traditional deni-

tion o cloud computing (computing resources are not hosted and managed by third-party providers), private cloud services are getting a lot o

traction rom end-user organizations. Deployment o these services does not require an involvement rom external providers, but private cloud

services are still helping organizations to achieve the majority o promised benets o cloud computing.

Hybrid cloud computing services represent a combination o IT services that are based on hosting computing resources or supporting business

critical applications both in the cloud and in the externally managed data centers. This allows organizations to keep internal control over comput

ing resources while complimenting these resources with the cloud capacity that users can access over the Internet.

Top Management Challenges

Inability to identiy applications that could be seamlessly moved to the cloud

Beore making decisions about applications that should be moved to the cloud environment, organizations should make a calcula

tion about IT and business benets that they can achieve rom this action. Additionally, organizations should have capabilities in

place to test whether the cloud inrastructure they are using can support applications that are being transerred to the cloud.

Unortunately, many organizations do not have technology capabilities that would allow them to conduct this type o testing and

3Application Perormance Management www.manageengine.com/apm




thereore, they are orced to make adjustments to available capacity as they experience problems with quality o service.

This type o challenge prevents organizations rom achieving one o their top goals or managing the perormance o business-

critical applications: prevent perormance issues rom occurring beore end-users are impacted.

Inability to make educated decisions about adding or terminating cloud resources

Deploying cloud computing services changes the way organizations go about managing their computing resources, as it gives

them more fexibility in using available capacity in the way that is the most cost eective. Instead o making costly investments in

new hardware when they need additional capacity, organizations have the ability to increase and decrease cloud resources used

as the demand changes. In order to take a ull advantage o this capability, organizations need to have ull visibility into how thei

existing resources are being used in both internal and external environments.

Organizations need to have capabilities or monitoring usage o the cloud resources that would also alert them when they need

additional resources and about applications or which these additional resources are needed. These monitoring capabilities include

tools or monitoring CPU usage per computing resource, ratios between systems activity and user activity, and CPU usage rom

specic job tasks. Also, organizations should have capabilities or predictive analytics that allow them to capture trending data on

memory utilization and le system growth, so they can plan needed changes to computing resources beore they encounter service

availability issues. Not having these capabilities in place prevents organizations rom taking timely actions or optimizing cloud

resources in use to meet changes in business demand.

Inability to monitor perormance o applications that use a hybrid cloud approach

Organizations using cloud computing services need to have visibility not only into the perormance o applications that have moved

to the cloud, but also into the dierent computing resources on which these applications depend. Typically, organizations nd it

easier to monitor the perormance o applications that are hosted at a single server as opposed to the perormance o composite

applications that are pulling computing resources rom dierent sources. This issue becomes even more complex i computing

resources are hosted outside o corporate rewalls, and organizations do not have a ull control and visibility into the perormance

o these applications.

As mentioned earlier, organizations sometimes use a hybrid model or deploying cloud computing, which presents end-user orga

nizations with the challenge o monitoring usage o resources that are hosted and managed both externally and internally and are

being used by the same application.

Improving scalability o the inrastructure creates heterogeneous environments that are dicult to manage

Even though organizations can achieve signicant cost savings and increased fexibility o management by moving their business

critical applications into the cloud, this also creates a new environment that is airly complex to monitor and manage. As a result

traditional IT management tools are not as eective in these environments as they are in managing the perormance o internally

hosted applications. This creates the challenge o nding a balance between scalability and fexibility o computing resources and






ing the perormance o applications hosted outside o their corporate rewalls and one or those hosted in their data centers. It is

hence important or the monitoring tool to support integrating data rom possibly two restrictive networks that orm part o the

data center.

Having this capability in place allows organizations to ensure optimal levels o perormance o business-critical applications regard

less o hosting method and in the process make their IT Operations more productive.

Business Benefts

Organizations that are using the right mix o technology solutions or monitoring the perormance o applications in the cloud are

more likely to enjoy the ollowing business benets:

• Prevention and resolution of performance issues in timely manner . Organizations that have visibility into resource utilization in the cloud are

more likely to make educated and timely decisions about resource allocation and, thereore, to prevent perormance prob-

lems beore they impact their business users.

• Ability to support changes in business demand . Full visibility into the perormance o cloud services allows organizations to unlock the

benets o cloud computing, especially when it comes to improved fexibility o IT management. Organizations that have

end-to-end visibility into the perormance o cloud services and their internal inrastructure are able to make better deci-

sions about adding or subtracting resources to support changes in business demand, which allows them to ensure a high

level o quality o end-user experience at optimal cost.

• Ability to optimize spending decisions. Organizations deploying independent tools or monitoring perormance, SLA achievements

and usage o cloud services are more likely to be able to make educated decisions about the return they are getting rom

their investment in cloud services.

Recommendations or action

In order to have ull visibility into the perormance o cloud services, organizations should consider taking the ollowing actions:

• Deploy independent tools or monitoring and validating the perormance o cloud services

• Deploy tools or measuring the impact o rules or assigning cloud resources based on quality o end-user experience

• Develop the ability to compare cloud service delivery to perormance o the internal environment

• Make sure your monitoring tool supports a hybrid deployment architecture




ManageEngine Applications Manager’s Capabilities

ManageEngine provides capabilities that allow organizations to make educated decisions about parts o the enterprise inrastruc

ture that should be moved into the Cloud by providing perormance reports . There is out-o-the-box support or monitoring ap

plication servers, database servers, servers and web servers. The support or packaged applications like Exchange, SAP and Oracle

E-Business Suite urther helps IT Managers to make inormed decisions.

Additionally, ManageEngine Applications Manager allows organizations to monitor levels o SLA achievements or cloud services

and to be able to troubleshoot and resolve problems with application perormance regardless o the hosting and delivery method

(Internet and/or corporate networks).

The distributed architecture acilitates monitoring applications in the cloud and those present inside the corporate datacenter rom

the same console.

Application

Performance

Monitoring

End User

Experience

Monitoring

Service Level

Management

Servers,

Application Servers,

Web Server Monitoring

Database

Monitoring

Performance

Troubleshooting

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Four Keys for Monitoring Cloud Services