We had a productive 2019 with more customers, new features, our ingress into Machine Learning with AIOps, and much more. As we step into a new decade we wanted to highlight some of the enhancements and features that will be implemented this year. So here's what you can expect in 2020.
User and alert management
We have received numerous requests related to the betterment of user and alert management. Hence in 2020, we are bringing enhancements and features that will address them, thereby making the product more flexible to use.
Integration with Zoho products
This year we are committed to integrating with more of Zoho products which have been a consistent request on our community. Zoho Analytics, Cliq, Desk, and Assist are in different stages of development, as I write this.
Anomaly as a threshold profile configuration
We've built a strong AIOps framework with over 40 million requests being evaluated for anomalous metric identification everyday. Alerting along with anomaly detection will be playing a more important role this year.
Security monitoring for internet services
With end-users becoming increasingly aware of security threats, businesses need to emphasize on securing their internet-facing services from malware, phishing attacks, spam attacks, and enabling trust for the websites they use. With our security monitoring which includes malware scans, defacement identification, anti-spam mail delivery scans, HTTP header vulnerability checks and much more, 2020 will be our starting point for security monitoring.
Infrastructure, cloud, and virtualized environments
With multi-cloud and containerization becoming a mainstay in many organizations, the need for managing these operations is imperative. Learnings from our AWS monitoring along with customer-inputs have given us the fundamental ideas in this space. We are now extending these to other cloud and containerized environments, bringing in a uniform set of configurations that will allow you to manage cloud resources better.
Along with this support for various AWS, Azure, and GCP services, reporting enhancements await release this year.
With container workloads exploding, bringing in enhancements to docker monitoring and introducing Kubernetes monitoring will be a priority this year. In line with this, we will add capabilities that will help Ops teams plan for better capacity of IT resources using performance metrics that we monitor.
Furthermore, after accumulating considerable feedback from customers Nutanix monitoring has been take up and should be available early this year.
CloudSpend
CloudSpend, our cloud cost analytics product will have reporting capabilities, saving reports based on the monitoring of cloud resources and support for Azure this year.
NetFlow Analyzer, Network Configuration Manager, and much more
Intending to provide more visibility into the traffic and bandwidth performance, we are releasing the NetFlow Analyzer that can report for what and by whom is your bandwidth used. This will see the unification of network traffic analysis and network flow monitoring, which will help to optimize networks.
Additionally, we will be providing device templates for the latest network devices, out-of-the-box. Another feature that's lined up is Network Configuration Manager. With this, you can track user activity, change management, and configure backup, making your network disaster-proof. Exhaustive monitoring support for Wireless Access Point along with inventory report is also in the offing.
APM
We'll be releasing Python as a new language support this year with default Django support. Besides this, support to collect trace for every request, alerting for key transactions, correlation of application and infrastructure metrics, integration with JIRA and Zoho bug tracker are set to make our application performance monitoring robust.
As we wish you a wonderful new year, allow us to let your light shine and bring goodwill and prosperity to your business, you and your family.
From all of us at Site24x7 and Zoho, we wish you a joy-filled and peaceful New year!
-Team Site24x7.
Dear Alan,
We expect Kubernetes to be released in the 1st quarter this year.
-Jasper
Hi Bocchi,
We target to give early access of Python APM by Q1 2020. We will post here once it is ready.
Regards,
Raji.
Looking forward to whats coming on alerts improvements, desperately needed. Specifically multiple levels of escalation e.g. if not resolved by 30 min, escalate to the team leader, if not resolved by 60 min, escalate to the manager and so on. Also, the choice of medium to escalate at various levels e.g via email or SMS etc.
Probably worth paying attention to alert consolidation as well, if possible.
Also, two other ares site24x7 product is severely lacking in features. It will be nice to have some improvements in those areas.
1. Microsoft cluster monitoring
2. Application load balancer monitoring (such as F5)
Thanks,
Ash
Thank you for your feedback Ash. As you might know, although we have escalations (where you can esacalate to another user groups after x mins where your team leader is part) as part of notification profile we are yet to go the distance in terms of bringing in the full flexibility on the alerting medium. Will keep in mind your suggestions.
btw, what are the enhancements you would like to see in Cluster and load balancer monitoring?
-Jasper
Product Manager, Site24x7
Hi Jasper,
I am aware of the current escalation processes within site24x7 and using the same. However, it does not allow for multiple levels of escalations in addition to lack of choice for medium of escalation. Also, regarding the flexibility of receiving SMS, there is option of a time window, but its applied to all monitors. It will be good to have options for select monitors/monitor groups. For example for certain critical monitors I may to receive SMS 24x7, but for other non critical monitors I only want SMS 12x7, which is not possible currently.
Regarding Cluster :
I cannot monitor a file modification that is hosted as a cluster resource
Monitoring and reporting on cluster resources, almost non-existent
I cannot monitor/report on when a node failover from active to passive andvice-versa
For load balancer monitoring, pl look at my post
https://www.site24x7.com/community/load-balancer-monitoring-improvements-needed
You are asking for features that you can find in tools like Opsgenie and Pagerduty.
HI Jasper,
Another feature would be great is grouping of services, and alert on the group. Each of my servers runs a number of services (17 to be precise) related to antivirus. Pl see the attached screenshot. In the event of an AV update or restart or any other issues related to AV, we receive 17 emails per server (I am monitoring 500 plus servers). You can imagine the number of alerts being generated. We are currently doing some work around to reduce the number of alerts, but not without a compromise.
It would be nice to have a feature to define a service group called, say AV, and then put all 17 services into that group. Then receive one alert if one or multiple or all services in that AV group is not running.
Thanks,
Ash
Thank you for the explaining your cases Ash. We will have this inserted into our plans.
-Jasper
One other simple feature would add more flexibility for polling frequency. Currently there is a choice for either 1 min or 5 min for poll frequency for server/network devices. May be more options such as 2/3 min and 10 and 30 min would be suitable for some devices/servers.
Thanks,
Ash
Hi,
We have released support for setting poll intervals for server monitors from 1 min, 5 min, 10 mins, 15 mins, 30 mins, 1 hour, 3 hours, 6 hours, 12 hours, to one day.
This can be edited in the Edit Server Monitor page (Server > Server Monitors > Servers > click on a monitor > hover on a hamburger icon > click Edit).
Let us know for questions, if any, in the below thread.
Regards,
Mathangi
Currently I use a custom email template for all of our notifications.
However, the email template does not have an option to include the "notification profile" used for the notification as a variable parameter. It will be good to have an option for $NOTIFICATION_PROFILE or similar be available when configuring a custom email template.
Two other parameters,
Threshold and Availability
User Alert Group
Thanks,
Ash
Thank you Ash, we'll have this noted down as well. btw, why do you need a longer polling freq.. Is it because the resources you may configure are non-critical yet you want to monitor them?
-Jasper
We have received numerous requests related to the betterment of user and alert management. Hence in 2020, we are bringing enhancements and features that will address them, thereby making the product more flexible to use.
Can you expand a bit more on this? Like what are the top requests you've received for user management?
The biggest issue we have are that
1.) Users still have to create an account for Site24x7 when we use AD via Okta as our user access control.
2.) We need to allow users to manage downtimes and other things that don't require full Admin access but those are only allowed in the Admin role.
For #2 it would be nice to have a way to create custom roles on the customer end and have a selection of what the assigned traits are for that role.
Dear Framirez,
>>1.) Users still have to create an account for Site24x7 when we use AD via Okta as our user access control.
I will check internally and update on this.
>>2.) We need to allow users to manage downtimes and other things that don't require full Admin access but those are only allowed in the Admin role.
>>For #2 it would be nice to have a way to create custom roles on the customer end and have a selection of what the assigned traits are for that role.
I can understand this, however we haven't taken this into our roadmap but will add it in our backlog.
-Jasper
Product Manager, Site24x7
One of the challenges we are facing is that when a server hits a CPU spike and we look back, there is no way to find out which process caused the high CPU. I know there is an option to include some processes, but that does not give me that guarantee that processes I am monitoring is the culprit.
It would be nice if there is a feature site24x7 automatically captures top 5/10 CPU consuming processes all the time. So that we can always find an answer to high CPU consuming processes when looking back to troubleshoot an issue.
Same applies to Memory usage.
Thanks,
Ash
Fully agree with this, its annoying that you can see top processes prior to alert but when it peaks the usage is blank!
How about sending an RCA following high CPU/Memory, that would be great.
Hi,
Thanks for raising this. We shall take up the features to send RCA for Trouble alerts and show the top 5/10 CPU/memory consuming processes as feature requests.
Alternatively, you can view the top processes that are consuming CPU/memory usage at a particular point of time by hovering on the data points in the CPU Utilization/Memory Utilization graphs.
Log in to Site24x7 and go to Server > Server Monitors > Servers > click on a monitor > Summary > CPU Utilization/Memory Utilization graphs.
Hope this helps. Let us know for further queries, if any.
Regards
Mathangi
Hi,
Network Configuration Manager is already in our roadmap. But right now, we may not be able to commit any timeline for this.
Regarding Netflow Analyzer, it is still in the development stage. We should be able to provide beta access by the end of next month. I will keep you posted with updates on this.
Thanks,
Santhi.
Hello all,
We are excited to announce that Nutanix Monitoring is now released. Refer to our announcement post to know more about how Site24x7 monitors Nutanix.
Feel free to let us know your comments and suggestions.
Regards,
Santhi.
Hi Ollie,
NetFlow Analyzer is gearing up for release and you can expect the Beta release in less than a month's time.
Do let us know if you have any specific requirements regarding it.
Update: We'll provide you early access once the beta version is in good shape.
Users who need early access to Site24x7 NetFlow Analyzer can either contact [email protected] or post a reply here. Ensure that you are logged in.
Thanks,
Santhi
Hi,
I'm very interested to have a look into the beta release for netflow.
Also if kubernetes is available or enhancements for docker.
Thanks,
Torsten
We have added you for our beta program Torsten. As Santhi said we will give early access once beta is in a stable shape.
-Jasper
Hello,
We have released some enhancements for docker monitoring, with respect to containers monitoring. Please read through this post to get more details.
Let us know your comments and suggestions, if any, in the below thread.
Regards,
Mathangi
How do we disable container monitoring, we had hundreds of alerts as a lot of old containers had been added without us doing anything!
We have also used a number if licences without us wanting to, can we turn off autodiscovery?
All of the containers that are showing as green and up have no data either!
Please fix ASAP or add option to disable auto-discovery of containers
Hi,
You can disable auto-discovery of containers by following the below steps:
- Log in to Site24x7 and go to Server > Docker > Docker Hosts.
- Click on the docker monitor added and go to the Containers tab.
- Click on Discover Containers.
- Uncheck the option Auto-discover and add new container(s).
This will ensure no new containers are added for monitoring. Hope this helps. We are bringing in the option to disable auto-discovery across docker monitors in one go (bulk option). Will update this thread once that is live.
Regards
Mathangi
Thanks for reply but there is no 'Discover Containers' on any of my docker hosts?
Hello Jasper,
did you consider SAP monitoring integration? there is a lot of SAP installations including SAP Cloud platforms PaaS
Regards,
Michael
I would like to have a mechanism to associate alert groups to monitoring groups. Currently there is no way to associate any alert group to a monitoring group. In doing so, it would help to easily manage to route alerts to the target support group(s) for the set of monitors that group is interested in.
I know I can do some work around by using configuration rules, but that does not always produce desirable result.
Thanks,
Ash
Dear Ash,
We will take associating alert groups from monitor groups as a request. If I may ask, what problem(s) did you face while configuring rules?
-Jasper
PM, Site24x7
Thanks Jasper.
I am not against configuration rule, in fact its one of my favourite tools within Site24x7.
As you know configuration rule when grows in numbers, becomes complicated to maintain, where as if you allow monitoring group to link to alert group, its will be one to one relationship. Much easier to work with.
Kind Regards,
Ash
Where are you sending alerts? We use PagerDuty as our endpoint for alerts and use tags for routing alerts to. different PD integrations. We set tags on the Monitoring group so all monitors that get added to it get's the tag, then in the integration we choose which monitors get routed using the tags option.
Not sure if this is available on all the integrations but it is on both Slack and PagerDuty.
I don't like the idea of introducing another product to solve a simple requirement and potentially we have to deal with the challenges of that product in future.
My request is simple - allow raising alerts against a monitoring group. I don't see why this cannot be accommodated within site24x7 and I have to adopt to another product for this.
Thanks,
Ash
Hey Ash and fellow community members,
I wanted to take this request as a separate post so as to track it better. I have created a new post associate alert groups to monitor groups.
-Jasper
PM, Site24x7
One of the key feature missing from site24x7 user management is authentication and authorisation via Azure Active Directory users and groups. I understand that there are some SAML based SSO feature is available in site24x7, but nothing directly for Azure AD SSO integration.
support.site24x7.com/portal/en/kb/articles/how-can-i-setup-active-directory-or-saml-authentication-for-my-site24x7-account
When multiple teams (e.g. cloud, app, operations, network) requires access to site 24x7 portal, it becomes very challenging to maintain users accounts in site24x7. Its a lot of overhead for customers, in addition to the complexity of maintaining multiple credentials for users.
It would be nice to have:
1. Users can login to site24x7 portal using their Azure AD credentials
2. Users are authorised to site24x7 roles e.g.operator, admin, super admin or no access etc based on user's Azure AD group membership.
Kind Regards,
Ash
Dear Ash,
I'll add this to our roadmap. We'll looking into this aspect and let you know. As you said we have to co-relate AD roles with Site24x7 roles.
btw, users in Azure need not be linked to email provider (like office 365). User verification via email is mandatory for us. We'll check how to solve this.
-Jasper
PM, Site24x7
Hi there Jasper, we are almost ending 2020 - What's the latest on support for Kubernetes Monitoring (.ie AKS, GKE and the like) ?
Hi,
We are glad to inform that we are in the final stages of releasing Kubernetes Monitoring. Some highlights include:
- A list of all the clusters in your Kubernetes environment and status of all the resources in one console.
- Viewing your entire Kubernetes cluster from a service point of view - from the Kubernetes cluster, service, pods, and containers.
Follow this space for more updates. Do let us know if you have any specific requirements. For early access to the feature, please contact [email protected]
Regards,
Mathangi
Hi all,
We have released support for NetFlow analysis. The beta version is now available. Please try it out and post your feedback.
Thanks,
Santhi.
Hi Ash,
NetFlow will follow an add-on based license, which we will update during the GA release.
As of now, the Beta version is free to use.
Thanks,
Santhi
What about kubernetes monitoring?
Is a beta access available or a timeline when it will be released?
Thanks and regards,
Torsten
Hi Torsten,
Yes, Beta access for kubernetes monitoring is available.
Please mail to [email protected] to access this beta feature.
Regards,
Theivaanai.R
Developer,Site24x7
Hi all,
We've already released the General Availability (GA) version of the NetFlow Analyzer feature. Please refer to the announcement post.
You can access NetFlow from the Network > NetFlow tab.
Please refer to our help docs for further information on getting started and adding your devices to monitor NetFlow, sFlow, J-Flow, and others.
A minimum number of NetFlow Analyzer interfaces are available with all the packs.
NetFlow Analyzer Interfaces Add-ons are priced as follows:
- Additional 50 NetFlow Interfaces: $125/month
- Additional 1000 NetFlow Interfaces: $2,000/month
Feel free to get back to us for further clarifications.
Regards,
Santhi
Hi,
We are glad to release support for monitoring your Kubernetes clusters. Please read our announcement post for a detailed list of all the features and how to get started.
Regards,
Mathangi