Netreo monitors a wide range of data, offering a comprehensive overview of both Azure and standalone resources. Much of the information tracked by Netreo is not available in Azure Portal. A comprehensive list of differences by each resource is outlined later in this article so you can compare Netreo vs native Azure Monitoring.
In addition to monitoring, Netreo offers a number of unique automation features designed to provide users with ability to recover their cloud apps and services from production issues. When Netreo detects an issue, it can execute automated server reboots, run Powershell scripts, recycle IIS app pools, restart WebApps, start Azure Automation runbooks, etc. These operations are easily configured with a few clicks of a button.
Furthermore, Netreo offers an auto-scaling engine that allows for sophisticated auto-scaling conditions of Cloud Services, SQL Azure, WebApps, SQL Data Warehouses, etc. These capabilities are far superior to what is offered in the Azure Portal.
Metrics from various resources can be correlated, aggregated and computed to define advanced conditions for alerts, automation and auto-scaling rules. Contrary to Azure Portal, any signal from the monitored environment can be used in alerts, auto-scaling and self-healing automation.
In addition to real-time self-updating dashboards, Netreo allows users to browse their dashboards back in time to when issues occurred for investigation into Root Cause Analysis (RCA). Historical reports provide access to captured data for up to one (1) year. Customers can also ingest data collected by Netreo into their own SQL database for custom reporting and analysis.
To ease initial monitoring setup, the product comes built-in with useful metrics and alerts out of the gate. Furthermore, to save on configuration time, monitoring profiles can easily be saved, shared and applied to other resources via “resource templates” functionality.
Netreo seamlessly integrates with other popular third party applications, such as PagerDuty, Autotask, Slack, Zendesk, Nagios, Zabbix, and more. Full list of supported integrations is provided later in this article. SSO is supported for customers running Azure AD/ADFS/Office365/Google Apps/etc.
There are a number of features that target Managed Service Providers and other consulting organizations. MSPs can easily manage multiple customers (CSP’s are supported). MSPs can choose to keep their customers in separate Netreo sub-accounts and even invite their customers into these sub-accounts. White-labeling is supported.
DevOps can automate monitoring setup of their continuously deployed environments by using Netreo REST API. Keeping Production Azure resources or subscriptions separate from DEV/QA services is supported.
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Benefits of using Netreo for Azure resources
Here are just some of the important differences where Netreo tracks more data or provides automation and auto-scaling capabilities that far exceed the default native Azure offering:
Resource Type
Netreo Benefits (features that Azure portal doesn’t have)
Azure Windows VMs
Track and alert on
any Windows Performance Counters including custom ones from third party systems
Windows Event Logs
Windows processes, Services, and Scheduled Tasks
Automatically restart failed local Windows Services
Automatically shut down and start VMs according to a schedule
Auto-resize VMs according to a schedule or custom criteria
Monitor Windows Updates
Azure Linux VMs
Track and alert on performance values related to CPU, disk, memory and network utilization
Monitor and alert on Linux SysLogs
Auto-resize VMs according to a schedule or custom criteria
Automatically shut down and start VMs according to a schedule
Azure Cloud Services
Track and alert on
any Windows Performance Counters including custom ones from third party systems
Sequentially reboot of all instances in a Role once per day
Auto-scale instances based on any metrics, such as the actual demand (requests/sec, CPU, Memory, etc), ASB/Storage queue depths or according to a schedule
Azure WebApps
Monitor Webjobs (continuous or triggered)
Automatically restart Websites or Webjobs if they crash
Auto-scale Websites based on any metrics, such as the actual demand (requests/sec, CPU, Memory, etc), ASB/Storage queue depths or according to a schedule
Track and alert on basic WebApp metrics
Azure Service Bus
Alert when messages have been dead-lettered in either queues or topic/subscriptions
Alert when queues are not being depleted in a timely manner
Auto-scale compute resources by queue and topic message counts
SQL Azure
Alert on connectivity issues
Track and alert on
sessions and connections
blocking (deadlocked) queries
performance metrics (DTU, R/W utilization, etc)
longest running queries
any data retrieved using custom SQL queries
Execute custom SQL-based maintenance jobs on a schedule
Auto-scale database tiers based on any metrics in the environment, such as DTU, number of connections, etc.
Azure Storage
(Queues, Blob, File, Table)
Alert when storage queues are not depleting or are filling up
Monitor the availability by performing actual R/W tests against storage
Track and alert on
resource specific metrics like queue lengths for Storage Queues
slow or failed requests
any Storage Analytic metrics (errors, requests, etc)
storage outages
Azure Redis Cache
Monitor availability by performing actual R/W tests
Track and alert on
cache hit rate
memory utilization
high load
client connections
any data loaded thru custom Lua scripts
Azure Backups Vault
Track and alert on
failed or non-started backup jobs
unhealthy storage containers
Azure Virtual Network Gateways
Track and alert on
connectivity issues
ingress and egress by connection or across gateway
Azure SQL Data Warehouse
Automatically Pause/Resume to save on costs
Auto-scale database tiers based on any metrics in the environment, such as DWU, number of connections, etc.
Track and alert on
connectivity issues
active loads
idle sessions
any data retrieved using custom SQL queries
longest running queries
Azure Data Factories
Monitor Azure Data Factory activities, pipelines and gateways
Alert on failed activities
Azure Stream Analytics Jobs
Monitor jobs, their inputs/outputs and statuses
Alert on failed jobs, conversion errors and high utilization
Monitor Azure management operations
Azure Event Hubs
Track and alert on incoming and outgoing rates of events
Ensure events are flowing thru the Hub and alert when they get stuck
Azure DocumentDb Collection
Monitor availability by performing actual R/W tests against DocumentDb collections
Track and alert on
RU’s, requests and utilization
outages
high utilization
any data retrieved using custom SQL-like scripts
Monitor Azure management operations
Azure Media Services
Track and alert on
jobs statuses and failures
assets
Monitor endpoints and channels health
Monitor Azure management operations
Azure Automation
Execute Runbooks as a reaction to custom production conditions anywhere in the environment (ie: failovers, custom restarts, etc)
Monitor scheduled Runbooks for failures
Azure Scheduler Job Collection
Track and alert on failed jobs
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Benefits of using Netreo for standalone resources
In addition to monitoring Azure resources, Netreo supports the following resources non-Azure resources:
Resource Type
Netreo Benefits
Standalone Windows Server
Track and alert on
any Windows Performance Counters including custom ones or from third party systems
Windows Event Logs
Windows processes, Services, and Scheduled Tasks
Automatically restart failed Windows Services
Automatically reboot the server according to a schedule
Standalone SQL Server
Track and alert on
connectivity issues
sessions and user connections
blocking queries
any data retrieved using custom SQL queries
Identify longest running queries
Execute custom SQL-based maintenance jobs on a schedule
URL/website
Track and alert on
outages
long response times
SSL certificate expiration
Monitor for specific text in the resulting HTML
Support for basic auth, custom certificates and custom headers
Other Endpoints: Socket,
API (JSON/XML)
Track and alert on
outages
long response times
any custom data exposed via JSON/XML endpoint as Netreo metrics
Support for basic auth, custom certificates and custom headers
Redis Cache
Monitor the actual availability using R/W tests
Track alert on
cache hit rate
memory utilization
high load
too many client connections
any data retrieved using custom Lua scripts
Oracle Database
Alert on connectivity issues
Track and alert on
sessions and connections
blocking (deadlocked) queries
performance metrics (cache misses, response time, etc)
longest running queries
any data retrieved using custom SQL queries
Execute custom SQL-based maintenance jobs on a schedule
MySQL Database
Alert on connectivity issues
Track and alert on
sessions and connections
blocking (deadlocked) queries
performance metrics (response time, etc)
longest running queries
any data retrieved using custom SQL queries
Execute custom SQL-based maintenance jobs on a schedule
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Integrations with 3-rd party applications
Netreo provides integrations for 3rd party applications listed below. Integrations can be set up in just a few minutes.
Application
Details
Netreo can open a new Autotask ticket when an alert is triggered, and automatically close it when alert is resolved.
Netreo can open a new Freshdesk and Freshservice ticket when an alert is triggered, and automatically close it when alert is resolved.
Netreo can post a notification message in a specified HipChat room when an alert is triggered and when it is resolved.
Netreo can add a new log entry in Logentries a new log entry when an alert is triggered and when it is resolved.
Netreo can add a new log entry in Loggly a new log entry when an alert is triggered and when it is resolved.
During every monitoring cycle, host status and metrics can be synchronized to Nagios XI.
Netreo can raise a new PagerDuty incident when an alert is triggered, and automatically resolve it when alert is resolved.
Netreo can post a notification message in a specified Slack channel when an alert is triggered and when it is resolved.
During every monitoring cycle, Netreo will push collected data into SQL Azure/SQL Server database of customers’ choice.
Netreo can send a notification message as SMS using Twilio when an alert is triggered and when it is resolved.
Any 3rd party product that is not explicitly covered in this list can still be integrated with by creating custom XML/JSON webhooks. Netreo can push notifications when an alert is triggered and when it is resolved.
During every monitoring cycle, host status and metrics can be synchronized to Zabbix.
Netreo can push a notification message to specified Zap in Zapier when an alert is triggered and when it is resolved.
Netreo can open a new Zendesk ticket when an alert is triggered, and automatically close it when alert is resolved.
Conclusion
Trying Netreo is simple and hassle free. Typical setup takes 3-5 minutes and Netreo auto-detects everything it can monitor within user’s Azure subscription automatically. Sign up and see for yourself!