Logging, Monitoring and APM Platform
Status: proposed
Deciders: ops, devs, devops, managers
Date: 2021-01-27
Technical Story: Using SaaS solution or build our own for logging, monitoring and APM(application performance monitoring)
Context and Problem Statement
We need a central observability platform where we ingest all our logs, metrics and traces so that ops, devs and devops can analyze performance, reliability and uptime. We can try to build and host such a platform on our own or use SaaS providers like DataDog.
Decision Drivers
Reliability
Feature-richness
Cost
Maintenance
Development
Vendor lock level
Considered Options
Self hosted: Elasticsearch + Grafana + Kibana + Logstash + Jaeger
SaaS: DataDog
Full disclosure: Andes ehf. is a DataDog partner. Andes ehf. would not be receiving any sort of kick-backs due to Stafrænt Ísland using DataDog services. Stafrænt Ísland would be in a direct relationship with DataDog.
Special note about pricing comparison: This is a very high-level price comparison, which does not take into account the ever-growing consumption we will see but should give a rough idea of the balance of cost.
| Self-Hosted | | | | | | | ----------------------------------- | ------------------ | ------------- | ------------------------- | --------------------------------- | -------------------------------------- | --- | | Factors | Fixed price, hours | Monthly hours | Monthly price without VAT | First year total cost without VAT | First two years total cost without VAT | | Development | 160 | 0 | 0 | ISK3,200,000.00 | ISK3,200,000.00 | | Infrastructure | 0 | 0 | $700.00 | ISK1,100,400.00 | ISK2,200,800.00 | | Monitoring | 8 | 0 | ISK10,000.00 | ISK280,000.00 | ISK400,000.00 | | Maintenance | 0 | 5 | 0 | ISK1,200,000.00 | ISK2,400,000.00 | | Total | | | | ISK5,780,400.00 | ISK8,200,800.00 | | | | | | | | | SaaS | | | | | | | DataDog | 0 | 0 | $1,750.00 | ISK2,751,000.00 | ISK5,502,000.00 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Sample hourly rate without VAT, ISK | ISK20,000.00 | | | | | | ISK/USD | ISK131.00 | | | | |
Decision Outcome
SaaS solution (DataDog) is a clear winner due to its hastle-free service usage, continuous improvement as well as its competitive pricing.
Positive Consequences
Easy access to observability for devs and devops
Well known integration target for third-party services
Monitoring setup is well known in the industry
No special knowledge about setup of the plaftorm
Negative Consequences
None.
Pros and Cons of the Options
Self-hosted
Elasticsearch + Grafana + Kibana + Logstash + Jagger + Prometheus
Good, because it consists of open-source components which we can use
Good, because it uses open protocols
Good, because it is a relatively low cost running this stack
Bad, because there are no ready Dashboards for our stack
Bad, because we need to develop this package ourselves and it would be a while before we can use it
Bad, because due to a disagreement between AWS and the company behind the open source Elasticsearch, there is some uncertainty about its future on the AWS platform
Bad, because we need to operate this ourselves - run, monitor, upgrade, integrate addons
DataDog
DataDog is a monitoring and APM platform that has a wide variety of integrations and continues to develop new ones
Good, because it is a very feature-rich platform
Good, because it allows having our data in the EU and complies with data regulations relevant to Iceland
Good, because it is ready to use right now
Good, because it supports open protocols
Good, because it scales with usage
Good, because it is run by someone else than us
Good, because the company keeps adding new features that we can simply turn on
Good, because devops have all this time to do other things specific to the problem domain
Bad, because with increased usage comes increased markup
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