Netreo vs native Azure Monitoring

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.

Netreo vs native Azure - historical dashboard

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.

Netreo vs native Azure monitoring - Netreo Accounts

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 Windows Event Logs Automatically reboot failing (e.g. memory-leaking) instances 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!

Blog

Benefits of using Netreo for Azure resources

Benefits of using Netreo for standalone resources

Integrations with 3-rd party applications

Conclusion

Ready to get started? Get in touch or schedule a demo.