Operations Bridge (OpsBridge) provides monitoring services for networks, services, and applications. It can also supervise the performance of virtualizations, containers, databases, and other services. These monitoring services are essential for any business because they can spot problems in performance before they become noticeable to the user community. Thanks to OpsBridge and tools like it, IT Operations tools can keep ahead of system faults and head off disasters before they occur.
OpsBridge is by no means the only package in the monitoring software market. Another highly-rated system for IT asset monitoring is Datadog. When looking for any new software, it is always a good idea to compare several packages before actually buying. So, in this report, we will look at both OpsBridge and Datadog and perform the type of comparison that you would do before buying either of them.
OpsBridge highlights
OpsBridge is a product of Micro Focus International plc. The company is a multinational, multi-billion dollar corporation based in Newbury in the UK. The business had an annual turnover of $3 billion in 2020, and it has 12,000 employees worldwide.
Micro Focus has been around for 45 years. It started business in 1976 and has gone through many changes, acquiring other software producers along the way. The company is now listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a component of the FTSE 250 index.
OpsBride is one of many products owned by Micro Focus. The central component of OpsBridge is the Operations Bridge Manager. This pulls in live data reports from its agents installed on the monitored systems and, through integrations, it takes inputs from third-party applications. In addition, the Operations Bridge Manager processes all incoming data, converting that information into livre status graphs and it also sorts and stores information for analysis.
OpsBridge will receive some warnings in the incoming data. For example, one of the data sources it receives is from network device agents through the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). This system allows device agents to send through a status warning, and OpsBridge shows these immediately on the screen.
The Operations Bridge Manager generates other alerts. The system uses AI to work out what activity reports indicate a problem. This constantly adjusts performance threshold levels automatically to remove the need for manual intervention in the problem detection system.
There is a lot of automation built into OpsBridge. For example, it automatically maps the network and scours all devices to create a software inventory. This documentation process is continuous, so new hardware and software get recognized as they are added to the system.
OpsBridge implements a series of runbooks to automate actions on the detection of a system problem. These include notifications to operations staff, and they will also execute remediation actions, saving technicians from having to sort issues out.
OpsBridge is a SaaS package. This external location means that the system isn’t bound to one network. As a result, IT can consolidate the monitoring of multiple sites and also integrate cloud platform monitoring.
Key information:
- OpsBridge is a SaaS solution that can integrate the monitoring of hybrid systems and multiple sites
- OpsBridge applies AI processes to detect performance anomalies before they impact the system
- OpsBridge provides a synthetic modeling service to run through specific use cases and identify issues
- OpsBridge include automated system detection and can implement automated remediation actions
- The users of OpsBridge include Vodaphone, TIM Brazil, Swiss Mobiliar, Banco Sabadell
Datadog highlights
Datadog was started up by began operations in 2010 when Olivier Pomel and Alexis Lê-Quôc 2010 created it. The pair acquired the code for Datadog in 2009 from Server Density. The Datadog system is the only product of the company, which has the same name. Both founders still run the company – Pomel is its CEO, and Lê-Quôc is the Chief Technology Officer. The company was listed on NASDAQ in 2019.
Since 2010, the code for Datadog has been continually under development. It has been completely rewritten from its original form, which was written in Python. Now Datadog is written in Go, and it is a hosted SaaS platform.
Datadog is a monitoring system that watches over networks, servers, applications, cloud platforms, and Web assets. The system gathers information from agent programs that need to be installed on each monitored server. Then, the monitor performs a scan of each monitored system to compile hardware and software inventories. The network service is available to watch over network devices with SNMP procedures, and there is also an option to track traffic flows. The network monitor will also create a network topology map.
More recently, Datadog has expanded to offer more services away from the standard system monitoring package. Datadog now has an AI engine, which is called Watchdog. This is mainly used for application monitoring. The application performance monitor implements application dependency mapping and applies AI when several applications use a shared resource.
Datadog also uses AI and dependency mapping to analyze API functions and microservices. In addition, the platform offers distributed tracing to track the performance of serverless systems. Other new services from Datadog are a log manager and a security monitor that uses log data for source information – this is a SIEM. The platform also offers a vulnerability manager and live hacker protection for Web assets. Among other tools available on the Datadog platform are synthetic and accurate user monitoring for websites. There is also an Incident Management service available for Help Desk technicians or development teams.
A cloud-based system, Datadog can monitor any system anywhere, and it can consolidate the monitoring of several systems. In addition, it includes cloud platform monitoring for Docker AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.
Key information:
- Datadog is a cloud-based system that uses local agents to gather data
- Datadog monitors on-site, cloud, and hybrid systems and will unify the monitoring of those separate systems
- Datadog implements security monitoring, including a SIEM and a cloud vulnerability manager
- Datadog automatically creates network topology maps and hardware and software inventories
- The customers of Datadog include 21st Century Fox, Samsung, Whole Foods, and Peloton
Operations Bridge vs. Datadog head-to-head
Getting to know the OpsBridge and Datadog systems helps to look at each platform’s packages. The plans of the two systems are structured differently and, although they cover much the same tasks, the plan structure might sway you in the direction of one service or the other.
OpsBridge
OpsBridge is offered in three packages:
- Express – Straightforward data collection and display plus Web availability testing
- Premium – Detailed monitoring data collection and analysis
- Ultimate – Comprehensive monitoring with AI assessment and automated remediation
The three plans include an increasing number of services for a progressively higher price. The modules included in each plan are:
Express
- Agentless Event and Performance Management
- Web and URL monitoring
- Enterprise chatbot
- Synthetic end-user experience monitoring
Premium
- Agentless event and performance management
- Web and URL monitoring
- Agent-based deep monitoring
- Domain-specific management pack content
- Event automation and reduction
- Service impact and KPI assessment
- Topology-based event correlation
- Enterprise chatbot
- Synthetic end-user experience monitoring
- SaaS application monitoring
- System availability management and service level management
- Business value dashboards
- Standard server reporting
Ultimate
- Agentless event and performance management
- Web and URL monitoring
- Agent-based deep monitoring
- Domain-specific management pack content
- Event automation and reduction
- Service impact and KPI assessment
- Topology-based event correlation
- Flexible runbook remediation and orchestration
- Event and exploratory analytics
- Capacity analytics and optimization
- Operational discovery
- Enterprise chatbot
- Synthetic end-user experience monitoring
- SaaS application monitoring
- System availability management and service level management
- Business value dashboards
- Standard server reporting
- Cross-domain reporting content
The performance monitoring services in all plans can monitor the following database management systems:
- Cassandra
- Couchbase
- Apache CouchDB
- Informix
- Marklogic
- Microsoft SQL Server
- MongoDB
- MySQL
- Oracle Database
- Oracle RAC
- PostgreSQL
- Riak
- SAP Sybase ASE
- SAP HANA
The endpoint operating systems that the OpsBridge system can monitor are:
- AIX
- Linux
- Windows
- Hyper-V
- VMWare vSphere
- XEN
It will monitor the following cloud platforms:
- AWS
- Azure
- Google Cloud Platform
- Kubernetes
- OpenStack
Datadog
Datadog has 12 areas of service from its SaaS platform. Some of these sections offer several packages, so there are more than 12 modules. These are:
- Infrastructure – Monitor for servers and services, including virtualizations, containers, and cloud platforms. Add-ons available are the monitoring of AWS Fargate data and IoT device monitoring.
- Application Performance Monitoring – This includes application dependency mapping and uses AI to identify when commonly used resources are overloaded.
- Continuous Profiler – Only available together with the Application Performance Monitoring service as a higher APM plan, this module displays code as it runs and analyzes performance. It is for use by application developers.
- Database Monitoring – Monitors MySQL, PostgreSQL, Amazon RDS, Amazon Aurora, and Google Cloud SQL.
- Real User Monitoring – Live website performance monitoring feeding through to an Error Tracker module.
- Synthetic Monitoring – API tests for automated system checks and Browser-based tests to exercise interactive elements in Web pages.
- Serverless Monitoring – Distributed tracing for microservices with AI-based resource requirement predictions.
- Network Performance Monitoring – Network traffic analysis for physical networks.
- Network Device Monitoring – SNMP-based network device status checks.
- Log Management Ingest – Collects, consolidates, displays, files, and searches through log messages.
- Retain or Rehydrate – A log archive management system.
- Security Monitoring – A SIEM system that performs breach detection by looking through log files.
- Cloud Security Posture Management – A vulnerability scanner for cloud services that operate continuously.
- Cloud Workload Security – Real-time protection for Internet-based assets, including file integrity monitoring and hacker activity detection.
- Incident Management – An issue tracker and team management package for use as a Help Desk platform or a collaboration and task management tool for development teams.
Pros & Cons
Operations Bridge
Pros:
- Provides live visibility into your network, infrastructure, and assets
- Leverages AI to improve analytics and reduce false positives alerts
- Built for fast remediation – features over 8000 runbooks
- Best for MSPs and enterprise networks
Cons:
- Smaller organizations won’t use some of the multi-tenant features in the product
Datadog
Pros:
- Leverages machine learning to improve alerting, reporting, and queue management
- Excellent dashboards – great for solo admins or NOC teams
- Can easily see historic metrics as well as a live view of your IT assets
- Highly flexible – scales well across various environments
Cons:
- Would like to see a longer trial period for in-depth testing
OpsBridge vs. Datadog: prices
OpsBridge prices
Micro Focus doesn’t publish a price list for its Operations Bridge editions. Instead, you need to contact the Sales Department to request a quote.
Datadog prices
The prices for Datadog modules are:
- Infrastructure: Free – $0, Pro – $15, Enterprise – $23 per host per month
- Infrastructure add-ons: AWS Fargate data monitoring – $1 per task, IoT device monitoring – $5 per device
- Application Performance Monitoring: $31 per host per month
- Application Performance Monitoring + Continuous Profiler: $40 per month
- Database Monitoring: $70 per database per month
- Real User Monitoring: $15 per 10,000 sessions per month
- Synthetic Monitoring: API Tests – $5, Browser Tests – $12 for every 1,000 test runs per month
- Serverless Monitoring: $5 per million invocations per month
- Network Performance Monitoring: Network Performance Monitoring $5 per device per month
- Network Device Monitoring: $7 per device per month
- Security Monitoring: $0.20 per GB of throughput per month
- Cloud Security Posture Management: $7.50 per host per month
- Cloud Workload Security: $15 per host per month
- Log Management Ingest: $0.10 per GB of throughput
- Log Management Retain or Rehydrate: $1.70 per million log events per month
- Incident Management: $20 per user per month
Operations Bridge vs. Datadog: free trial
To assess Operations Bridge, you can access a demo account. This lets you try out the system for 60 days.
Datadog offers a 14-day free trial on all of its modules.
OpsBridge vs. Datadog: the verdict
Both of these monitoring systems are delivered as SaaS platforms, and both have impressive features. However, your decision on which is best for you depends on your requirements. For example, OpsBridge can monitor more database management systems – if you are running Oracle databases, Datadog will be no use to you. Similarly, if you want a SIEM system, Datadog would be your best option. However, this is not the only SIEM in the market, so you should also check out the 10 Best SIEM Tools for 2021.
Both OpsBridge and Datadog are good system monitoring tools. However, deciding which is best for your business will come down to the monitoring capabilities, look and feel package structure, and price that each system offers.
