Now that cloud computing has become essential to how IT services are developed, deployed and delivered, organizations face the challenges of managing applications amid increasingly diverse infrastructure and dealing with complex application execution environments. Research from TechTarget’s Enterprise Strategy Group found that 86% of organizations use a multi-cloud strategy, typically with as many as four different cloud service providers.1 Multi-cloud, especially hybrid cloud that integrates on-premises infrastructure, is now the rule, not the exception.
The very essence of multi-cloud and hybrid cloud architectures lends itself to increased complexity in numerous aspects of IT, most notably observability. The ability to fully and reliably monitor, track, measure and troubleshoot system-wide behavior in real time is now essential, especially with the rapid proliferation of data sources, devices and services generating more and more data.
In order to get essential “unknown” information about systems, applications and data, observability solutions are now a must-have—and not just for large enterprises. Midsize organizations also face increasing IT complexity as they embrace multi-cloud and hybrid cloud architectures, making observability critical for these businesses as well. In fact, ESG research found 67% of midmarket organizations plan to expand their observability tools or services immediately.2
Overcoming complexity
Despite the many benefits of multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments, the stark reality is that the growing complexity of the IT landscape makes observability more challenging than ever to achieve. That’s because observability must go far beyond the traditional concepts of visibility, monitoring, logging and other techniques that help organizations get their arms around everything happening in their rapidly expanding IT environments—from the data center to the edge to the cloud.
Modernized, full-scale observability solutions must combine existing first-party services from cloud service providers with the enhanced capabilities and tools of an ecosystem of independent software vendors (ISVs), to enable faster, more accurate and more automated decision-making. This is especially true as more business- and mission-critical workloads are migrated from on-premises environments to the cloud.
What should organizations look for in a collaborative technology partnership between leading cloud service providers such as Google Cloud and innovative ISVs? Requirements include:
- Artificial intelligence-infused tools that extend Google Cloud’s native capabilities.
- Integral analytics in full context, to spot trends faster and automatically suggest steps to remediate performance bottlenecks or avoid pitfalls in the first place.
- Automation capabilities for proactive remediation.
- Automatic instrumented discovery of new services without manual intervention.
Observability solutions with Dynatrace and Google Cloud
Dynatrace is an established, proven ISV that builds and deploys observability solutions across a range of content services platforms, including Google Cloud. Dynatrace’s observability platform has been engineered to address the full gamut of observability requirements, including infrastructure monitoring, applications and microservices, application security, digital experience, business analytics and automation.
The solution’s span of capabilities and use cases makes it applicable to a wide range of users, including developers, operations teams and line-of-business groups. The platform is built on a technology foundation that includes Dynatrace’s OneAgent, which has to be deployed on a host only once, without additional instrumentation, to collect relevant metrics and automatically discover new services and technologies that come online. It also includes Smartscape dynamic topology mapping, to identify dependencies between applications and infrastructure, as well as Davis AI, an AI engine that automates the delivery of precise answers.
These and other related technologies are the building blocks of Dynatrace observability solutions that have dramatically reduced multi-cloud complexity for retailers such as Rack Room Shoes. Using Dynatrace in a Google Cloud environment, the retailer has dramatically increased shopper-to-customer conversions by automatically monitoring and optimizing the user journey for a flawless digital experience.
Working closely with Google Cloud, Dynatrace builds and delivers fully automated, AI-assisted observability across Google Cloud and hybrid environments. Dynatrace enables a single view across the full Google Cloud ecosystem, including Google Compute Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine, Anthos and other Google Cloud environments.
Next steps
To learn more about how Dynatrace can reduce complexity with end-to-end observability across Google Cloud-based multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments, please visit www.dynatrace.com/technologies/google-cloud-monitoring/.
1 “Multi-cloud Application Deployment and Decision-Making,” TechTarget’s Enterprise Strategy Group, June 8, 2023
2 “Distributed Cloud Series: Observability and Demystifying AIOps,” TechTarget’s Enterprise Strategy Group
