IBM Instana is mainly used to monitor microservices on platforms like OpenShift and Kubernetes. It helps in observing the dynamic flow of communication between different layers of the application, such as between the database and the first component.
IBM Instana Observability (contract)
IBM SoftwareExternal reviews
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IBM Instana has not only improved our ability to monitor and manage applications in real-time .
What do you like best about the product?
real-time, AI-powered root cause analysis, which quickly identifies the source of issues across complex, distributed environments.
What do you dislike about the product?
The learning curve. It requires some time and lot of reading to configure some features.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
seamlessly monitor applications across both cloud and on-premise environments. Its automatic discovery and real-time monitoring capabilities ensure that we have comprehensive visibility over our entire infrastructure, regardless of where it is hosted. This has been essential in managing our increasingly complex hybrid environments without needing multiple tools.
Quick data insights enhance troubleshooting and understanding
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
IBM Instana has enhanced troubleshooting and understanding of application internal communication. It quickly collects data after installing the agent and provides insights into the application's dynamic flow, which aids in identifying issues promptly.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of IBM Instana are its quick data collection and analytics after installing the agent. It swiftly discovers and collects data, providing quick outputs. The dashboards implemented for different entities are also highly beneficial.
What needs improvement?
One area that requires improvement is related to the automation part, specifically automated actions like sending SMS. This feature needs enhancement.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using IBM Instana for around one to two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
IBM Instana is quite stable, and on a scale of one to ten, I would rate it eight in terms of stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I cannot answer definitively about the scalability of IBM Instana as we have not used it on a large scale. We have mainly used it in small-scale projects.
How are customer service and support?
IBM's technical support is responsive but not entirely satisfactory. The response rate could be better, and as it stands, I would rate the support six out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We use other vendors alongside IBM, such as Microsoft Azure, due to our trust in IBM’s stability and the quick data outputs it delivers.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is relatively straightforward, and the installation process usually only takes about one day if all prerequisites are in place.
What about the implementation team?
The implementation is conducted with the client's help and sometimes as part of a team without any third-party assistance.
What other advice do I have?
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
Perfect monitoring and user interface
What do you like best about the product?
The good thing is we can moniotor errors, alerts by just filtering a specific container within a time frame and the good part is it's UI.
It is best for monitoring or extracting error logs or alerts as it shows color red and green.
Can filter by endpoints so it shows only related calls.
Easy to use
Alerts for any error calls with detailed metrics and time which is very good for developer while analysing bug issue.
It is best for monitoring or extracting error logs or alerts as it shows color red and green.
Can filter by endpoints so it shows only related calls.
Easy to use
Alerts for any error calls with detailed metrics and time which is very good for developer while analysing bug issue.
What do you dislike about the product?
when open any link to analyse log, then if we do back then it goes to entire back page because of which have to scroll it again till the previous call.
Sometime it is confusing to analyse because of all things are in same dashboard so unable to understand whether it is relevant error calls or data.
Some tutorials would be great.
Sometime it is confusing to analyse because of all things are in same dashboard so unable to understand whether it is relevant error calls or data.
Some tutorials would be great.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
earlier, I had to check logs in server and it had log only for 2-5 days. because of which if any issue comes after certain days, then we were not able to analyse or have to get the logs backup by the sysadmin team which is lengthy process.
It gives detailed view of all endpoints where it got errored and why how much time taken and that just in few click.
Now tracing logs is easy as compared to server as it shows red color error means because of UI.
We can filter what we want unlike server logs where we go through whole file.
It gives detailed view of all endpoints where it got errored and why how much time taken and that just in few click.
Now tracing logs is easy as compared to server as it shows red color error means because of UI.
We can filter what we want unlike server logs where we go through whole file.
Real life monitoring tool
What do you like best about the product?
It is really focused on real-life needs, all the tools I need to monitor my technology stack is here, no need to use different tools to get a clear overview of what is going on, thus focusing troubleshooting and monitoring.
Love how clear the data can be represented and how user friendly the UI/UX is.
Love how clear the data can be represented and how user friendly the UI/UX is.
What do you dislike about the product?
Waiting for a proper implementation of custom metrics alerting.
AI integration to interpret monitoring data would be amazing
AI integration to interpret monitoring data would be amazing
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Have a clear overview of how the stack is performing, centralizing monitoring, trend analysis
Easy to use, great performance
What do you like best about the product?
It's very easy to trace and monitor every single request of the Web applications; it's very detailed and the dashboard are very useful to monitor the whole system
What do you dislike about the product?
Nothing in particular by now. I appreciated all
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It has been useful to monitor and identify perfomance problems or erroneous calls on my web app
I'm a developer looking out for outlier behaviour
What do you like best about the product?
Graphs about cpu, heap memory and alerting
What do you dislike about the product?
Sometimes i feel lost looking for some component.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Alert is very good, and I like the dashboards
Robust Observability with Powerful Dashboards and Seamless Integration
What do you like best about the product?
The AI-powered anomaly detection is excellent, proactively finding and alerting us to new risks before they escalate. The easy-to-use dashboards and flawless backend connection are other features I really like. Our system monitoring and reliability are much improved by call tracing and real-time insights.
What do you dislike about the product?
I think the flexibility of alerting and custom metrics might be enhanced. I'd prefer more precise control as a CRO to set risk-specifc thresholds and customize alerts for our particular business environment.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
The real-time insights, automated root cause analysis, and seamless integration with Instana have completely chagned the way we monitor performance and observability. It's an essential tool for keeping system efficiency and dependability high.
Not expensive and offers good performance
What is our primary use case?
Before IBM, I ordered our company's engineer to have a look at the tool and test it. I think it was two years ago, the transfer to IBM happened in our company.
At the beginning, IBM Instana Observability did not work on IBM WebSphere and IBM DB2/400. It was only for monitoring the web application server, but now it can monitor.
The tool is used for web application monitoring and database monitoring. IBM's Raspberry monitoring tool, which is locally made, is called Juniper. Juniper only monitors WaaS. Most of the customers are moving to containers or want monitoring of the database. IBM customers think about database monitoring and web application monitoring, including any other database and any other web application server monitoring. Nowadays, the solutions are separate, but customers think about one-vendor solutions.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of the solution is performance. A one-vendor solution serves as a good feature of the tool. In the IT industry, the IT support team has lots of vendors to contact. DB monitoring is done by one company, while WaaS monitoring is done by another and done by another company, which makes it really complicated for the IT team concerned about the security levels. The tool's main feature is that it is a one-vendor solution. The analysis done by the tool is a good feature. The tool is used as an open-source tool. The tool is growing, and new features are being added to the product.
What needs improvement?
The tool should offer more LDR AI models. The monitoring is just a status, but the next level of a monitoring solution is to prevent an accident or stop an accident status. The solution should be to prevent accidents. Previously, monitoring might have been scanning and alerting and then sending information to the IT manager.
The lack of support is a human resource problem.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using IBM Instana Observability for over three years. My company acts as a partner and reseller of IBM.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
My company's clients are medium and enterprise businesses.
How are customer service and support?
I have experience with the solution's technical support. I can't contact IBM's team in the US, but I can get in touch with its team in Korea. IBM in Korea is doing very well, but some organizations are getting smaller, and some people are moving a lot while some organizations are getting bigger. The distributor handled a lot of IBM stuff in Korea. There are three or four distributors in Korea. Actually, we contacted the distributor's technical support team, and then the second one was IBM's Korean support team. Sometimes, we directly ask IBM's sales rep, who handles the technical support teams and our systems. I have been working with IBM in general for over thirty years, but it's not better than what it was in the past.
I rate the support a six out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
How was the initial setup?
The product's initial setup phase is not very easy. We can set up a single server. The recommended thing to do is to go for a Kubernetes environment. In a Kubernetes environment, mastering, working, and patching on Odoo can be done after preparing a Kubernetes environment. If I want to make it just a single server, that is fine. One can also use IBM Instana's cloud service.
If ten means a very easy setup process, I rate the product's setup phase as an eight or nine out of ten.
The solution is deployed on the cloud environment.
The solution can be deployed in three to four hours.
What was our ROI?
I couldn't measure if the tool helped save money, but it may have helped save a minimum of 20 to 30 percent.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The tool's cost is normal as per the market. The tool is not expensive.
What other advice do I have?
The tool is used mainly in the hospitality industry, insurance, banks, and some manufacturing customers.
The biggest value of the product for our customers is that, technically, we embedded some other API solutions, which means some other customers can edit the tool. The tool's customization-friendly nature is good for the customers.
In terms of monitoring and analysis, the tool's hybrid nature is good. The tool can monitor infrastructure, which is available as an optional module. Most of the monitoring solution is to check the service status. After the service status fails, the tool is used to check why it failed. The tool has infrastructure monitoring options with which we can get information about the infrastructure. In general, the tool monitors hybrid infrastructure.
I don't have experience with the tool's AI capabilities. Most people think about AI, but AI must be learned over machine learning. I have to then create LDR, which involves AI modeling. Currently, we do not have a monitoring collection of data modeling, and now it is just the beginning of AI.
In any other industry, the tool is fine. My recommendation about the tool is associated with shopping websites, where there is heavy traffic and heavy applications or services, and for such an industry, it would be very nice to install IBM Instana Observability.
The tool has good performance. The web application's trouble or problems are not exactly because of web application programs, and sometimes, it is because of the infrastructure or database. I can see the one dashboard, so what is happening or what the problem is, can be an area that I can see directly.
I rate the tool a nine out of ten.
Instana Review
What do you like best about the product?
The checking of stack trace and review of code around it.
What do you dislike about the product?
The ui is somewhat curmbersome. There are lots of menus it becomes sometimes confusing.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Lots of outages are solved by instana itself. It tells us about the alert and we take next steps according to the alert.
Developer perspective
What do you like best about the product?
Simple to use dashboards
Tracing of calls is very much better than other similar tools
Seamless integration for backend systems through agent
Tracing of calls is very much better than other similar tools
Seamless integration for backend systems through agent
What do you dislike about the product?
Need to have flexibility for users in building custom metrics
Grouping of error messages using pattern matching has to be better
Alerting based on custom metrics and multiple conditions at a time should be present
Grouping of error messages using pattern matching has to be better
Alerting based on custom metrics and multiple conditions at a time should be present
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
For general monitoring of backend systems majorly. And to get prompt alerts when system is underperforming
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