Best Practices for Monitoring Cloud-Based Applications and Infrastructure

Despite its overwhelmingly positive impact, the rise of cloud computing has undoubtedly created many new challenges for the development and operations of applications. But those very challenges also represent an unprecedented opportunity for enterprises to fundamentally rethink the way they develop, monitor, and maintain their IT environments. Perhaps most notable is the chance to finally address the archaic (or non-existent) way in which monitoring has traditionally been approached in on-premise environments. According to a recent Gartner survey, a staggering 80% of enterprises still feel they are either completely blind or have significant gaps when it comes to monitoring their new cloud solutions.

Legacy applications were developed when monitoring tools were often seen as cumbersome and expensive, so many companies consciously chose not to address the issue. But this decision often carried a hefty price tag in the form of longer, more frequent outages; unfocused refactorings leading to missed regressions; and, in many cases, a “don’t touch anything” mindset that stifled innovation and stalled business goals. With the availability of New Relic’s Digital Intelligence Platform, this tradeoff is simply no longer necessary or acceptable. It’s time to embrace the fresh start and new challenges promised in the cloud.