Top 5 Benefits of Cloud-Based Remote Infrastructure Monitoring
There are a number of reasons why cloud-based remote infrastructure monitoring (RIM) beats traditional in-house monitoring products. In this post we will list the 5 that come up the
most often in our discussions with executives and IT managers.
1. Cost Savings
Topping the list is cost savings. In-house products require large infrastructure investments before any real benefits can be realized. Costs include servers, storage systems, licensing and consulting fees. Another cost that is often overlooked is personnel. In-house monitoring products require mastery of a new product. Retraining an existing employee is a minimum requirement, but this adds another responsibility to someone who is already buried in day-to-day support. Hiring a new employee with this expertise is usually a must. However, this cost alone can be close to 6 figures annually.
In sharp contrast, RIM eliminates infrastructure costs since additional hardware is not required. No need to hire that army of consultants for testing, pilots and deployment since there is no database or software to configure. The same goes for that new expert employee.
2. Simplicity
Ask anyone who has ever been a part of a monitoring project and complexity is the first thing that comes up. Typically there are hundreds of configuration parameters required. With cloud-based RIM the configuration is already done except for minor customizations specific to your environment. These customizations are part of the set up process. In other words, no additional consulting fees. What about software agents? Lucid's cloud-based RIM works across platforms, applications and networks without the use of agents. Simply identify the systems to monitor and that's it.
We once met a customer who spent $250,000.00 to deploy an in-house monitoring product only to disable most of its features. Why? The overly complex nature of the product and the fact that it required a great deal of "babysitting" to be half way useful. Unfortunately, this is a common outcome.
3. Immediate, Measurable Results
It can take months to realize any real benefits from in-house monitoring products because it can take that long for deployment. With remote infrastructure monitoring the results are almost immediate, typically within hours or days of setup. Simply identify a list of devices for monitoring and all relevant configuration settings get applied, trending data collected and email alerts generated. Shortly thereafter comes summary reports highlighting the overall health and status of the monitored systems.
4. Scalability
We hear a lot about scaling up. What about scaling down? Why pay for licenses you will never use? With cloud-based RIM you pay only for what you need. What if you decide you no longer need to monitor certain devices? With in-house products you are stuck with those licenses. With cloud-based RIM you discard those licenses and no longer pay for them. That's true scalability and flexibility.
5. Peace of Mind
Effective monitoring is difficult even for large organizations but it is necessary for peace of mind. By removing the barriers to implementation, cloud-based remote infrastructure monitoring brings that peace of mind to organizations of all sizes.