Datadog vs. Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM)

Datadog works really well with complex microservices architecture like any E-commerce platform which will be having multiple services but they all are interdependent to others so in this scenario Datadog will be best to monitor these as it will show the transactions also between those microservices. If you are using multiple services in your architecture whether it will be cloud services or on prem services Datadog will be the best choice to monitor all those service with in Datadog so that you can see everything in a single place. But if you are having small architecture and few services in that then in that scenario you can use Datadog but it will be little costly as compared to other but obviously the features are very well.

Incentivized

More appropriate for:

• Pure Microsoft ecosystem environments (Windows Server and SQL server) and the most common Linux and UNIX platforms.
• Environments where cost is less of a factor than settling on a single platform for monitoring
• Environments where the administrators are familiar with the setup and installation of SCOM.

Less appropriate for:

• Pure UNIX/Linux shops, especially versions not supported out of the box by SCOM.
• Shops that cannot afford the engagement to setup/configure and maintain on a continuous basis.
• Shops that cannot dedicate personnel to the care and feeding of SCOM, especially when supporting larger environments.

Incentivized

• Create Dashboards as per application, environments, and Custom metrics in one panel.
• Log aggregation, one-stop Application monitoring tools for the whole infrastructure.
• Playbooks, SLA definition, success and error quotas, request visualizations.
• DB monitoring, Serverless stack monitoring.
• Alerting of Production incidents so we can quickly resolve the issues on time.

Incentivized

• Allows us to visualize our systems in a single interface and see the status of health as well as relevant performance metrics.
• A flexible and powerful interface with active alerting covering domain controllers, SQL servers, etc...
• Allows you to customize your views and workspaces for specific tasks and needs.
• Reporting is powerful and flexible.

Incentivized

• Alert windows cause lag in notifications (e.g. if the alert window is X errors in 1 hour, we won't get alerted until the end of the 1 hour range)
• I would appreciate more supportive examples for how to filter and view metrics in the explorer
• I would like a more clear interface for metrics that are missing in a time frame, rather than only showing tags/etc. for metrics that were collected within the currently viewed time frame

Incentivized

• One of the biggest drawbacks to SCOM is the sheer scope and complexity of the system. This can be a pro and a con. The system is very customizable, what you put into it is what you'll get out of it. That said, the learning curve is fairly steep. An organization needs to be committed to putting time and resources into SCOM to get the most out of it. I've heard stories from colleagues of several different companies that invested in SCOM and then abandoned it due to the excessive time and care required.
• SCOM is expensive. Not only is the enterprise licensing costly, SCOM requires it's own servers, operational and warehouse databases to be maintained.
• The OOB SCOM reports are a bit clunky and feel outdated.

Incentivized

Microsoft System Center Operations Manager is tightly integrated to Microsoft Windows servers os monitoring with great product support.

Incentivized

There is some room for improvement, but the Datadog team sends out updates frequently, and the UI is user-friendly for engineers, with no significant loading issues or region-specific problems. That was one of the key reasons we preferred Datadog; our company has employees worldwide, and it wasn't difficult to transition to the tool.

Incentivized

Ease of Use and user friendly dashboard

Incentivized

The support team usually gets it right. We did have a rather complicate issue setting up monitoring on a domain controller. However, they are usually responsive and helpful over chat. The downside would be I don’t think they have any phone support. If that is important to you this might not be a good fit.

Incentivized

Hard to get support. The product is not being actively developed anymore, so it is hard to get new features for the product.

Incentivized

Easy to install with intuitive interactive interface during the installation process a and integration to MS SQL was smooth

Incentivized

We are still trying other products, but people still like Datadog. After setting up a dashboard, it's great for monitoring instances on Datadog. Also, the DevOps team had a good time setting up Datadog. It means Datadog was way easier to set up compared to those others.

Incentivized

We used Altiris and WSUS and in the beginning Altiris had the better admin interface than SCOM, but it is no longer the case as SCOM has refined their admin interface. Altiris still has better and more robust group assignments for management roles and those two other tools can better manage non Windows OS devices than SCOM but for a large enterprise Windows shop, if you can afford it, SCOM is the way to go.

Incentivized

• Saved us (time & money) from developing our own monitoring utilities that would pale in comparison
• Alerts allow us to remedy issues before our customers even know about them
• Tracking resource usage over time allows us to better plan for future needs, before it becomes a pain-point.

Incentivized

• It has allowed us to provide an Enterprise Event/Alert management solution to the Global company
• It has taken a long time to get it to provide valuable alerts and information, lots of user resources and investment.
• It assists with 24/7 monitoring and out of hours support

Incentivized