ITOA

Competitive Analysis
Splunk
Cathy Huang
 Overview
Main Competitors
Navigation
Home screen
Topology
Metrics
Alerts
 Main Competitors
New Relic
AppDynamics v. 3.7.12
Ganglia v. 3.5.10
Nagios XI
 Navigation
• Global navigation
• Navigation comparison
• Navigation similarities
• Navigation recommendations
 Global navigation
Navigation that appears on every page of the site
New Relic
Account/Version/
New Relic logo Help
Notifications

AppDynamics v. 3.7.12

AppDynamics
Help Setup Logout splunk
logo

Ganglia v. 3.5.10
Aggregate Automatic
Main Search Views Compare Hosts Events Live Dashboard Mobile
Graphs Rotation

Nagios XI
Logged in as: Send Us
Nagios XI logo System Status Logout Home Views Dashboards Reports Configure Tools Help Admin Schedule Page Get Permalink
user Feedback
Navigation comparison
Software Summary

Best overall: Simplest navigation

New Relic 2 level navigation structure

Local navigation remains the same

4 level navigation structure

Top bar varies between 6-10 items

Always contains 5 items: Home - All
Applications, Go Back, Go Forward, Refresh,
AppDynamics
Navigation path
Variable 5 items: Help video, Help docs, Copy a
link, Compare response time, Time picker

No utility links
4 level navigation structure
Ganglia
4 of 9 links have local navigation
2 level navigation structure

System status always visible

Nagios
Doesn't show where user is in navigation
Dense and varied local navigation sets
A few redundant links
 Navigation similarities
• All (except Ganglia) include main links: Logo, Help,
Account/Setup
• Help menu: Documentation, Videos/Tutorials, Support,
FAQs, Guides
• Account menu: Preferences, Administration,
Notifications, Account Information
 Navigation recommendations
• Clearly show where user is in navigation
• Local navigation on left-hand margin
• Utility links at bottom of page
• Avoid redundant links
 Home Screen
• Competitors’ home screens
• Home screen recommendations
 New Relic
home screen

• Simple layout
• Applications and Recent events most prominent
• Easy to find functions, e.g., Add more
 AppDynamics
home screen

• Best overall: Health/metrics snapshot

• Clear layout
• Can easily access main functions/categories such as: Events, Alert &
Respond, Troubleshoot, Analyze, Configure
 Ganglia
home screen

• Go from Grid to Source to Node

o Grid: sources
o Source: servers, cluster, etc.
o Node: host overview, metrics

• Color-coded snapshot of grid at bottom of page

• Negatives:
o Graphics are dated
 Nagios
home screen

• System status always shown at top of page

• Helpful setup tasks and getting started guide most prominent
• Negatives:
o Server statistics, host/service status at bottom of page – should be at top unless nothing is setup
o Tables are not very easy to read
o Does not show where user is in navigation
 Home screen recommendations
• Show recent events
• Show color-coded health/metrics snapshot or system
status
• Ensure main functions are easy to find
• Provide “Getting started” and setup guides for different
features
 Topology
• Competitors’ topology
• Topology recommendations
 New Relic
topology

• Map (under Applications) and elements are easy to scan

• Negatives:
o Elements are fairly large, could get very dense
 AppDynamics
topology

• Best overall: Intuitive icons and views

• Lots of help/guidance upfront
• Auto-fits Tier Flow Map or Node Flow Map
(under App Servers) in default graphical
Tree view
 AppDynamics
topology

• Helpful mouseover status (response time, health)

• Vertical zoom bar on left
• Drag for panning
• Other views: List, Circular, Maximum
 AppDynamics
topology

• Negatives:
o Current view selections not highlighted
o Elements are cluttered with metrics, so unclear associations
 Ganglia
topology
• Not provided
 Nagios
topology

• Hypermap under Home/Maps

o Clean, readable layout with rings
o Easy to zoom by mouse and pan by dragging
o Re-center view by clicking on element
o Mouseover status provides: state, info
o Easy to add to dashboard, though icon is not recognizable
o Negatives:
 Default zoom does not fit all elements
 Awkward placement of mouseover status and
instructions on right blocks view
 Nagios
topology

• Hypermap
o Negatives:
 Unlimited zooming can make map unreadable
 Nagios
topology

• Network Status Map under Home/Maps

o Simple layout
o Can toggle views: Balloon (default) and Tree
o Can maximize view with 1 click, but icon not readable (no
tooltip)
o Negatives:
 Unclear why “?” appears for elements in Tree view
 Nagios
topology

• Network Status Map

o Negatives:
 Mouseover information is too large and always
appears in same upper-left location
 Clicking on element highlights element, but:
• Doesn’t re-center view
• Removes Balloon/Tree view toggle
 Topology recommendations
• Intuitive icons/elements
• Views:
o Auto-fit by default
o Provide a maximized view with 1 click
o Have a zoom limit and easy way to zoom/pan/re-center on element
o Avoid objects/text that obscure view
o Have several types of views (list, circular, balloon, tree, etc.) and show which type is active

• Readable metrics/status clearly associated with each element

o Avoid clutter

• Show useful mouseover status for elements:

o Response time vs. baseline, node health, state, info, services status, parent/child hosts, etc.

• Provide easy way to add topology to dashboard

• Provide guidance/help upfront
 Metrics
• Competitors’ metrics
• Metrics recommendations
 New Relic
metrics

• Can select custom Dashboard metrics

• Drag to change time range in graph
• Clean visualizations
• Nice color scheme
 AppDynamics
metrics

• Best overall: Slick interactivity and

visualizations in Metric Browser (under
Analyze)
• Slick visualizations and colors
• Drag and drop metrics onto graph
 AppDynamics
metrics

• Drag to change time range in graph

o Mouse X,Y coordinates always shown in upper-right corner -
helps user precisely select time range
o After selecting time range, user can: view snapshots, drill
down, or set as global time range

• Negatives:
o Time range popup menu should not disappear
 AppDynamics
metrics

• Can select baseline pattern and display

deviations
o Baselines: All data – Last 15 days, Daily Trend – Last 30
days (default), Weekly Trend – Last 3 months, Monthly Trend
– Last 1 year

• Can change color scheme between dark

(default) and light
 Ganglia
metrics

• Home screen and Views have collections of

metrics
o Useful as overview
o Vivid colors
o Can drag to change time range in graph, but need to click
and hold to start selection
 Nagios
metrics

• Under Home/Details
• Negatives:
o Dated graphics
o Gauge information is duplicate subset of Summary
information
o Gauge should have new visualization
 Metrics recommendations
• Have customizable metrics
• Provide baseline patterns and deviations
o Baselines: All data – Last 15 days, Daily Trend – Last 30 days (default), Weekly
Trend – Last 3 months, Monthly Trend – Last 1 year
• Drag to change time range in graph
o After time range is selected, provide troubleshooting tools: snapshots, drill down,
set as global time range
o Show x,y coordinates so users can precisely select time range
• Drag and drop metrics onto graph
• Click on any point in graph for more information
• Have filters
• Ability to export metrics data
• Slick visualizations and vivid color
o Dark/light color schemes
 Alerts
• Competitors’ alerts
• Alerts recommendations
 New Relic
alerts

• Best overall: Simple, intuitive setup

• Channels – lists of where to send alert notifications
• Groups – made up of channels
 New Relic
alerts

• Alert policies under Tools

• Default alert policies cannot be deleted
only disabled
o Policies for applications, key transactions (e.g., business
events), servers
 New Relic
alerts

• Can assign applications, key transactions,

and servers to alert policies
 New Relic
alerts

• Channels can be: Email, Hipchat, Campfire,

PagerDuty, Webhook
 AppDynamics
alerts

• Triggers: Health rule violations or

other events
o Other Events: Slow Transactions, Errors,
Code Problems, Application Changes, Config
Warnings

• Actions include Notifications:

Email or SMS
 AppDynamics
alerts

• Start with Policies under Alert & Respond

• For Policies, user sets Trigger then Action
• Has “Getting Started” wizard
 AppDynamics
alerts

• Create Action
o Notification – Email or SMS
o Diagnostic – e.g., Take a thread dump
o Remediation – e.g., Run a script on problem nodes
o Custom Actions - e.g., File a JIRA ticket (integrate 3rd party
alerting/ticketing systems)
o Cloud Auto-Scaling- e.g., Run a workflow to scale up/down
application
 AppDynamics
alerts

• Health rule violation event types: application

performance, business transaction
performance, node health-transaction
performance, node health-hardware, node
health-JMX, error rate, custom metrics
• Set Critical and Warning conditions
 AppDynamics
alerts

• Email Digests are sent at configured time

intervals
o Setup: Contents, Recipients, How often
 Ganglia
alerts
• Use trending data to alert in Nagios
o Via scripts (CLI)
o Nagios integration info: ganglia.info/?p=464
 Nagios
alerts

• Notification Options under My Account

• Notification Management under Admin
 Nagios
alerts

• Alert types: Hosts and Services

• Management:
o Email notifications
o SMS notifications
o Options – status, types, etc.
o Time periods
 Alerts recommendations
• Recipients/groups defined easily
• Have default alert policies that can be disabled not deleted
o For: applications, key transactions, servers
o Types of alerts: host or service
• Provide various triggers/rules/events
o Types: application performance, business transaction performance, node health-
transaction performance, node health-hardware, node health-JMX, error rate,
slow transactions, code problems, config warnings, custom metrics, etc.
o Critical and Warning conditions
 Alerts recommendations (cont.)
• Provide various notification methods and actions besides email/SMS
o Notifications: Hipchat, Campfire, PagerDuty, Webhook
o Automated actions (examples):
 Diagnostics – Take a thread dump
 Remediation – Run a script on problem nodes
 Custom Actions - File a JIRA ticket (integrate 3rd party alerting/ticketing
systems)
 Cloud Auto-Scaling- Run a workflow to scale up/down application
• Ability to set specific notification time periods
• Automated email digests to notify on events