Apache SkyWalking on ObserveAny - Pay As You Go

My main use case of Apache SkyWalking is for application performance monitoring.

I have been using Apache SkyWalking for application performance monitoring, service monitoring, and distributing tracings. I found it useful for monitoring application performance and tracing requests across different services. The dashboard and service dependency information helped with troubleshooting and identifying performance issues. The initial setup can be somewhat complex, but once configured, the platform is easy to use and provides valuable observability information. Overall, I have a positive experience with Apache SkyWalking and would recommend it for all teams working with distributed applications.

For my use case, I typically use Apache SkyWalking mainly for daily monitoring and troubleshooting processes, which helps us track service performance and request flows, response times, errors, and dependencies across different services. When an issue occurs, I use Apache SkyWalking to identify which service or component is causing the problem and follow the trace to understand the root cause. I also use it to monitor application health and performance trends, which helps us detect issues early and reduce troubleshooting time. Overall, Apache SkyWalking gives us greater visibility into our distributed applications and makes it easier for the development and DevOps team to identify and resolve production issues.

The best features of Apache SkyWalking are its comprehensive monitoring capabilities.

The two features that stand out to me are distributed tracing, which helps define the specific service, and service performance monitoring, which is vital for day-to-day operations. I can monitor response time, error rates, and service health and dependencies through Apache SkyWalking dashboards, which helps me detect performance problems early and makes production troubleshooting much faster.

I actually use these features on a day-to-day basis to troubleshoot distributed applications, with tracing and performance monitoring helping me find the root cause of issues, understand service dependencies, and improve application reliability.

Apache SkyWalking can be improved by making the dashboards easier to customize, improving alerting options, and adding more detailed troubleshooting information. Better integration with other monitoring and logging tools would make it more useful.

I would like to see improvements in dashboard customizations and alerting, as well as easier integration with other monitoring and logging tools.

I have around five plus years of experience with Apache SkyWalking.

The initial setup can be somewhat complex, but once configured, the platform is easy to use and provides valuable observability information.

I primarily deploy Apache SkyWalking in a public cloud environment, which helps me monitor cloud-based applications and microservices, track performance, and troubleshoot issues.

I use AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud as cloud providers.

I have not purchased Apache SkyWalking through the AWS marketplace; I use an open-source monitoring solution in my cloud environment.

There have not been any major improvements needed so far, as the current features meet my main monitoring and troubleshooting needs.

I would recommend starting small by instrumenting the key services first and using Apache SkyWalking to monitor performance, traces, and errors, then gradually expanding it across the systems.

In terms of comparison, my review of Apache SkyWalking helps me structure my thoughts into specific areas such as system performance, usability, and architecture. I would rate this review a nine out of ten.

I have been using Apache SkyWalking for three years to monitor systems, cloud-native applications, and my Kubernetes environment. With this, I am able to analyze and troubleshoot applications in real time without experiencing any lags.

I use Apache SkyWalking mostly for database monitoring, particularly for my MySQL database, where I am able to monitor response time and identify any latency or errors. Apache SkyWalking has enabled me to associate application logs to identify errors that have been helpful in my work.

When monitoring my MySQL database with Apache SkyWalking, I am able to report issues and get an overview of the multiple services running in my SQL. I receive alerts if there are any anomalies in my SQL, and Apache SkyWalking has been very useful in helping me troubleshoot my MySQL in real time without any challenges.

Another important aspect of my use case with Apache SkyWalking is its role in designing my Kubernetes monitoring to help me monitor pods, nodes, and the container workloads currently running. With this, I am able to know the performance metrics for the applications running in my Kubernetes.

In my opinion, the best features that Apache SkyWalking offers include service topology mapping where you can automatically discover service dependencies. Another valuable feature is application performance monitoring, where you can track response time in real time. Additionally, metrics collection allows you to collect metrics from databases, operating systems, and applications. Another useful feature is log correlation, which helps link logs and allows you to connect log entries for faster incident investigation.

Apache SkyWalking has impacted my organization positively by supporting integration with external systems in place in the environment. The log correlation feature has hastened incident investigation and helped connect requests with distributed traces. Multi-language agent support is a modern feature that makes Apache SkyWalking suitable for organizations using diverse technology stacks, such as Python, PHP, and Rust. Since it is open source, it is a fully useful tool. The fact that it supports Kubernetes and other cloud-native deployments has helped the organization remain secure from a security perspective. It has also helped scale large microservices environments since I can monitor different applications simultaneously using Apache SkyWalking, which has optimized application performance and boosted system health through increased visibility.

Regarding Apache SkyWalking's AI capabilities and governance and security, since Apache SkyWalking is an observability platform that contributes to operation security and monitoring for artificial intelligence systems through tracing, metrics, logging, and anomaly detection, I believe that from a governance perspective, it is not a dedicated AI governance solution. Organizations seeking comprehensive AI governance will typically pair Apache SkyWalking with governance processes and specialized tools that address model life cycle management, AI risk compliance, and responsible AI practices. For AI and compliance, I would rate it a two, but for operation monitoring and security, I would rate it a five.

Regarding Apache SkyWalking's AI capabilities in terms of accuracy and reliability outputs, Apache SkyWalking does not use AI algorithms to make predictions or decisions, so it does not have an algorithm accuracy matrix. It is an observability platform, not an AI model.

I rate Apache SkyWalking eight out of ten because it is a powerful open-source observability platform that is well-suited for organizations running microservices and cloud-native applications. However, the learning curve and deployment complexity may require experienced administrators, which prevents it from receiving a perfect score.

I have been using Apache SkyWalking for three years.

Apache SkyWalking is stable in my experience.

For Apache SkyWalking's scalability for my organization, I would rate it an eight. With that rating, we are able to accomplish a lot regarding the features in place, which has helped reduce significant time wastage in monitoring applications across the environment.

The customer support for Apache SkyWalking is perfect.

I have never switched to any other solution or used any other solution before Apache SkyWalking.

Apache SkyWalking has been deployed using a typical cloud environment with agents installed in a cloud environment. For the back-end, I typically use Elasticsearch. For the agents, I have a cloud server being used. For the BTM analysis platform, I have a different server in the cloud that provides service topology and stores the processed data.

A relevant metric that we were able to capture is the time saved in associating multiple applications simultaneously to identify any downtime or errors. Since we are able to monitor applications at once in the same environment, significant money has been saved because we did not have to deploy multiple solutions for application reviews. Apache SkyWalking has enabled us to save considerable money in this regard.

I did not choose any other options apart from Apache SkyWalking.

Apache SkyWalking is very useful and a nice application. I am able to perform root cause analysis, conduct monitoring, and have end-to-end visibility across distributed applications. There is also automated service discovery with the topology mapping. I believe Apache SkyWalking is on a safer side, and I do not have anything that I would need them to add or change. I am comfortable with what it offers right now. Apache SkyWalking is the best and will not fail you. Regarding cloud deployment, it is a very good application. I give Apache SkyWalking an overall rating of eight out of ten.

We have running Kubernetes clusters as well as the database and other servers with the main use case for Apache SkyWalking being the need for monitoring metrics and traces, and the slow endpoints of the applications, and the service-to-service communication chart and the graph of how the services are communicating with each other. Everything was under one umbrella of Apache SkyWalking.

We were facing a slow endpoint in our application, and this specific example of how I use Apache SkyWalking in my day-to-day work helped us there and also query some queries of the database which needed to be optimized. Apache SkyWalking helped us there.

I use OpenTelemetry to get the metrics out and the traces out of the application and the Kubernetes cluster and the servers, which is how I use Apache SkyWalking. I get that into Apache SkyWalking and its own good GUI. It is easy to integrate into the system. We have the Java applications, so it had also a dependency which we can add into the pom.xml of the Java application in the Spring Boot. This is the current situation where we used it and we got facilitated.

The communication from one service to other service with the best features Apache SkyWalking offers is the chart, the graph it displays, and the communication bubble which moves from one application to another, and also the name of the application and the connection to the database server. The whole chart explains the infrastructure very well to any other person. This is one of its beautiful GUI features. Additionally, we can get everything at one place. We don't need other tools such as ELK and other trace tools such as Zipkin or Jaeger. We just get everything in one single place.

These features have helped my team or made my work easier when we diagnosed our slow endpoints. Additionally, when we were going to deploy the new applications, we just had to confirm how it is communicating with other services and if it is able to make the connection to the database server. At that point, we were just being feasible while recognizing what the state of the application is. The alerting system for the machines, for the VPS, and for the Kubernetes cluster helps us in a lot of ways and in a lot of areas.

Apache SkyWalking has impacted my organization positively. We implemented it to diagnose the slow endpoints and we just started and integrated the other things, the DB, the Kubernetes clusters, the metrics, the logs, and the alerting systems. Apache SkyWalking helped us in every perspective.

Comparably, if we compare Grafana and Apache SkyWalking, they are both nearly equal in order to provide and send the alerts, which shows how Apache SkyWalking has benefited my organization. Apache SkyWalking made a difference that we can get everything at one place while with other tools, we have to deploy a single by single, one by one.

Features are good, but there is something about the UI, which I would suggest. There is space to enhance it and make it look less pointy from the edges and not like an old UI. There is a space where we can develop a more eye-catchy UI. Otherwise, it is all good.

Apache SkyWalking can be improved by addressing the UI, which is a thing that needs to be less complicated. A simple documentation on how to integrate it with Kubernetes and in the different Kubernetes clusters provided by different cloud providers such as GCP, OKE, the EKS, and even integrating Apache SkyWalking with Ranchers too would be beneficial. A good UI which should not be pointy and should be eye-catchy and acceptable would be beneficial.

I have been using Apache SkyWalking since 2021 and in the start of 2022. This is the exact date I started working with Apache SkyWalking.

Apache SkyWalking will take time to get mature, which is my perspective on its stability. Right now, I don't think it is stable.

Before Apache SkyWalking, I previously used ELK, Grafana, and Zipkin.

It is fine regarding my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing.

There is nothing in terms of evaluating other options before choosing Apache SkyWalking.

There are modifications which I already mentioned while explaining why I chose seven out of ten for Apache SkyWalking. These relate to AI, the deployment procedure, and the integrating procedure of Apache SkyWalking. There should be good documentation. The other thing is about the user interface.

I haven't experienced Apache SkyWalking's AI capabilities regarding its governance and security yet.

I haven't used Apache SkyWalking's AI capabilities regarding its accuracy and reliability of output.

Everything is good in terms of improvements needed for Apache SkyWalking that I haven't mentioned yet.

It depends upon their usage for others looking into using Apache SkyWalking. I won't recommend it to everyone if he or she is not operating a very big infrastructure. Then there is no need to use it. If someone is using a bigger infrastructure and wants everything in the right place and all in one place, then Apache SkyWalking would be ideal for that person. I rated Apache SkyWalking seven out of ten.