Streamlines incident response and has built customer trust but needs deeper analytics insights
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for PagerDuty Operations Cloud is incident management, as we use it for alerting people who are on call.
I definitely use PagerDuty Operations Cloud for incident management; we have set up the account, schedule, teams, etc., and we continuously monitor our logs for any anomalies with proactive alerts. We define priority because we don't want to alert people on the phone unnecessarily, thus we categorize alerts based on severity and business disruption, sending information via the integrated APIs to the relevant teams, specifying whether to communicate through Slack or phone based on the severity.
This is the main use case we have; it's a tool that last mile connect kind of people use.
How has it helped my organization?
PagerDuty Operations Cloud positively impacts my organization by helping us win customer trust; when problems occur, the speed of our reaction and involvement with customers is crucial, and PagerDuty Operations Cloud facilitates quick responses to potential issues. PagerDuty Operations Cloud allows our team to react swiftly, which can be challenging without it, as we can't manually sift through all logs. Automation for remediation is also in place, enhancing confidence and allowing some issues to be resolved without manual intervention.
What is most valuable?
The best features of PagerDuty Operations Cloud include integration, mobile app, reporting, and analytics, which I find very useful based on the access I have.
We review the data periodically to see our performance; for example, we check for alert fatigue, how many alerts have been addressed, and our TDX metrics such as time to respond. The analytics of PagerDuty Operations Cloud is so good that it gives me good visibility with just a few clicks, which helps in discussions with the team for continuous improvements.
What needs improvement?
More analytics can be brought into PagerDuty Operations Cloud; while I know there are some, they still seem basic to me, and having options for user-customized charts would be really helpful, especially in this GenAI world where prompts can yield valuable data.
The analytics provided by PagerDuty Operations Cloud can be significantly improved, as they still feel basic to me.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using PagerDuty Operations Cloud for more than five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
PagerDuty Operations Cloud is stable.
How are customer service and support?
I don't think I have ever needed customer support because our usage and the lack of issues may prevent any corner cases or other problems, or perhaps it relates to licensing. I personally have never utilized customer support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I previously used another solution which I won't name because it's proprietary, but the user experience was not great; when I learned about PagerDuty Operations Cloud, it had a lot of positive discussions, and I was excited to find we were already using it when I joined this company.
What was our ROI?
TDX metrics are definitely improving due to PagerDuty Operations Cloud being in place; time to respond, time to initiate, and time to mitigate are key metrics influenced positively.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I usually am not involved in pricing, setup cost, or licensing, as that's handled by another team, so I don't have much visibility on that part.
What other advice do I have?
I advise others to use PagerDuty Operations Cloud, as it's going to help in building customer trust. There's an operations team for those aspects. My overall review rating for PagerDuty Operations Cloud is 7 out of 10.
Alert workflows have reduced missed incidents and now scheduling needs simpler complex rotations
What is our primary use case?
I have been in my current role for the past 18 months, and we started using PagerDuty Operations Cloud earlier this year around January or February to manage our operations.
PagerDuty Operations Cloud's primary use case is alerting. We switched to ensure alerts are efficient and effective so that the on-call engineer does not miss any alert. We instrument many alerts on it, including VPN downtime, transaction monitoring, success rate, and latency. We configured PagerDuty Operations Cloud so that if any of those metrics are met or if any of those SLOs and SLIs are breached, we can quickly take action and resolve the issue. For day-to-day use, we run a 24-hour shift where all shifts are entered into the system, and every on-call engineer uses PagerDuty Operations Cloud to receive alerts. Beyond alerting, we also use scheduling, incident management, and incident reports.
What is most valuable?
The best features of PagerDuty Operations Cloud include alerting, which is very important and the main reason we retain it, and scheduling as well.
Initially, we used Excel to manage our on-call engineers' schedules, but with PagerDuty Operations Cloud, it shows when you are on duty and allows other team members from different teams to check who is on duty without needing to ask. This has significantly reduced the time spent on checking who is on duty by providing visibility at each point.
Scheduling with PagerDuty Operations Cloud has reduced confusion because we set it up with a round-robin rotation, and nobody needs to update it every day unlike with Excel, where we had to create a new schedule every two months. Now we only make changes when necessary, making the process more efficient and organized for on-call engineers to know when they are on duty. The system also alerts them in advance for their upcoming shifts.
What needs improvement?
One way PagerDuty Operations Cloud could improve is through the scheduling feature, which can be tricky, especially with complex schedules. I have found it stressful to schedule effectively, even after going through PagerDuty University and the forums. Sometimes I need to manually interchange people because minor changes can scatter the whole schedule. A more efficient scheduling system or better guidance for complex schedules would help.
Another area for improvement is alerting. When multiple incidents occur simultaneously, it would be helpful if alerts listed the issues instead of muddling them together. This would make it easier to manage what needs urgent attention without missing anything.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Initially, when I first joined the company, we primarily used Grafana and Slack as our means to manage incidents. The alert was on Slack, and the dashboard was on Grafana, which required us to use three different applications to do the same thing.
With PagerDuty Operations Cloud now, we don't need to go through multiple tools to manage alerts and incidents. We don't need to go through Jira to log incidents. It streamlines the process, and with incident management, it can escalate to the next person so that alerts are rarely missed. It has made our workflow easier and much more efficient.
What other advice do I have?
For incident management in my team, PagerDuty Operations Cloud has really helped with alerting in such a way that when an issue happens, it reaches out to the on-call engineer to ensure they don't miss it. There is a pop-up, probably on your browser or phone, and if you miss the pop-up or don't acknowledge it in time, it moves to your phone and starts calling; sometimes it sends texts and sometimes calls your phone. The call is very persistent, so if the incident is not acknowledged, it escalates to the next line, which can be your manager or your functional manager, and it keeps escalating until it gets acknowledged. This way, the alert is rarely missed because at some point, somebody will surely pick up.
PagerDuty Operations Cloud helps us effectively manage incidents without needing to sit down all day and watch our screens.
Alerting is key, and scheduling is also important but not as crucial as alerting. We also use incident management and incident reporting, which allow us to manage who should be escalated to during incidents and keep track of when incidents happen and when they are resolved so that everyone knows what occurred and how it was handled.
PagerDuty Operations Cloud has positively impacted my organization by providing effectiveness and efficiency in the way we work, with less alert fatigue, meaning alerts are rarely missed. For example, if four or five alerts come on Slack at the same time, you might miss them while focusing on resolving current issues. However, with PagerDuty Operations Cloud, since it calls for every issue, you will see any new alerts and resolve them, thus reducing missed alerts and increasing efficiency. This leads to better service for our end users, increased profit, and less pressure on engineers, making it a win-win for everybody.
Our MTTR has significantly reduced; however, I cannot provide specific numbers because with Slack, we were not measuring it accurately. Now with PagerDuty Operations Cloud, we can measure how long it takes to acknowledge alerts and resolve issues, giving us metrics to manage this effectively.
My advice for others looking into using PagerDuty Operations Cloud is that if their workflow requires them to be alert to incidents while continuing their work without being tethered to a screen, it is a very helpful tool to have.
One additional thought about PagerDuty Operations Cloud is that if they started issuing certificates for completing courses on PagerDuty University, it would encourage more people to engage with the training, similar to how New Relic operates. Having a certificate would demonstrate rigorous training and the capability to apply what was learned. I would rate this product a 6 out of 10.
Automated alerts have improved incident response in banking operations but calling notifications still need refinement
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for
PagerDuty Operations Cloud is to set up alerts for any failures, such as when one server is down, a particular service is down, or when APIs are not responding due to technical issues, with PagerDuty triggering an alert and also calling my personal mobile number to notify me about the issue, allowing me to acknowledge that I am looking into it and take necessary actions. I can give an example of a situation where
PagerDuty Operations Cloud helped us handle an incident, such as when our payment system was about to go down. During that time, we usually monitor the system manually, but there are incidents where an automated system works more efficiently than a human. PagerDuty Operations Cloud identified the issue first by alerting us that something went wrong with the servers or services, which enabled us to contact the DevOps and Dev team to identify the exact issue in our banking app, highlighting how helpful PagerDuty Operations Cloud has been from the beginning. PagerDuty Operations Cloud is very helpful for monitoring purposes, allowing us to set up multiple alerting methods such as SMS alerting, email alerting, and call alerting, all of which we commonly use, proving its usefulness across various banking services, with teams including Dev, DevOps, and SecOps relying on it heavily.
What is most valuable?
The best features of PagerDuty Operations Cloud include the SMS and call alerting functions, which I find very beneficial compared to other tools I have used, such as Coral Logics and Sumo Logic, which primarily focus on email alerting. PagerDuty Operations Cloud goes a level beyond by notifying users through SMS and calls, allowing us to tag the concerned teams to address specific issues promptly. In addition to those features, I also find the integration and reporting aspects of PagerDuty Operations Cloud valuable, as it records all triggered calls and incidents, enabling us to analyze patterns and identify the times when systems go down, thus assisting us in understanding and addressing the underlying causes. PagerDuty Operations Cloud has positively impacted our organization by ensuring that our banking applications, which operate 24/7, remain functional and efficient, contributing to better service availability.
What needs improvement?
I would suggest that the calling service could be adjusted since if a system goes down, the user receives continuous calls, which can be overwhelming. Once a user acknowledges the alert, it may be unnecessary to continue calling again and again, as it distracts from their work on resolving the issue. That is the only improvement I can suggest regarding the calling aspect of PagerDuty Operations Cloud.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working in my current field for around three or more years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
PagerDuty Operations Cloud is stable and provides accurate information.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of PagerDuty Operations Cloud is very good, and it can handle increasing traffic as our organization expands without any issues.
How are customer service and support?
I have not needed to contact the customer support of PagerDuty Operations Cloud, as they provided thorough knowledge transfer once they handed over the services, and since then we have not encountered issues requiring support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
PagerDuty Operations Cloud was our first client for an alert-based system, as it was part of a pilot project started around three years ago, and we did not use any other solutions before it.
What was our ROI?
PagerDuty Operations Cloud helps us reduce downtime and identify which systems have issues since it is not feasible to manually monitor everything. The automated system efficiently monitors the infrastructure and notifies us about problems, benefiting both our customers and the bank's reputation.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I do not have any information regarding the pricing, setup cost, or licensing, as those details are managed by the organizational leadership.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did not evaluate other options and directly chose PagerDuty Operations Cloud for our needs.
What other advice do I have?
I advise companies in the FinTech and banking sectors to consider using the alert-based system of PagerDuty Operations Cloud for their projects because digital services are becoming more prevalent across various sectors, and this system can enhance business operations by reducing incidents of system downtime and failures. My relationship with PagerDuty is strictly that of a customer utilizing their product for our business needs. I have covered multiple aspects of PagerDuty Operations Cloud in our discussion. My overall rating for this product is 7 out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Must have tool for incident managemnt
What do you like best about the product?
Esclation policies , How it group together incident and reduce noise
What do you dislike about the product?
MOst features are now add-on which makes it difficult to convince managemnt to buy.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
PagerDuty is helping us reach out to people during the incident and esclation policies help us get someone on the call when it is absoultely needed.
one of the best incident management tool
What do you like best about the product?
Pagerduty helps to manage the incident which we can integrate on cloud artichture and other monitoring tools like senty
What do you dislike about the product?
The support for the pagerduty is less and the pricing is high
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
As mentioned it will solve the problem from incident managment like keeping alaram on cloudwatch and respond over the pager duty when a new incident is occured
Good tool
What do you like best about the product?
Alerting and Integrations with other services
What do you dislike about the product?
Cost/pricing is bit on the higher side as compared to other tools with similar functionalities
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Alerting and Incident Response
Tool that sends precise alerts for immediate action.
What do you like best about the product?
Using PagerDuty gives me great satisfaction as I experience its ability to improve operational visibility and real-time collaboration. I am fascinated by the ease with which it optimizes communication between teams, allowing a proactive response to any unforeseen situation.
What do you dislike about the product?
At times, I feel like PagerDuty's customization could be more intuitive. Setting up alerts and adapting them to the specific needs of your team can be a somewhat complex process. However, once adjusted, the program demonstrates its effectiveness in incident management remarkably.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
With PagerDuty, I have efficiently addressed challenges such as early identification of infrastructure issues and optimizing alert management. Benefits include improved decision-making, greater operational visibility and a substantial reduction in the impact of incidents, thereby supporting the stability and effectiveness of our operations.
Handy incident plugin for Slack
What do you like best about the product?
Simple commands and fairly intuitive design, good demo.
What do you dislike about the product?
Not best suited for security incidents since private channels, access control etc haven't been implemented yet, but this should be coming soon.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Saves time on updating other channels and the right folks on the progression of an incident.
Convenient interface
What do you like best about the product?
Fosters good collaboration on an incident and allows for some level of automated documentation with a unified workflow.
What do you dislike about the product?
Limitations around:
* Followup mechanisms for permanent improvements
* Non-technical collaboration to manage customers, etc.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Fostering collaboration around incidents and simplifying documentation by unifying workflow
24 * 7 Monitoring tool
What do you like best about the product?
Its way of sending alerts is from various methods like calls, mail and messages, ensuring alerts aren't missed. Its way of alert incident management is one of the best.
What do you dislike about the product?
Not so much customisable interaction with JIRA. You have to keep an alert id to get alert history.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
To auto-assign the alerts to the respective on-call person. Manage any incident timely, which helps system availability.
