CloudCheckr is an AWS cost and security management platform. It monitors and analyzes AWS data sources, including AWS CloudTrail logs, AWS Config, AWS Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) flow logs, AWS CloudWatch and AWS API calls, to help users optimize AWS environment resources. CloudCheckr reached an agreement to be acquired by NetApp October 2021, and is now a NetApp brand.
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(EOL) Cisco CloudCenter
Score 8.3 out of 10
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Cisco CloudCenter (formerly CliQr CloudCenter) was an application-defined cloud management platform for deploying and administration of applications across datacenters, private, and public cloud resources. It has been discontinued by Cisco, and is no longer available for sale.
CloudCheckr is fantastic for those that are purely in the Cloud as it provides everything you need under one roof for a comprehensive configuration and usage monitoring tool. It has SysLog capabilities though so you can farm out the alerts into a SIEM or other log management system, so hybrid environments could also benefit from its use.
It is well suited for large corporate entities, whether they are in manufacturing, sales, engineering, healthcare, supply or shipping. It is easy to understand and operate once it has been initially configured. Expansion of the system is likewise easy to do once expertise has been acquired. The only difficulty with this or any cloud scenario is ensuring where the data is located and managing that securely.
Detailed Best Practices. It's important to align your cloud to industry best practices for security and cost—it just performs better if it's used the way it's meant to be used. AWS is very flexible, and that's great when you have special requirements, but you've got to at least know when you're using something in a non-standard way so you can think through the implications.
Cost Reduction. Some recommendations are almost impossible to make at least for our setup, but many, many others are easy. We only have to log into CloudCheckr every few months and make a few changes for it to more than pay for itself.
Right-Sizing. This is related to the other points, but for some reason is separate from their cost module. The metrics it's able to pull only tell half the story, so it's good to verify it's sizing recommendations before making changes. But it does show you what instances to focus on first, and even if you choose a slightly different size to move it to, it does clearly indicate it's current size isn't appropriate. And this works both ways, if the size is too big, you can save some cash by making it smaller, but if it's too small, you want to be sure to scale up before you run into performance problems.
CloudCheckr features have a tendency to break without warning. Functionality in place for months could suddenly stop working.
CloudCheckr support often delays work on support tickets for fixing broken application functionality.
The CloudCheckr platform and documentation website often crash or experience performance degradation.
CloudCheckr cost reporting is often impacted by faulty code or broken report functionality. This can contribute to a low level of confidence in CloudCheckr's ability to deliver accurate cost reporting.
The software and systems don't present a problem to us but the continued interaction with mid-level support teams and vendors can slow down implementation or correction of difficulties we experience.
The continued overhead associated with peripheral training on systems we have purchased can cause delays.
Language barriers sometimes show up but this, again, is due to remote middle agents that are themselves contractors of or sales agents of the main agency. It slows down communication and can introduce business difficulties.
Overall, CloudCheckr covers all our AWS monitoring needs and great integration through SysLog into our SIEM to capture alerts for investigation. The reports are great and allow for an easy daily review. Small improvements could be made to the interface and better filtering in places would be good. Great product and the price is fair.
There are a few products out there that'll do an aspect or two of what CloudCheckr does, but I honestly couldn't find anything nearly as comprehensive as CloudCheckr.
We found that the cost advantages were greater by going with Cisco because of our present contracts and the materials and equipment we already had on hand. The reliability of the system, for us, outweighed any cost advantages we might have been realized by going with another provider. Certainly the service and support for the entire system is much better when handled by a single vendor with a good track record.
We have had a positive return on investment by adopting Cisco CloudCenter as the system is more mature than competitors. We have saved a lot by working with them rather than continuing to act as a defacto test location for other systems.
We have been able to reduce the number of staff necessary to operate the system and turn them over to more profitable work.
One negative impact we have seen is that it is difficult to map where the data is located at any specific instance.
