Item: Amazon CloudWatch
Rating: 9
Author: Gedson Silva

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We're using CloudWatch for gathering all our key metrics, from business data to IoT sensors data. CloudWatch makes it very easy and convenient to set-up threshold-based alarms and it also integrates natively with AWS Lambda and SNS, so we receive both email and SMS notifications when something's off-balance.

Pros and Cons

Collects metrics from multiple sources.
Integration with SNS and Lambda.

Dashboard chart types could be broadened.

Return on Investment

It's very fast and effortless to set-up, hence the fast ROI.
Inexpensive and cloud-based.

Alternatives Considered

Datadog

CloudWatch's native integration with other AWS tools such as AWS and Lambda make it a better fit and simpler to set up than most of the competitors.

Support Rating

Support from Amazon has been helpful when needed. I enjoyed the fact that the support agent that received the request will follow-up during the entire support workflow.

Key Insights

Do you think Amazon CloudWatch delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Amazon CloudWatch's feature set?

Yes

Did Amazon CloudWatch live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Amazon CloudWatch go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Amazon CloudWatch again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Elasticsearch, Microsoft Power BI

Likelihood to Recommend

If you need to collect and act on metrics, which you should no matter what it is that you do, then CloudWatch will make a great fit. If you're after fancy analysis and charts, then there are better alternatives out there.

Metrics made easy

Overall Satisfaction with Amazon CloudWatch