Item: Dynatrace
Rating: 9
Author: Brandon Baratono

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We do all of our development in house (Java on WebLogic/Tomcat) we use Dynatrace primarily to track and monitor user performance. We started as an Appmon and Synthetic Classic Customer back in the day and are now on the new Dynatrace platform. However, our primary use case hasn't changed. We are currently working on a massive rewrite and targeting microservices (Kubernetes/Docker) this was the primary driver for us switching from AppMon to New DynaTrace. The primary business issues it addresses for us are numerous. Being able to get insight into into important business transactions like claim processing and batch processing are vital to our business. The product is primarily used within our ISS organization however not all those users are technical.

Pros and Cons

Tracing user actions click by click
Monitoring and Alerting on critical Business Transactions
Tracing hotspots in database queries

I wish that the New Dynatrace had all the functionality of Legacy AppMon
I wish that the New Dynatrace had better documentation. AppMon seems to have much more flushed out info
I wish that it was easier to "clone" created environments. There are many things in Dynatrace that you get stuck creating multiple times.

Return on Investment

The primary ROI for us has been a great reduction in time to resolution for issues as they arrive. It has mad it far easier to find the source of an issue and get it resolved
In our lower environments the ability for development to be able to quickly identify hotspots in their code has been extremely valuable. Without Dynatrace we would literally be dead in the water.

Alternatives Considered

AppDynamics, New Relic and CA APM

New Relic is SAAS only so it was instantly nixed. Our IT Sec wants on premise.

CA APM was terrible. Like really bad. They came in for a demo too and it is no where near on par. As complicated as Dynatrace can be. CA is worse by a hundred fold.

AppDynamics was our runner up in our last "reevaluate". They do have a solid offering. However they are really just playing catch up to Dynatrace. If somehow going AppDynamics can save you a ton of money versus Dynatrace. I'd say it is a safe option. But Dynatrace is superior

Support Rating

The live chat is great. Wish it was available 24/7. Tickets tend to be a less desirable experience but that is not something that is exclusive to Dynatrace. Pretty standard. They do offer some pricey higher tier support models that I do not have experience with.

Key Insights

Do you think Dynatrace delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with Dynatrace's feature set?

Yes

Did Dynatrace live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Dynatrace go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Dynatrace again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Nagios XI, Oracle WebLogic Application Server, Oracle Solaris, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), Oracle SPARC Servers, Windows Server, Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, Apache Tomcat, Apache Web Server, Nagios Core, Operations Manager i (formerly HP Operations Manager), Atlassian Confluence, Bitbucket, JFrog Artifactory, JFrog Xray, Microsoft IIS, SecureAuth IdP

Likelihood to Recommend

Dynatrace is extremely useful as a triage and diagnostic tool. Especially if being used by technical people. It can do monitoring and alerting but the configuration of it still seems a bit convoluted to me. If your primary use is not technical you may run into issues. It is definitely a very robust platform and easy to get lost in.

Products Replaced

Key Differentiators

Product Features
Analyst Reports
Third-party Reviews

Definitely the features. The ability to trace user actions, track data across tiers, and quickly identify issues are vital to our organization.

Evaluation Lessons Learned

Probably wouldn't change anything, I believe we ended up where we needed to be.

A Great Product with a Learning Curve

Overall Satisfaction with Dynatrace