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  1. Stackups
  2. DevOps
  3. Performance Monitoring
  4. Performance Monitoring
  5. Amazon CloudWatch vs Splunk Cloud

Amazon CloudWatch vs Splunk Cloud

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Splunk Cloud
Splunk Cloud
Stacks170
Followers438
Votes15
Amazon CloudWatch
Amazon CloudWatch
Stacks12.0K
Followers8.2K
Votes214

Amazon CloudWatch vs Splunk Cloud: What are the differences?

Amazon CloudWatch and Splunk Cloud are two popular cloud monitoring and log aggregation services. While both provide similar functionalities, there are several key differences between them. Here are six key differences between Amazon CloudWatch and Splunk Cloud.

  1. Data Storage and Retention: One major difference between Amazon CloudWatch and Splunk Cloud is the way they handle data storage and retention. Amazon CloudWatch offers limited retention periods for its logs, typically up to 14 or 30 days depending on the log type. In contrast, Splunk Cloud allows for much longer retention periods, offering up to 90 days or more depending on the subscription plan. This difference can be crucial for organizations that require long-term log data analysis and compliance.

  2. Pricing Model: Another significant difference lies in the pricing models of Amazon CloudWatch and Splunk Cloud. Amazon CloudWatch follows a pay-as-you-go model, where you are billed based on the volume of logs ingested and the number of metrics monitored. On the other hand, Splunk Cloud typically follows a subscription-based pricing model, where you pay a fixed fee based on the amount of data ingested and the desired retention period. This pricing difference can impact the cost efficiency and budgeting strategies of organizations.

  3. Data Collection and Integration: When it comes to data collection and integration, both platforms offer various options. However, Amazon CloudWatch is closely integrated with other Amazon Web Services (AWS) services, making it easier to collect and monitor logs and metrics from AWS resources. Splunk Cloud, on the other hand, is more agnostic and can collect data from a wide range of sources, including cloud platforms, on-premises systems, and third-party applications. This flexibility in data collection can be advantageous in multi-cloud or hybrid environments.

  4. Advanced Analytics and Visualization: While both Amazon CloudWatch and Splunk Cloud provide analytics and visualization capabilities, Splunk Cloud offers more advanced features in this area. Splunk Cloud allows for sophisticated log analysis, including real-time event correlation, anomaly detection, and machine learning-powered insights. It also provides a rich set of visualization options and customizable dashboards. Amazon CloudWatch, although capable of basic log analysis and visualization, may not offer the same level of advanced analytics and customization options.

  5. Ecosystem and Integration: Amazon CloudWatch benefits from its close integration with the broader AWS ecosystem. It seamlessly integrates with other AWS services, allowing for automated actions based on specific logs or metrics. Splunk Cloud, while not as tightly integrated with specific cloud platforms, offers a wide range of integrations with various systems, including popular IT and security tools. This ecosystem and integration difference can influence the ease of integration and workflow automation within an organization's existing technology stack.

  6. Scalability and Performance: Both Amazon CloudWatch and Splunk Cloud are designed to handle large volumes of data and provide scalable performance. However, given its strong ties with AWS, Amazon CloudWatch can benefit from the scalability and elastic nature of AWS infrastructure. On the other hand, Splunk Cloud offers flexibility in terms of deployment options and can scale horizontally across multiple instances to accommodate higher data volumes. The choice between the two platforms may depend on specific scalability requirements and architectural preferences.

In Summary, Amazon CloudWatch and Splunk Cloud differ in data storage and retention, pricing models, data collection and integration, analytics and visualization capabilities, ecosystem and integration options, as well as scalability and performance characteristics. Organizations should consider these differences to choose the right monitoring and log aggregation solution based on their specific requirements and priorities.

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Advice on Splunk Cloud, Amazon CloudWatch

Jigar
Jigar

Security Software Engineer at Cisco

Jul 2, 2020

Needs adviceonAWS IAMAWS IAMAmazon EC2Amazon EC2Splunk CloudSplunk Cloud

We would like to detect unusual config changes that can potentially cause production outage.

Such as, SecurityGroup new allow/deny rule, AuthZ policy change, Secret key/certificate rotation, IP subnet add/drop. The problem is the source of all of these activities is different, i.e., AWS IAM, Amazon EC2, internal prod services, envoy sidecar, etc.

Which of the technology would be best suitable to detect only IMP events (not all activity) from various sources all workload running on AWS and also Splunk Cloud?

168k views168k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Splunk Cloud
Splunk Cloud
Amazon CloudWatch
Amazon CloudWatch

If you're looking for all the benefits of Splunk® Enterprise with all the benefits of software-as-a-service, then look no further. Splunk Cloud is backed by a 100% uptime SLA, scales to over 10TB/day, and offers a highly secure environment.

It helps you gain system-wide visibility into resource utilization, application performance, and operational health. It retrieve your monitoring data, view graphs to help take automated action based on the state of your cloud environment.

Splunk Cloud delivers all the features of award-winning Splunk® Enterprise, as a cloud-based service. The platform provides access to various apps and enables centralized visibility across cloud, hybrid and on-premises environments; Instant: Instant trial and instant conversion from POC to production; Secure: Completed SOC2 Type 2 Attestation*. Dedicated cloud environments for each customer; Reliable: 100% uptime SLA. All the features of Splunk Enterprise, including apps, APIs, SDKs. 10TB+/day scalability and up to 10x bursting over licensed data volumes**; Hybrid: Centralized visibility across Splunk Cloud (SaaS) and Splunk Enterprise (software);
Basic Monitoring for Amazon EC2 instances: ten pre-selected metrics at five-minute frequency, free of charge.;Detailed Monitoring for Amazon EC2 instances: seven pre-selected metrics at one-minute frequency, for an additional charge.;Amazon EBS volumes: eight pre-selected metrics at five-minute frequency, free of charge.;Elastic Load Balancers: thirteen pre-selected metrics at one-minute frequency, free of charge.;Amazon RDS DB instances: thirteen pre-selected metrics at one-minute frequency, free of charge.;Amazon SQS queues: eight pre-selected metrics at five-minute frequency, free of charge.;Amazon SNS topics: four pre-selected metrics at five-minute frequency, free of charge.;Amazon ElastiCache nodes: twenty-nine pre-selected metrics at one-minute frequency, free of charge.;Amazon DynamoDB tables: seven pre-selected metrics at five-minute frequency, free of charge.;AWS Storage Gateways: eleven pre-selected gateway metrics and five pre-selected storage volume metrics at five-minute frequency, free of charge.;Amazon Elastic MapReduce job flows: twenty-three pre-selected metrics at five-minute frequency, free of charge.;Auto Scaling groups: seven pre-selected metrics at one-minute frequency, optional and charged at standard pricing.;Estimated charges on your AWS bill: you can also choose to enable metrics to monitor your AWS charges. The number of metrics depends on the AWS products and services that you use, and these metrics are free of charge. Learn more about this option.
Statistics
Stacks
170
Stacks
12.0K
Followers
438
Followers
8.2K
Votes
15
Votes
214
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 7
    More powerful & Integrates with on-prem & off-prem
  • 3
    Free
  • 3
    Powerful log analytics
  • 1
    Production debugger
  • 1
    Pci compliance
Pros
  • 76
    Monitor aws resources
  • 46
    Zero setup
  • 30
    Detailed Monitoring
  • 23
    Backed by Amazon
  • 19
    Auto Scaling groups
Cons
  • 2
    Poor Search Capabilities
Integrations
AWS CloudFormation
AWS CloudFormation
AWS CloudTrail
AWS CloudTrail
No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Splunk Cloud, Amazon CloudWatch?

New Relic

New Relic

The world’s best software and DevOps teams rely on New Relic to move faster, make better decisions and create best-in-class digital experiences. If you run software, you need to run New Relic. More than 50% of the Fortune 100 do too.

Datadog

Datadog

Datadog is the leading service for cloud-scale monitoring. It is used by IT, operations, and development teams who build and operate applications that run on dynamic or hybrid cloud infrastructure. Start monitoring in minutes with Datadog!

Raygun

Raygun

Raygun gives you a window into how users are really experiencing your software applications. Detect, diagnose and resolve issues that are affecting end users with greater speed and accuracy.

AppSignal

AppSignal

AppSignal gives you and your team alerts and detailed metrics about your Ruby, Node.js or Elixir application. Sensible pricing, no aggressive sales & support by developers.

AppDynamics

AppDynamics

AppDynamics develops application performance management (APM) solutions that deliver problem resolution for highly distributed applications through transaction flow monitoring and deep diagnostics.

Stackdriver

Stackdriver

Google Stackdriver provides powerful monitoring, logging, and diagnostics. It equips you with insight into the health, performance, and availability of cloud-powered applications, enabling you to find and fix issues faster.

Stackify

Stackify

Stackify offers the only developers-friendly innovative cloud based solution that fully integrates application performance management (APM) with error and log. Allowing them to easily monitor, detect and resolve application issues faster

Skylight

Skylight

Skylight is a smart profiler for your Rails apps that visualizes request performance across all of your servers.

Lumigo

Lumigo

Lumigo is an observability platform built for developers, unifying distributed tracing with payload data, log management, and real-time metrics to help you deeply understand and troubleshoot your systems.

Librato

Librato

Librato provides a complete solution for monitoring and understanding the metrics that impact your business at all levels of the stack. We provide everything you need to visualize, analyze, and actively alert on the metrics that matter to you.

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