Benefits of Native Cloud Monitoring
Most native cloud monitoring tools are included with the purchase of the cloud platform. Using the tools provided costs less than purchasing a cloud monitoring system from a third party. For a simple, one-vendor deployment that is 100% cloud-based, this solution is the most logical and simple approach.
Native Cloud Monitoring Limitations
Multi-Cloud Play
Native Cloud monitoring is vendor specific to the resources and applications within that vendor’s particular cloud platform. Native cloud monitoring tools, including AWS’s CloudWatch, Google Stackdriver, and Azure Monitor, tie into their specific cloud product environments.
However, ESG found that 81% of enterprises surveyed use 2 or more cloud providers. This means relying on gathering data from multiple native-cloud monitoring solutions to get the full visibility needed for your organization. Getting multiple tools for each cloud vendor is expensive, and unifying the data into cohesive reporting is a frustrating, error-ridden experience.
Geographic Concerns
Depending on where a client is located, there can be requirements for data residency that require data hosted within certain locations. This might mean bringing in supplementary cloud providers. Using more than one cloud provider is also a strategy for many IT teams looking for geographic and carrier diversity. The options create a risk distribution model in the case of outages.
Competing Interests
Many major retailers, including Walmart, Target, BestBuy, Spotify, and many more, are uncomfortable using AWS because they view Amazon as a competitor in their space and have concerns about how customer data could be used or misused.
The Advantage of Cloud Monitoring with Packets
Familiar Technology
Packet capture, or packet mirroring, is used with virtual network taps to gather data from virtual machines like computers, operating systems, servers, and applications. This data is key to identifying network anomalies. Packet capture is a trusted and proven network monitoring technique that requires no learning curve and less training time for IT teams already familiar with using it for on-premise or hybrid monitoring solutions.
Packets = Security
From root cause analysis to data storage to forensics investigations, packet capture provides an exact mirror of network traffic and the only infallible approach for threat detection. Flow data points to issues with a summary and can answer where a problem occurs but not necessarily why. Packets have the answers. Cloud networks have a reputation for poor security, and multi-cloud networks have an even worse security perception. This is partly because of ineffective monitoring tools that lack accuracy and total coverage, leaving gaps between where one native cloud monitoring tool ends, and another begins. Building packets into a cloud monitoring strategy creates security assurance.
Cut down on Tool Sprawl
Packet capture doesn’t care who your cloud provider is. It’s compatible with any cloud platform that produces data. Packets are the lowest common denominator in a network and are useful for monitoring networks of all complexities. Finding a modern and scalable packet capture solution that can report and analyze multi-cloud data from a single UI is the ideal approach for complete network visibility.
Finding a Single Cloud Monitoring Solution
LiveAction’s platform combines three approaches that collect and inspect network traffic at scale using packet capture, flow analysis, and encrypted traffic analysis to deliver unparalleled visibility to your cloud deployment. Patented intelligent packet capture and retention maximize storage capacity to meet data retention and logging requirements for government agencies, financial institutions, and HIPAA compliance.
Want to see how it works? Book a demo with us today.
