Datadog responds to Azure momentum with new support for Azure Resource Manager

Enterprise-focused cloud monitoring service Datadog also supports the rest of the Microsoft stack, and assisted by select channel partners, aspires to be a one-stop shop to monitor the Microsoft ecosystem.

alex rosemblat datadog

Alex Rosemblat, Datadog’s VP of Marketing

TORONTO – New York City-based cloud-monitoring service Datadog is announcing new integrations with Azure Resource Manager, which they are demoing at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference here.

Datadog is a SaaS-based monitoring service for large cloud-scale applications, the majority of which are based on AWS or Azure. Founded in 2010, and having just announced a large $94.5 million Series D funding round, the company has thousands of enterprise customers, and is looking for another major growth spurt this year.

“Our secret sauce is our ability to adjust to dynamic cloud environments, and we have a lot of integrations that go in to make this possible,” said Alex Rosemblat, Datadog’s VP of Marketing.

While Datadog supported Azure before now, they are doubling down, responding to Azure’s momentum in the marketplace.

“Recently, and over the last couple of months in particular, Azure has been growing at a rapid rate, and is beginning to catch up with AWS,” said Daniel Langer, Product Manager at Datadog. “We recognize this interest, and are stepping up in monitoring the Azure environment. We have had a large variety of AWS integrations for performance metrics, and are starting on the task to match that same coverage with Azure.”

The new announcement adds integrations for Azure Resource Manager.

“Azure has been switching to new deployment methods for managing their resources, with Azure Resource Manager,” Langer said. “We have bolstered integrations to fully support that change.”

Microsoft actually introduced Azure Resource Manager in 2014, but Langer said that before now, it simply didn’t have the adoption to merit developing the integrations for it.

“Azure Resource Manager has been a slow migration for Microsoft, and they are still pushing for customers to move to this deployment method,” he said. “Many customers still preferred the old way of doing it. It gets purchased quickly – because it gets rolled into enterprise contracts – but it doesn’t always get implemented quickly.”

“Many big enterprise customers don’t move too fast on this kind of adoption, and we have to prioritize integrations,” Rosemblat said. “So we waited until the moment where we saw sufficient adoption to get this out there.”

The Azure Resource Manager integrations follow up Datadog’s recent announcement of an integration to monitor mobile and web apps on Azure.

“Azure is definitely catching on and we want to keep up with it,” Rosemblat said.

In addition to Azure Compute and Azure Stack Storage, Datadog supports the broad range of Windows Stack Services, including Windows, Internet Information Services, SQL Server, Windows Event Viewer and Windows Management Instrumentation, as well as the StatsD for C# application custom metric. The new Azure integrations allow for the capabilities in Azure VM and Azure SQL DB to be used with full visibility across all these Azure services and Microsoft applications.

“In addition to Azure, we integrate with all the other common pieces in Microsoft environments,” Rosemblat said. “We want to be that single spot for the Microsoft ecosystem where you can see how everything in the whole ecosystem is performing and detect immediately anything that isn’t right.”

DataDog is at WPC, at Booth 1724, to demo their new integration, and talk with prospective new partners.

“We kicked off our channel initiative about a year ago,” Langer said. “Before that, we had sold direct. We are getting a lot of traction in the channel, as our tool lends itself very well to MSPs.”

Langer indicated that they have a fairly select channel, rather than a vast one.

“We are starting small, with a smaller number of more focused partners,” he said. “Longer term, we will go as deep into the channel as there is demand for. We see the channel as a really good way to reach every company running a large scale application on the cloud. Channel is a force multiplier once you get the right partners. That’s why we are investing heavily in WPC as a right step to get there.”

Datadog is at other upcoming industry events, for the same reason.

“We are at HostingCon in New Orleans later in the month as well, using these avenues to reach more partners,” Rosemblat said.