Meanwhile, cloud management involves monitoring and tracking private, public, hybrid, and multi-cloud deployments for issues or bottlenecks and resolving them with the least possible downtime or interruption possible.

There is no need for spending on tech teams and hardware – all the critical issues are analyzed and presented in a way that allows for immediate actions to be taken care of by a single admin located anywhere in the world.

Here is our list of the best cloud management software:

  • Loggly EDITOR’S CHOICE Cloud tool for monitoring logs and events – from any software or hardware source – to find anomalies in any architecture. Start a free trial.
  • Site24x7 Cloud Monitoring (FREE TRIAL) The choice for businesses looking to monitor their assets on the three major platforms: AWS, Azure, and GCP; covers a large number of technologies with over 100 plugin integrations. Start a 30-day free trial.
  • Datadog Cloud Monitoring Cloud monitoring solution that presents assets in highly informative maps; it can integrate with numerous other of its software and hardware monitoring tools which extend its capabilities by far.
  • ManageEngine Applications Manager Great solution for businesses looking to keep track of their data storage technology and how they may affect their applications or processes that are dependent on them.
  • Google Cloud Platform World-class cloud platform with a proven track record; easy to set up, uses an agentless data collector that works with a wide range of systems.
  • Splunk Enterprises Heavy-duty cloud monitoring tool for mining data from IT infrastructures, systems, and applications; it is customizable to meet specific log or machine data analysis requirements.
  • New Relic One Highly scalable, full-stack monitoring that tracks all operational data and shows it in one view; it works with any machine data and correlates it using machine learning analysis for better observability.
  • Abacus Private Cloud Platform for businesses looking for a private cloud to move their whole technology infrastructure into; additional features make it ideal for legal and accounting firms, as well as other SMBs
  • LogicMonitor SaaS-based performance monitoring platform for Enterprise IT; automatically discovers connected and immediately starts capturing their machine data making it the best choice for architectures that are continuously growing.
  • Rubrik Cloud-native backup tool that helps businesses get back up and running in a short time; it also prevents data loss and can integrate with other tools for enhanced cloud management capabilities

The Best Cloud Management Software

Cloud management software solutions are used for various administrative tasks including monitoring platforms, architectures, applications, productivity software suites, hardware, as well as handling security and backups.

Using this set of criteria, we looked for cloud management systems that automate performance monitoring, saving time and money.

Our methodology for selecting a cloud management software system

We reviewed the market for cloud management services and analyzed the options based on the following criteria:

  • Coverage for AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform
  • Application and service dependency discovery and mapping
  • Live performance data represented in graphs
  • Alerts for performance problems
  • Activity logging and log management
  • A free trial or demo system for a no-cost assessment opportunity
  • Value for money from a comprehensive tool that is offered at a fair price

1. Loggly – EDITOR’S CHOICE (FREE TRIAL)

Loggly by SolarWinds is an efficient and easy-to-use cloud monitoring tool for centralized log analysis and monitoring, which helps in resolving performance issues faster.

Key Features:

  • Cloud-based solution for analyzing logs and events to see across all cloud assets
  • No-installation – just point logs towards the cloud and start using this tool
  • On-premises, private cloud, public cloud, and hybrid architectures supported

This can be classified as a “log management as a service” solution because no installation is required; all the client needs to do is redirect its logs from its applications and infrastructure to Loggly – which is hosted on AWS.

It doesn’t matter how many devices there are, the users can create as many dumps as they want from sources like operating systems, servers, applications, connectivity devices. They can even export logs from end-user devices or their browsers – Loggly doesn’t care about the log format; it will analyze any log file thrown its way.

Once the data has been collected, it immediately becomes ready for rendering into reports.

Analysis results are also represented as graphs that can then be used to compare data types across timelines. Admins can easily extract any specific data they want to compare or analyze because Loggly also becomes a real-time search engine for the captured data.

In fact, the tool has search capabilities allowing for text searches to be saved for future retrieval or serve as a framework for designing custom dashboards. Also, if any search conditions are met they can be converted into triggers for alerts.

This tool is ideal for businesses looking to build in the cloud using Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platforms like AWS, Azure, and GCP – or hybrid architectures involving any combination of on-premises and private or public cloud services.

It is a highly scalable tool that can work on any network size as you will see when you try Loggly for free here.

Pros:

  • Lives in the cloud, allowing syslogs servers to scale regardless of onsite infrastructure
  • Setup is easy, no lengthy onboarding process
  • Can pull logs from cloud platforms such as AWS, Docker, etc.
  • Data is immediately available for review and analysis
  • Offers a completely free version with limited retention

Cons:

  • Would like to see a longer 30-day trial

2. Site24x7 Cloud Monitoring (FREE TRIAL)

EDITOR’S CHOICE

Loggly is our top choice! This tool offers at-a-glance administration to easily spot issues. It proactively monitors logs, views apps’ performance, tracks system behavior, and looks for any unusual activity across the full stack – all in real-time. It can even parse JSON serialization events – a way to drill into embedded data infrastructure to find what was in the original structure.

Start Free Trial: https://www.loggly.com/signup/

OS: Cloud-based

  • Monitoring of the three major platforms – AWS, Azure, and GCP
  • Over 100 plugins to make it even more powerful
  • Can be used to monitor system metrics as well as drill down into individual codes in case of issues

This is a centralized approach to monitoring entire cloud infrastructures – be they in the cloud or in a virtualized data center. In the case of AWS, for example, admins can analyze the performance of native services like EC2, EBS, and optimize usage of CloudWatch.

Highly configurable dashboards allow for easy tracking of the performance of IaaS services – including virtual machines (VMs) and Kubernetes – as well as PaaS services like App Service or Event Hubs.

With Site24x7’s exclusive VM extensions admins get system-level metrics like CPU, memory, storage, and network usage for all Windows and Linux virtual machines as well as application performance management for .NET applications.

With the metrics captured, they can drill down into transactions to get critical, code-level insights allowing them to debug performance issues for distributed applications in AWS. They can also monitor GCP services like Google Compute Engine (GCE), Google App Engine (GAE), Google Kubernetes Engine, and more – and see the availability of the entire GCP stack from one console.

What’s more, there are over 100 plugin Integrations – including MongoDB, Apache, Nagios, RabbitMQ, and much more – for even more monitoring capabilities.

Meanwhile, should issues need to be escalated, Site24x7’s chatbot integration with Microsoft Teams allows for a collaborative effort to address them in a timely manner.

You can find a 30-day free trial.

  • Supports cloud and hybrid cloud environments such as AWS, Azure, and GCP

  • Offers over 100 of out-of-box monitoring options for infrastructure, servers, and applications

  • Allows administrators to view dependencies within the application stack, good for building SLAs and optimizing uptime

  • Offers root cause analysis enhanced by AI to fix technical issues faster

  • Site24x7 is a feature-rich platform with options that extended beyond databases management, may require time to learn all options and features

Site24x7 Start a 30-day FREE Trial

Related post: Site24x7 Monitoring Software Review

3. Datadog Cloud Monitoring

Datadog is a popular platform for cloud monitoring, security, and analytics. It is preferred across the board by developers, IT operations teams, security engineers, and even business users.

  • End-to-end coverage of cloud network architecture
  • Graphical presentation of log data that is highly informative and actionable
  • Archiving, retention of logs – alerts in case of surpassed thresholds

Datadog Cloud Monitoring is a SaaS-based management tool for cloud-scale logs, applications, infrastructures, and more. It is, in fact, the ideal choice for monitoring hybrid environments.

It gives in-depth visibility into the full stack – and across dynamic or high-scale architectures – by sifting through events, logs, and metrics. It can give insights into over 500 environments. This is a tool with up-to-date monitoring capabilities and security that lets admins see inside any stack, any app, at any scale, and located anywhere.

Datadog’s dashboard helps admins keep an eye on incidents occurring anywhere in the stacks – host and container maps make it easier to monitor statuses of servers, for example – and allow for serverless functions for monitoring, analyzing, and filtering.

The already highly informative maps can be saved for later retrieval and are easy to “slice and dice” for further in-depth analysis.

Apart from giving insights, it can integrate with Datadog’s numerous other products which can then monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize the data source applications or devices which could also be running on any infrastructure.

You can give Datadog Cloud Monitoring a spin; a free trial is available here.

  • Offers out of the box monitoring for cloud environments like AWS and Azure

  • Has an excellent interface, easy to use, and highly customizable

  • Can monitor both internally and externally giving network admins a holistic view of network performance and accessibility

  • Allows any size business to scale their monitoring efforts reliably through flexible pricing options

  • Would like to see a longer trial period for testing

4. ManageEngine Applications Manager

ManageEngine Applications Manager monitors IT connectivity infrastructure, data storages, and applications for visibility into assets – regardless of their location: on-premises or cloud-native.

  • Works with cloud and on-premises technologies
  • Cuts down issues with over 100 popular technologies
  • Focuses on databases performance and is compliant with a vast array of data storage products

Applications Manager supports a wide range (over 100) of popular technologies for servers, VMs, cloud applications, containers, databases, big data stores, middleware, messaging components, web services, and ERP suites. It even monitors custom, in-house applications – admins simply create custom scripts to facilitate two-way communication.

While this cloud management software can scale up to monitor 10,000 applications it can also give comprehensive insights into databases without the need of installing anything. This agentless tool can track slow-executing queries, resource-intensive statements, delayed response times, failures, and site faults, to name a few issues.

It can also easily identify, and help solve, database issues that impact the performance of applications that use them. Admins can work with a wide array of databases as Application Manager offers out-of-the-box support for:

  • JDBC databases – Oracle, MS SQL, MySQL, etc.
  • NoSQL technologies – Oracle NoSQL, MongoDB, Apache HBase, etc.
  • Big data stores – Hadoop
  • In-memory databases – SAP HANA, Oracle Coherence, Redis.

This helps businesses proactively troubleshoot application server issues before they can affect the overall performance of their business processes.

Download a 30-day free trial of Applications Manager here.

  • Offers on-premise and cloud deployment options, giving companies more choices for install

  • Can highlight interdependencies between applications to map out how performance issues can impact businesses operations

  • Offers log monitoring to track metrics like memory usage, disk IO, and cache status, providing a holistic view into your database health

  • Can automatically detect databases, server hardware, and devices for real-time asset management

  • Can take time to fully explore all features and options available

5. Google Cloud Platform

Ok, we will be switching gears with Google Cloud Platform because, when compared to the other cloud management solutions, this is the “industrial” version of a cloud management tool.

  • Easy to set up, easy to use but still, offers exhaustive documentation and support
  • Support for Windows and Linux – integrates with various Linux flavors as well as with Windows Server through 2016
  • Impressive selection of AI and data analysis apps

As a matter of fact, it is an IaaS solution that has numerous tools under one roof that can be used to do everything from creating simple websites to running complex applications. It is a world-class solution that works with other cloud services and would especially appeal to fans of Google Services.

The tool gives insight into the full stack and allows for the presentation of its metrics in real-time; this makes it easy to track, analyze, and resolve issues fast.

There is no installation involved; an agentless data collector works to collect data within the architecture without burdening it or eating up supplemental resources.

Google Cloud Platform is easy to set up and can collect data from over 150 common application components, on-premises systems, and hybrid cloud systems and presents insights via dashboards, charts, and alerts.

Google Cloud Platform offers a Free Trial here.

  • Simple to use – ideally for those already familiar with Google Cloud services

  • Extensive documentation and API support

  • Supports a suite of tools for cloud monitoring, deployment, and management

  • Supports over 150 data collection metrics

  • Replaces live support with extensive self-help documentation

6. Splunk Enterprises

Splunk Enterprises is a heavy-duty cloud monitoring tool that analyzes data for use in security, IT, and DevOps.

It makes it easy to mine, analyze, and act upon the big data generated by technology infrastructures, security systems, and business applications. Armed with this insight, admins can optimize processes to achieve better business performance.

  • Solutions for IT, security, IoT, and business operations
  • Customizable to meet each user’s requirements and process large amounts of data
  • Exportable reports that can be saved or shared in various formats

The tool is ideal for international businesses that want to leverage their infrastructure – with the help of real-time metrics data – and achieve optimal performance through it. The data is displayed for analysis and further breakdown in dashboards that make it easy to spot and prevent issues – both in the present and future – with accurately informed actions.

Splunk can collect and index log and machine data from any source. It can even combine machine data with data stored in relational databases, data warehouses, and Hadoop or NoSQL data stores. With multi-site clustering and auto load-balancing, it can be scaled to process terabytes of data.

Perhaps a unique angle with Splunk is that the platform makes it easy to customize Splunk Enterprise to meet clients’ needs. Depending on their projects, developers can build custom Splunk applications or integrate Splunk data into their applications.

Admins can create custom dashboards to view the data in a comprehensible format. They can use a wide range of charts and visual presentations to tell a data story that is directly actionable.

Extracted reports – which are created in real-time or scheduled to run at intervals – can be saved or shared securely.

You can find your free download of Splunk Enterprises here.

  • Uses excellent visuals to display collected data and insights

  • Supports a multitude of environments for data collection

  • Uses machine learning to identify new data sources and monitor behavior

  • Caters to enterprises with excellent support and a wide range of integrations

  • Many features and services cater to large enterprise networks

7. New Relic One

New Relic One is, arguably, the largest and most comprehensive cloud-based monitoring platform created to help customers build better software. It is one of the most popular solutions in the world’s best DevOps and software developer teams.

  • Applied Intelligence helps keep processes fast without affecting performance
  • It can drill right down into codes to sniff out any bottlenecks or troublesome syntax
  • Best for software development teams looking to leverage the digital assets at their disposal

They use New Relic One to monitor and optimize their technology stack – top to bottom – and everything from infrastructure and applications to browsers and mobile apps.

It is platform-independent, easy to deploy, and requires no hardware management – the perfect combination for higher ROI and lower TCO.

Aesthetic and informative dashboards deliver immediate, real-time insights into supporting services, data stores, and hosts. They can also monitor infrastructures, cloud resources, containers, and clusters. Simply put: it offers full visibility and analysis of full stacks from a single point.

Admins can monitor distributed services, applications, and serverless functions, regardless of where they’re developed. It spots issues using in-depth transaction details that list the exact method calls – down to the code’s line number.

Distributed tracing helps trace the path of a single request from end to end – even when the system is complex. Admins can track the entire chain through every service and dependency, all the way through to the database, and know which step in the path is creating a bottleneck or causing an error.

Add to this that it can work with several app languages, operating systems, and platforms including – but not limited to – Java, .NET Framework, Python, Kubernetes, Google Cloud, Azure, AWS, and much more, and it becomes evident that this is indeed a powerful cloud monitoring tool.

Admins can monitor their full-stack for FREE and with full platform access, plus 100GB of ingest per month.

  • Offers a wide range of integrations and support for hybrid environments

  • Certified for Microsoft Azure monitoring

  • Uses anomaly detection to highlight abnormal behavior in performance and health

  • Uses simple but intuitive admin dashboards

  • Better suited for small to medium-sized cloud deployments

8. Abacus Private Cloud

When it comes to Abacus Private Cloud from AbacusNext, users of the hosting service need to make a paradigm shift on how they go about accessing, storing, and processing data. Everything they need to work on is accessed from their private cloud and means they don’t need to worry about hacks and breaches, especially from inexperienced admins slipping up.

The platform is designed to host and manage a business’ mission-critical applications and data. This is then made available in virtual workspaces that are accessible from anywhere in the world, using connected devices.

Abacus Private Cloud creates a virtual desktop and server hosting for a business’ entire IT environment. By moving fully into the cloud, a business can continue to operate around the clock, from one central location that is accessible to its employees around the world.

  • All applications and systems seamlessly served from one virtual desktop
  • Large selection of office productivity tools to improve business process efficiency
  • Perfect for accounting and legal firms but also ideal for any SMB that wants to move into the cloud

Apart from cutting hardware, overhead, and IT expert expenditures, Abacus Private Cloud also keeps data safe with security features like 256-bit AES data encryption, multi-factor authentication, and automated backups.

Also, apart from their own applications or enterprise software solutions, businesses can enjoy several applications like Office Tools, Results CRM, and Cloudnine Realtime – all AbacusNext acquisitions that help optimize office work.

Throw in OfficeTools WorkSpace and a business can handle billings and use integrations or plug-ins for a range of other common business apps and office processing – QuickBooks, Lacerte, and the Abacus Payment Exchange (APX) e-payment systems.

This is ideal for legal or accounting firms that want to join the cloud but also a great solution for other small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) that want to make the move to the cloud without having to pay through the nose for it.

With the help of this platform, businesses can make sure they have their whole infrastructure monitored from one central console.

With unlimited cloud platform and after-hours support, 99.999% uptime Service Level Agreement (SLA), and SOC1/SOC2/SOC3/SSAE16 certifications, clients can rest assured that their entire IT infrastructure is in safe hands.

Take Abacus Private Cloud for a spin with a Free Demo.

  • Leverages private cloud for improved security and control

  • Designed to monitor mission-critical applications – great for enterprises

  • Provides admin access via a flexible virtual desktop

  • Better suited for small to medium-sized cloud environments

  • UI can feel cluttered when managing larger cloud networks

9. LogicMonitor

With LogicMonitor we have a fully-automated, cloud-based IT infrastructure monitoring platform. It is ideal for enterprise IT and managed service providers as it helps them gain full-stack visibility into their networks, servers, and cloud from a single, unified view.

  • End-to-end monitoring of IT infrastructures
  • Non-stop, automatic discovery of new assets making it easy during scale-ups
  • Log collection from various systems and presentation in an easily comprehensible format for quick troubleshooting

It doesn’t matter if it is a public, private, or hybrid – LogicMonitor offers full monitoring across cloud environments. It uses agentless discovery to automatically discover, apply, and scale monitoring for dynamic cloud infrastructures – such as AWS, Azure, and GCP – making sure it is always up to date.

It also offers visibility into hybrid IT architectures – from on-premises servers to cloud services, network flow to digital workflows – whose aspects are monitored using automated configurations. Once the data is collected, it is automatically correlated to provide answers on how to model, avoid issues in, and optimize the IT environment.

But, even this configuration doesn’t need to be done manually, as there are templates and instructions telling the system what data to collect, how to collect it, how to present it, and how to alert on it. There are over 2,000 pre-built integrations covering technologies like AWS, Cisco, and Microsoft.

LogicMonitor can automatically extract performance insights by pulling the correct log events of an infrastructure’s performance. This gives users the correct insights to know exactly why and where an issue has occurred.

Finally, LogicMonitor automatically detects infrastructure changes and extends its monitoring accordingly. This means, there is no need to worry about scaling up as the network is continually monitored for changes.

Try LogicMonitor for free here.

  • Monitors application performance via the cloud

  • Can monitor assets in hybrid cloud environments

  • Supports over 2000 pre-built integrations

  • The dashboard can be customized and saved, great for different NOC teams or individual users

  • The trial is only 14 days, would like to see a longer testing period

10. Rubrik

Lastly, we have Rubrik, a company that offers services to cloud companies looking for a disaster recovery solution that can help get systems back online in a short time. In fact, this software solution helps prevent disasters from occurring in the first place.

  • Protects data with secure backups
  • Full lifecycle data management and search capabilities
  • Can be implemented on any architecture: on-premises, cloud, or hybrid

Rubrik also has cloud management features to help midsize-to-large businesses manage information search, analytics, recovery, retrieval, and compliance across their data centers.

Rubrik is a software-defined data management platform for physical, virtual, and hybrid environments. It simplifies and unifies backup, data protection, and instant recovery which can be done onsite, in the cloud, or in remote data centers.

It also handles data administration tasks via disaster recovery, archiving, compliance, analytics, and Copy Data Management (CDM) – regardless of where it is stored.

It is an intelligent Data Management stack where each layer scales and is independently resistant to failures. Designed to run on-premises or in the cloud, the stack is anchored by three core technologies:

  • Cerebro – The brains of Rubrik and comprised of the Blob Engine and Distributed Task Framework; abstracts a data control plane detached from any underlying infrastructure
  • Infinity – The interface between the outer world and Cerebro; APIs execute SLA policies throughout the system and deliver granular control to users
  • Atlas – a cloud-scale file system designed to be master-less and self-healing; works with Cerebro to provide instant recovery

Simply put: Rubrik enables businesses to perform intelligent data management and global searches. It takes the data through the complete lifecycle – cradle-to-grave – from initial data input to archiving it and even destroying it as per policy.

Contact sales to find out more about Rubrik.

  • Offers unified cloud backups – a great BDR alternative

  • Supports physical, virtual, and hybrid environments

  • Offers image-based and incremental backup/recovery

  • Supports the full lifecycle of data management

  • Must contact sales for pricing

Choosing Cloud Management Software

As we have just seen, cloud management is a vast undertaking that requires various tools and platforms working together.

While the likes of Google Cloud Platform have proven to be the leaders in the field of cloud architecture hosting, it could prove a little too much for smaller businesses that can’t, or don’t need to, deal with all the bells and whistles that come with the service.

But, these same businesses can combine Google Cloud Platform with Loggly from SolarWinds to get the better of two worlds: an enormous cloud hosting solution monitored by an easy-to-use tool that can scale up as the business grows and adds more digital assets to its cloud infrastructure.