This latest version introduces service and trace-level root cause analysis to highlight applications that are not behaving normally and show precisely what the underlying cause is. SolarWinds also scores over the competition by offering a simplified pricing structure with no hidden costs, making it easier to control expenditure.

AppOptics infrastructure monitoring supports an impressive range of platforms with Windows, Kubernetes, Amazon Linux and all other key Linux distributions on its guest list. Installing the host agent on our Windows Server systems was simple as we downloaded it from the portal, added the API token provided during agent installation and waited for it to send host metrics to the portal.

We could view all hosts in the portal's Infrastructure page and drill down for more detail. The level of information is extensive with graphs showing CPU, memory, disk and network utilisation along with a complete read-out of host process and resource usage.

Log monitoring is also provided and AppOptics can pass system and service logs directly to the SolarWinds Loggly and PapertTrail log analysis and management platforms. AppOptics makes log analysis even easier as the agents can automatically insert unique trace IDs making it much easier to search for and follow specific transactions.

For service monitoring, AppOptics offers agents for nine programming languages including .NET, Java, PHP, Ruby and Python. Again, installation is simple as you choose your language from the portal, pick a platform, name the service and follow the instructions for installing and configuring it.

SolarWinds provides plenty of host agent plug-ins ranging from Apache, Docker and IIS to SQL Server, Oracle and ZooKeeper plus the portal gives access to a huge catalogue of open-source community plug-ins on GitHub. Hosted services are present too, as you can monitor AWS and Azure environments with the former providing CloudWatch integrations for importing metrics from 35 different web services

The level of information presented is staggering as AppOptics provides full stack views and all service traces. If, for example, you're running IIS web services with SQL backend databases, it displays everything that is going on in relation to each other and presents heatmaps to highlight unusual activity.

AppOptics makes light work of troubleshooting complex web applications by presenting individual traces so you see how different components tie in together and easily spot which one is causing problems. Errors for specific transactions are provided and a slick map view shows service dependencies making it even easier to identify issues.

AppOptics full application visibility allows you to view activity at the host level, drill right down to individual transactions and see exception categories where similar errors are grouped together. Code profiling goes even further as it shows you the classes and attributes of application code to provide a deeper understanding of performance and further opportunities for optimisation.

AppOptics stands out for its integrated machine learning (ML) capabilities as it uses insights based on historical data to make informed decisions about detected issues and their likely cause. It's also great for monitoring the impact of application modifications as you can view traces and logs from different time periods.

SolarWinds AppOptics offers an innovative approach to infrastructure and application performance monitoring making it accessible to a much wider audience. It cuts through the APM data fog and presents clear insights and analysis for swift, accurate application troubleshooting. NC

Product: AppOptics
Supplier: SolarWinds
Web site: www.appoptics.com
Price: From $20 per host per month