Google Debuts Cloud Monitoring Service From Stackdriver Deal, Which Also Works On Amazon's Cloud

Google rolled out a beta for a new service Tuesday that lets customers keep close tabs on how their apps are performing while running on its public cloud -- as well as Amazon's.

The service, called Google Cloud Monitoring, gathers performance metrics and logs for Google's cloud services, as well as for virtual machine instances and open source components like MongoDB, Apache, Nginx and Elasticsearch.

The service includes infrastructure monitoring, system and OS monitoring, service and uptime monitoring, charting and alerting, Google Product Manager Dan Belcher said in a blog post.

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In an interesting twist, the Google Cloud Monitoring service also works with Amazon Web Services, one of the search giant's main rivals in the cloud infrastructure market.

This is because Google's service is based on technology from Stackdriver, a cloud startup it acquired last May that had focused exclusively on AWS customers since its founding in 2012.

Some industry watchers felt Google acquired Stackdriver as a competitive move to shut off AWS customers. But Belcher -- who co-founded Stackdriver along with Izzy Azeri, who's also a Google product manager -- made it clear in the blog post that this isn't the case.

Since the acquisition, the Stackdriver team "has been working to make operations easier for Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services customers, and hundreds of companies are now using the service for that purpose," Belcher said in the blog post.

Allen Falcon, CEO of Cumulus Global, a Westborough, Mass.-based Google partner, said being able to monitor what's happening in cloud environments could give more organizations confidence to run apps and systems in the cloud.

"Google Cloud Monitoring will become an essential tool in the cloud ecosystem for many businesses," Falcon said. "For partners, deployment and customization creates new service opportunities and reinforces the evolving maturity of Google's cloud offerings."

Lane Campbell, board member at Durmic Consulting, a Chicago-based Google partner, told CRN the new service gives users a lot more insight into what's happening in cloud environments than they've been getting with Google's existing tools.

Google is planning to continue integrating the rest of Stackdriver's technology into the Cloud Monitoring service, and also will continue extending support for AWS and hybrid cloud customers, Belcher said in the blog post.

The Google Cloud Monitoring beta is available for free to existing Google customers and to those who sign up for the free trial the company is currently offering, which includes $300 in credit that's good for 60 days.

PUBLISHED JAN. 14, 2015