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The platform makes it easier and quicker to understand dependencies between different cloud services
Spotted: The average cost of IT down time – when networks or apps crash unexpectedly – is $5,600 per minute, according to Gartner. There is therefore extreme pressure for IT departments to resolve outages quickly. Complicating the situation is the fact that many organisations rely on a range of third-party cloud services, applications, APIs, and SaaS products. In fact, the average digital business uses more than 100 third-party cloud services. These are all inter-related in complex ways, meaning that an outage in one can have a knock-on effect on an entire system.
While IT teams already have tools available to monitor the internal dependencies in their network, it is much harder to track external dependencies. Third party providers like Google Cloud or AWS can communicate problems to their customers through Twitter and sites like StatusPage. However, updates through these channels often have a delay and do not always expose the ultimate root of a problem.
With each minute that ticks by costing thousands of dollars, real-time understanding of problems is essential, and this is the focus of startup Metrist. The company provides its customers with visibility into any cloud product they use. It does this by constantly monitoring cloud services using multiple methods. First, the company continuously runs scripted tests that observe popular cloud products from the ‘outside-in’. It then further tracks how apps interact with the Cloud from the ‘inside-out’. Finally, it aggregates status updates from vendors themselves.
The upshot is that Metrist is able to update IT teams on the health of their network and the external services it relies on in the fastest times possible. Customers can receive updates via Slack, email, PagerDuty, Datadog, or Webhook. And, crucially, the company claims that these alerts typically arrive about 20 minutes ahead of vendor status page updates, enabling teams to respond quicker.
Other cloud computing startups spotted by Springwise include a platform monitoring CO2 emissions from cloud computing, hydrogen-powered data centres, and a platform for measuring, monitoring, and communicating an organisation’s IT footprint.
Written By: Matthew Hempstead