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Launch HN: Opstrace (YC S19) – open-source Datadog

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Re: Launch HN: Opstrace (YC S19) – open-source Datadog

#91

Post by BringerOfChaos »

dudeinjapan wrote: post #78

Hi there, at TableCheck (www.tablecheck.com) we recently adopted Lightstep. In a nutshell, running all these various components (Grafana, etc) is a royal pain in the neck. Even if `opstrace create` spawns them easily, the problem is running/maintaining them. We want someone to run these for us as a SaaS/PaaS and we're happy to pay them. Re: your principles: (1) The customer should always own their data --> we agree.…

@dudeinjapan, check out https://grafana.com/products/cloud/ The first line on the page says, "Your observability, managed as a service"

It might not fit your use case...but it might.

Re: Launch HN: Opstrace (YC S19) – open-source Datadog

#92

Post by brodouevencode »

nrmitchi wrote: post #27
brodouevencode wrote: post #22

We use [insert very large application performance monitoring tool here] for workloads running in [insert very, very large cloud provider here] and after examining our deployments, concluded that we were spending nearly $13k/mo for data transfer out expenditures because the monitoring agents have crazy aggressive defaults. Seems like running our own (which may be worthwhile) would alleviate anything like that.

Tip, if you happen to be using datadog, make sure datadog agent logs are disabled from being ingested into datadog. If you can disable them at the agent level and avoid the data out that would be even better. At a previous employer the defaults were quite literally half of our log volume, that we were paying for. I was doing a sanity check before renewing our datadog contract and was very not-pleased to discover that…

Lol no, the other really large one. Five minute Cloudwatch polling defaults are just overkill even in production.

Re: Launch HN: Opstrace (YC S19) – open-source Datadog

#94

Post by englambert »

rtkaratekid wrote: post #93

Looking through the docs I'm seeing there will be (at some point) an API. Does this include ways to integrate data coming from non-Opstrace sources? My specific case is an in-house monitor that basically just generates data.

Yes, indeed! Currently you can already using the Prometheus remote_write API as discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25992392. So if you can collect your in-house metrics with Prometheus, then you could write to Opstrace.

Additionally, we are close to launching a Datadog API as mentioned here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25994268

So stay tuned to our blog or newsletter for more on this.

Are there other specific APIs you’re interested in?

Re: Launch HN: Opstrace (YC S19) – open-source Datadog

#95

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

dudeinjapan wrote: post #78

Hi there, at TableCheck (www.tablecheck.com) we recently adopted Lightstep. In a nutshell, running all these various components (Grafana, etc) is a royal pain in the neck. Even if `opstrace create` spawns them easily, the problem is running/maintaining them. We want someone to run these for us as a SaaS/PaaS and we're happy to pay them. Re: your principles: (1) The customer should always own their data --> we agree.…

Lightstep was bananas expensive and had several limitations that lead to us moving away from it. Hopefully it's easier to scrub PII from it these days.

Re: Launch HN: Opstrace (YC S19) – open-source Datadog

#96

Post by Denzel »

dang wrote: post #69
Denzel wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The headline feels deliberately clickbait-y and disingenuous. I love and support the idea. Aspirationally, the founders may want to compete with Datadog, but OpsTrace overlaps some small percentage of Datadog’s feature set. I’m surprised the mods haven’t edited this title. Source: I’m an engineer that’s used, operated and hacked on a medium-sized prom+grafana; and used Datadog at a large, multi-region, global scale.

Sorry about that! I didn't see anything wrong with the title but I'm not familiar with Datadog's feature set. If you take the title as aspirational, it may make more sense.

No need to be sorry, you do a great job moderating HN dang!

I just felt let down because the promise of the title (which I was excited by) doesn’t match reality in that it’s quite impossible to deliver Datadog’s feature set for metrics, traces, and logs — and tie all three together — on top of prometheus+grafana because the underlying TSDB doesn’t even support the notion of user-customizable indexing. Prometheus indexes all labels, which is why most Prometheus users even have to worry about high cardinality and time series explosion. This is one point highlighting how OpsTrace’s current architecture can not satisfy their positioning; there are many more. I’m sure they’re aware of them.

As an aspiration, the title makes sense. As someone in their target market, I was a bit turned off by the embellishment.

Re: Launch HN: Opstrace (YC S19) – open-source Datadog

#97

Post by rtkaratekid »

englambert wrote: post #94
rtkaratekid wrote: post #93

Looking through the docs I'm seeing there will be (at some point) an API. Does this include ways to integrate data coming from non-Opstrace sources? My specific case is an in-house monitor that basically just generates data.

Yes, indeed! Currently you can already using the Prometheus remote_write API as discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25992392 . So if you can collect your in-house metrics with Prometheus, then you could write to Opstrace. Additionally, we are close to launching a Datadog API as mentioned here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25994268 So stay tuned to our blog or newsletter for more on this. Are…

Thanks for the reply! Not necessarily, I work in R&D developing low-level data collection so I'm more just trying to keep my ear to to ground in terms of what's going on in the stack just above what I'm doing :)

Re: Launch HN: Opstrace (YC S19) – open-source Datadog

#98

Post by englambert »

sciurus wrote: post #90

It looks like you're largely selling a fancy installer for software primarily developed by another company, Grafana Labs. They offer both open source, hosted SaaS, and paid-for "enterprise" versions of their software. Why should someone choose Opstrace over purchasing from them directly?

Our installer is indeed an important part of what we’re offering and we’re continuously evolving our operator to manage the ongoing maintenance. But in terms of being a feature complete, Open Source Datadog, you’re right that we have a long way to go to achieve our vision. As mentioned in other replies, we are working on other interesting components as well, such as a new collaborative UI (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25996154), API integrations (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25994268), and more.

That being said, in case you couldn’t tell, we love software from Grafana Labs. It’s popular for a reason. However, we want it to be as easy to install and maintain as clicking a button, i.e., as simple as Datadog. So one problem we are trying to solve today is that while, yes, you can stitch together all of their OSS projects yourself (and many, many people do), it’s a non-trivial exercise to set up and then maintain. We’ve done it ourselves, seen friends go through it; we’d like to stop everyone from becoming a subject matter expert and reinventing the wheel. (Especially since when our friends do it themselves they always skimp on important things like, say, security.) Bottom line—we’re inspired by Grafana Labs. We strive to also be good OSS stewards and contribute to the overall ecosystem like they have.

Another way to solve the “stitching-it-together” problem, as you mentioned, is of course pay Grafana Labs for their SaaS (which I’ve done in the past) or one of their on-prem Enterprise versions. However, these are not open source. The former is hosted in their cloud account and single-tenant; the latter have no free versions. We think Opstrace provides a lot of value, but we understand that it’s not for everyone.

Re: Launch HN: Opstrace (YC S19) – open-source Datadog

#99

Post by [deleted] »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #95
dudeinjapan wrote: post #78

Hi there, at TableCheck (www.tablecheck.com) we recently adopted Lightstep. In a nutshell, running all these various components (Grafana, etc) is a royal pain in the neck. Even if `opstrace create` spawns them easily, the problem is running/maintaining them. We want someone to run these for us as a SaaS/PaaS and we're happy to pay them. Re: your principles: (1) The customer should always own their data --> we agree.…

Lightstep was bananas expensive and had several limitations that lead to us moving away from it. Hopefully it's easier to scrub PII from it these days.

[deleted]

Re: Launch HN: Opstrace (YC S19) – open-source Datadog

#100

Post by englambert »

rtkaratekid wrote: post #97
englambert wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, indeed! Currently you can already using the Prometheus remote_write API as discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25992392 . So if you can collect your in-house metrics with Prometheus, then you could write to Opstrace. Additionally, we are close to launching a Datadog API as mentioned here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25994268 So stay tuned to our blog or newsletter for more on this. Are…

Thanks for the reply! Not necessarily, I work in R&D developing low-level data collection so I'm more just trying to keep my ear to to ground in terms of what's going on in the stack just above what I'm doing :)

Sounds good. I know that feeling. :-) Cheers.
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