Sematext

Serialized is a managed platform for developing solutions based on Event Sourcing & CQRS. It enables software development teams to build fast, scalable event-driven solutions using any language without the need to manage their own infrastructure or servers. Serialized also provides technical consulting such as coaching, training and custom software development for clients.

What were your team's devops challenges and pain points prior to using Sematext?

Since our SaaS-product is built on Kubernetes we were looking for a managed solution to which we could easily ship and aggregate logs from our Docker containers in production. We felt most of the solutions out there were either too expensive or too much work to maintain. We were also spending too much time setting up log shipping and alerts for clients. It was hard to find a cost-effective solution that was easy to set up and maintain.

What were your requirements and considerations for monitoring and / or logging solutions?

We needed a cost-effective, managed solution that worked seamlessly with Kubernetes/Docker. An ideal solution also had to make it easy to test and set up logging for new services that we develop.

Why did you choose Sematext?

Initially, the free plan made it possible for us to try out the service and get acquainted with it and the fact that it offered integrated Kibana visualizations while being very cost-effective made the decision simple. It was also convenient that Sematext was available in multiple geographical regions with regards to network latency and local regulations since our commercial offering was available in Europe.

What problems does Sematext solve for you?

Sematext provides us with great log visualizations and immediate feedback whenever we have issues on any of our APIs. The Kibana integration makes it easy for our developers to monitor the logs in a tool that they are already familiar with. The way Sematext is organized around Apps works great for all the concurrent development projects we have ongoing in the company.

Please share some insights into your implementation process and transition to Sematext.

Implementing the log shipping was very easy using the Sematext Docker agent in our Kubernetes cluster. During development of new services and applications for clients that don't use Kubernetes we use the Syslog appender directly from our applications to make sure things are up and running. A very pragmatic and simple way to get log aggregation working.

What was the outcome and which product feature(s) do you find most helpful?

Sematext has been a pleasure to use for log aggregation since it's simple to get started with, yet provides everything we need from a production point-of-view. It is a core part of our infrastructure that we use it every day to monitor our API logs and usage.

Anything else you would like to add?

Besides being a great product the Sematext team has proven to be very responsive and helpful in finding issues with our log configuration.