Top 15 Site Reliability Engineer (SGE) Tools

What is Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)?

It refers to enhancing the software application’s performance by improving the workflow and optimizing it for better end-user functionality. SRE involves the application of software engineering principles, dealing with Service Level Objectives and Service Level Indicators and more.  The Site Reliability Engineers carry out tasks and responsibilities involving efficient usage of various tools such as on-call management tools, monitoring tools, incident monitoring tools, configuration and automation tools, automated deployments, collaboration, and others.

Top 15 Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) Tools

The widely used Site Reliability Engineer tools are categorized and described as follows:

Monitoring and Observability Tools

The essential monitoring and observability tools include:

1. Prometheus

One of the most popular open-source monitoring tools, it has features and community support. It is based on an HTTP pull model for recording metrics and offers real-time alerts and flexible queries. It implements a high-dimensional data model to identify metrics and key-value pair-based time series. Further, it assists in visualization with data slicing and dicing to develop ad-hoc graphs, tables and sheets. It also offers multiple client libraries and integration, efficient storage, precise alerting, simple operations, etc.

2. Grafana

This is another famous open-source platform for observation and monitoring. It comprises multiple compelling visualization, query, alerting and data interpretation features. Grafana allows the creation of efficient dashboards with easy exploration and sharing options. Users can develop dynamic dashboards to gain real-time updates and collaborate. It ensures transparency and offers versatile usage.

It combines data from different sources, such as Google Sheets, Kubernetes, clusters and others, in a single frame for easy access to data and, subsequently, efficient decision-making. Further, the flexible data translation and transformation benefit the team members, enhancing their productivity. Grafana provides insights into website performance, home energy, team sprints, revenue, etc.

3. New Relic

This Site Reliability Engineer tool finds usage in monitoring full stack, front and back end, logs, vulnerabilities and infrastructure. It is an efficient choice for collaboration, tracking changes and errors, finding traces, APM and much more. New Relic offers easy integration and compatibility with over 780 tools.

New Relic offers a shallow learning curve, allowing engineers to use the tool instantly. They can benefit from real-time instrumentation, analytics, dashboard development, synthetic and real-user monitoring and mobile app performance analysis. Further, it is also compatible with cloud-based platforms and flexible scaled demands.

4. Datadog

This efficient tool, Datadog, adds features like minimal maintenance, effortless deployment and wide coverage. Being one of the top Site Reliability Engineer tools, it exhibits automated and timely problem detection before it causes an impact. Further, it detects pipeline issues before they reach production and identifies bottlenecks, heavy traffic issues, errors and slow-running queries. The significant feature here is an alert on relevant topics via automatic detection via Watchdog.

Datadog monitors new code at different developmental stages. It is also an application optimization tool that can collect all the user sessions and use the data for performance identification. The tool is a code-free web recorder that recognizes the root causes of problems and even offers protection from cyber threats. It can perform regular scanning, understanding, and handling threats with end-to-end attack flows. The benefits expand to reducing IT costs by providing all the features in one place.

5. Nagios

One of the oldest open-source monitoring platforms, it caters to enterprise-level organizations. This freely available Site Reliability Engineer tool offers an insightful monitoring dashboard, a user-friendly design and time-saving features. It is compatible with various operating systems, such as Linux, Apple, Windows, and Servers, and it is equipped with hundreds of plugins for native capabilities.

Users can also benefit from community support, advanced reporting and management tools, Email, DNS, FTP and SSH services, and open-source components like NCPA and NSClient++.

6. AppDynamics

The tool is capable of so much by combining monitoring and security. AppDynamics correlates logs with application metrics and events for practical insights. It can monitor and maintain peak SAP and non-SAP system performance at both front-end and back-end levels. The tool also contributes to enhanced agent management through its SmartAgent feature. 

AppDynamics performs anomaly detention for immediate attention. The automated alerts ensure the identification of the problem and resolution via root cause diagnostics. It reduces the Mean Time to Resolution by offering relevant insights. The full stack analytics include dealing with key data like significant transactions and end-user data metrics such as revenue and conversion. Further, efficient monitoring is possible through modern and customizable dashboards.

Log Management and Analysis Tools

The log management and analysis Site Reliability Engineer tools are listed as follows:

7. Kibana

Data analysis has become easier with Kibana, a Site Reliability Engineer tool for log management. It offers speedy and scalable data analytics for data obtained from various sources. It also provides efficient observation, searching and security, and it now has an in-built ES QL for writing queries and iterations. It is also effective in time-limited issue resolution by investigating threats, monitoring systems, evaluating search performance and taking action.

Kibana is a worthy tool in the field because of its efficient security. Using the same data across the team for different use cases provides operational efficiency and lower total cost of ownership (TCO). Additionally, the unified UI offers one window for handling all functions.

8. Splunk

Splunk is an AI-powered Site Reliability Engineer tool that performs observation, security, log management, and analysis efficiently. The widely used tool offers urgency-based alerts that reduce downtime, quickly fix issues and are adaptable. It is swift in restoring essential services, making it a popular choice.

The tool effectively offers actionable insights from data and can collect voluminous data for real-time insights. By combining all the relevant tools, Splunk reduces operational complexity and subsequently enhances the customer experience. The tool's end-to-end visibility, threat detection investigation and response add to its promise of digital resilience. 

9. ELK Stack

This comprehensive tool combines Kibana, Beats, Logstash (ELK Stack), and others for efficient functionality. The ELK stack is compatible with data from any source and format, offering data handling and analysis flexibility. Similar to others, it is also an open-source platform. Here, Elastic search offers a JSON-based search and analytics engine and Kibana molds and visualizes the data.

Kibana offers waffle charts, heatmaps, time series analysis and more. It encourages using preconfigured dashboards to visualize a variety of data sources and generate live presentations comprising essential metrics. Moreover, Elastic Agent, Beats, and others offer data integration.

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Incident Management Tools

Some of the key incident management tools are as follows:

10. PagerDuty

This Site Reliability Engineer tool is widely used for incident management. It is an effective option that offers an easy on-call schedule and automated incident management. The tool comprises over 700 integrations with crucial services such as Nagios, JIRA, ServiceNow and more. Users can benefit from the cloud-based incident response functionality. Additionally, the tool offers a native app for receiving calls and notifications on mobile devices and smartwatches.

11. Asana

Asana is a popular project management tool that is scalable, reliable and secure. It best automates workflows across different departments. The app's features include setting and tracking goals across the organization and monitoring real-time progress. The tool enhances communication and builds trust, and the AI integration further eases operations.

12. VictorOps (Splunk On-Call)

Splunk On-Call, previously known as VictorOps, is an on-call and incident response management tool. Decreasing the resolution time and increasing incident management speed, work on a targeted approach to resolve each stage of the incident. This enterprise-grade incident response tool offers contextual alerts for easier remediation. The app is available for both Android and iOS.

Configuration Management and Automation Tools 

Aiding in automation and configuration management, the Site Reliability Engineer tools are:

13. Ansible

Ansible is an open-source platform developed to facilitate team collaboration. This Site Reliability Engineer tool automates provisioning, application deployment, configuration management, orchestration, and other IT processes. The freely available tool offers unified access to a dozen upstream projects and an end-to-end automation experience for cross-functional teams.

14. Terraform

Terraform is an automation tool that functions well in the cloud or data center. It is capable of functions like coding cloud APIs into declarative configuration files. The tool involves using HCL to obtain resources from diverse infrastructures. Further, it comprises role-based access control, audit and policy enforcement for uncompromised security. It also exhibits efficient scalability with self-service infrastructure as code and integrates well with VCS, CI/CD and ITSM.

15. Jenkins

Jenkins is an open-source configuration and automation management tool that allows building, deployment and project automation. This Site Reliability Engineer tool is commonly used in continuous integration and delivery pipelines, automating routine tasks and ensuring code changes. It is a self-contained Java-based program offering easy installation. It is compatible with a variety of operating systems. Further, it extends through plugin architecture and is easily distributable and configurable.

Key Features to Look for in Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) Tools

The chosen Site Reliability Engineer Tools must include the following types of features:

• Automation and incident response: To reduce manual errors and to actively trigger notifications, alerts and remediation steps.
• Integration with existing systems: This is for seamless integration with ticketing systems, cloud platforms, and code repositories.
• Capacity planning: To effectively forecast for bottleneck prevention and capacity optimization.
• Budgeting: Must have a trial version to understand its suitability for company usage and flexible pricing model.
• Team expertise: Must have a gradual learning curve.
• System size and complexity: Large and complex systems will require more sophisticated tools and must be compatible with the organization's infrastructure.

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Difference Between SRE tools and Traditional DevOps tools

The SRE tools serve functionalities like metric collection and visualization, incident alerts, container orchestration, and cloud platforms. These tools offer high reliability for end users while ensuring low failure rates. Their prime purpose is to optimize the applications for their functionality.

DevOps tools encompass Integrated Development Environments (IDEs), continuous integration and development, change management, long-term monitoring and others. The prime focus is collaboration between development and operations, which ensures perfectly developed tools with features.

Top Certifications for Aspiring Site Reliability Engineer

Certifications exhibit the candidate’s skills and application abilities. Here are the key ones in the field to consider:

• SRE Foundation Certification: It comprises important topics like incident management, monitoring, post-incident reviews, error budgets, Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and others. The certification exhibits skills like developing and operating reliable and scalable systems.
• SRE Practitioner: This certification, offered by DevOps Institute, exhibits candidates' grasp of SRE principles and practices and is a testament to their application skills.
• Microsoft Azure DevOps Engineer Expert AZ-400 Certification: With this certification, you will master the concepts of both DevOps and Azure and develop skills in SRE Strategy, instrumentation strategy, develop security and compliance plan, setup Azure service fabric, and integrating Azure pipelines, among other concepts.
• Certified Reliability Professional (CRP): This certification exhibits the candidate’s application skills in reliability analysis, testing and management topics.
• Docker Certified Associate (DCA): This professional certification tests candidates on skills such as image creation, management, security, and volume management. It requires at least six months of experience with Docker.

Become a Site Reliability Engineer With Simplilearn

Offering both onsite and remote opportunities, the Site Reliability Engineers deal with enhancing the application’s interactions with users. The increased incorporation of Site Reliability Engineering in enterprises offers promising career options. The prime requirement in the field involves the presence of skills and familiarity with tools relevant to performing the duties.

Presenting a course that offers both learning and hands-on experience, Simplilearn has curated the DevOps Engineer Masters Program in collaboration with IBM. It comprises all the majorly used and job-relevant tools such as Terraform, Prometheus, Docker, Kubernetes, Microsoft Azure DevOps and much more. The six-month course is due soon. Learn more about this online course to proceed in that direction. If you are interested in a more advanced certification, the Microsoft Azure DevOps Engineer AZ-400 Certification will help you master the concepts of both DevOps and Azure and develop skills in SRE Strategies.

FAQs

1. What tools are commonly used by Site Reliability Engineers?

Terraform, Jenkins, Docker, Ansible and Prometheus are some commonly used tools by Site Reliability Engineers.

2. How do SRE tools differ from traditional DevOps tools?

SRE tools deal with system reliability, availability and performance, while traditional DevOps tools are concerned with automation, continuous integration and delivery.

3. What is the role of automation in SRE tools?

Automation allows for timely intervention and corrective measures. It also provides for the development of strategies to prevent and improve applications.