At its Dash 2022 conference, Datadog announced today it is extending the reach of its namesake cloud-delivered monitoring and observability platform to address continuous testing, application security and cost management.

In addition, Datadog has made available in beta a Data Streams Monitoring tool that makes it simpler to identify upstream issues that are likely to impact DevOps workflows. Also in beta is a Dynamic Instrumentation tool that makes it possible to employ Datadog agent software to collect data on the fly from specific source code to investigate performance issues. Datadog is also making available in beta a Resource Catalog to make it easier to navigate cloud resources that IT teams are employing and has added a Datadog Workflows tool to create blueprints to for automating repeatable processes.

Datadog is also expanding the reach of its Watchdog telemetry analysis service infused with machine learning algorithms to add beta support for containers. There is also now a beta of an Event Management tool that DevOps teams can employ to more easily investigate a stream of related alerts using the Watchdog service.

The Datadog Continuous Testing service, now generally available, provides DevOps teams with a workbench for generating and maintaining tests that can be integrated within continuous integration (CI) workflows. Datadog has also added an Intelligent Test Runner tool, in beta, to enable DevOps teams to only run tests that need to run when a change is made by analyzing code execution paths to increase developer productivity.

Renaud Boutet, senior vice president of product at Datadog, said the goal is to make it possible for DevOps teams to create and run tests from within the Datadog user interface in parallel using a set of no-code tools without having to employ scripts. The capability will make it possible to automatically generate tests using data collected by the Datadog platform as part of an infinite DevOps workflow loop, he added.

At the same time, Datadog is making generally available a cloud security management service that combines its existing cloud security posture management (CSPM) service and the cloud workload security (CWS) service to provide an integrated cloud-native application platform (CNAP) at no additional cost. In addition, Datadog is making it possible to block access to application components that are under attack or might be attacked in real-time based on the known vulnerabilities detected using tools that are currently in beta.

That approach reduces the total cost of cybersecurity by providing IT teams with a single service through which they can manage application security using a platform Datadog gained last year with the acquisition of Sqreen.

Finally, Datadog is making generally available a cloud cost management tool that leverages its monitoring capabilities to enable organizations to automatically attribute spend to applications, services and individual teams. Changes to spending patterns that impact costs are surfaced alongside the same tools IT teams are already using to monitor their cloud computing environment. That unified visibility increases awareness of costs in a way that encourages DevOps teams to optimize the utilization of multiple classes of cloud resources.

The services being added are extensions of a Datadog platform that employs a single set of agents it provides. The Datadog platform also supports the open source OpenTelemetry agent to deliver a wide range of services. That approach eliminates the need for IT teams to deploy multiple agents each time they add an additional monitoring, security, testing or cost management tool.

Datadog has been making a case for an integrated platform that reduces the level of integration effort DevOps teams would otherwise need to expend when deploying separate point products to address monitoring, observability, security and cost management issues. That approach makes it easier for DevOps teams to collaborate and reduces the total cost of DevOps. In contrast, each time a DevOps teams adds a point product to address a specific issue, they need to deploy and maintain a separate set of agents.

In the longer term, it’s not clear how problematic that agent issue will be once open source OpenTelemetry agent software is more widely employed. However, it may still be years before open source software provides the same capabilities that are available today using proprietary agent software.

It may take some time before every application is as fully instrumented as it should be, but as monitoring and observability platforms continue to evolve, it is possible to more proactively manage application environments.