Sumo Logic has adjusted pricing for new log analytics customers as data volume is expected to explode, outpacing business growth across the observability market.
The move, called Flex Licensing, currently only applies to data ingested into Sumo Logic’s SaaS log analytics platform by new customers. Pricing is based on the number of queries run against the data. According to , the price is divided into three tiers: small, medium, and large, and the price becomes discounted as the query volume increases. Sumo Logic people.
Pricing estimates on the vendor’s website added this week show that at low query volumes, the software costs $3.14 per terabyte of data scanned in North America. $2.57 for medium query volume. And for high-volume queries, such as those included in Sumo’s AI-driven log analysis tools, the price is $2.05 per terabyte of data scanned. The website’s estimator and his Sumo associates did not provide specific query volume numbers for each category this week. Under the new pricing terms, customers will continue to pay for their backend storage resources as well.
Analysts say it’s important to be clear with customers, especially about how the new price will be broken down based on the number of queries.
nancy goring
“Moving away from ingestion-based pricing is a good thing, because…without the right data, you can’t have great insights, intelligence, and analysis,” said IDC analyst Nancy Goring. Ta. “But you have to be careful not to discourage people from running queries, which is the million-dollar problem here, regardless of how you structure your queries. [pricing] Buckets will resonate with people and help them understand how much their spending will be. ”
Flex license details
Sumo Logic’s new pricing does not apply to anything other than log data, such as metrics and traces, security information, and event management products. Existing customers will receive the new pricing later this year as the vendor establishes a migration path to the new approach, company officials said. Sumo executives say the new pricing plan will likely reduce costs for customers by double digits compared to competitors that charge for ingestion, but the company’s existing The price comparison was not disclosed.
One Sumo Logic customer said the company has already improved the health of its log management to keep costs low, so the price change is unlikely to send more log data to the Sumo backend. Ta.
“I thought it was a trace of that. [were] Iwan Aising, Service Reliability Architect Team Leader at ERP company Infor, says: “We already log almost everything we need.”
It is true that the amount of data is huge.the [potentially] That’s a good reason not to log…think twice about talking to your vendor.
Ivan EisingInfor Service Reliability Architect Team Lead
But in general, Ising said he thinks flex licensing is a timely and positive change.
“It’s true that the amount of data is huge,” he says. “the [potentially] That’s a good reason not to do logging…think twice about talking to your vendor. ”
Increased data expands the range of price calculations
The move follows pricing changes by other log analytics and observability vendors, including Splunk’s cloud pricing options and Dynatrace’s bulk data ingestion pricing tier for log analytics tools. New observability players such as Observe Inc. also offer free data ingestion.
Analysts said further price changes by other vendors are likely to follow.
“Reducing data ingestion costs is somewhat unique in that not many vendors are doing it,” said Andy Thurai, an analyst at Constellation Research. “But overall, the rapid digitalization forced by COVID-19 has [led companies to] Rapid digitization means data hygiene principles are not in place…and building fully native cloud apps and microservices is inherently very chatty. ”
The cost of collecting extensive observability data to perform the detailed analysis needed to troubleshoot distributed apps can exceed the cost of operating the app, especially if customers choose to collect data on their own platform. Vendors will have to compete if they want to centralize, Turai said.
Here, Gohring and Thurai note that Sumo Logic is still best known for log analysis rather than events, metrics, and traces, which are important for observability, although there is some support for each. I did.
However, Gohring predicted that consistency is another area where Sumo Logic’s flex licensing plan will be a competitive advantage.
“From my understanding, [pricing query] Bucket is under contract [with the customer]“The idea is that if there is a spike this weekend, you won’t be hit with an exorbitant bill,” she said.
TechTarget Editorial Senior News Writer Beth Pariseau is an award-winning IT journalism veteran. Covers DevOps.Do you have any tips for her? Email her or contact X @Parisaud.