Kentik Review

Product Overview

The Kentik Network Intelligence Platform uses AI and machine learning to monitor traffic from anywhere within the infrastructure and spots critical issues in real time, so IT teams can quickly fix them. It’s a scalable data management architecture that accommodates large datasets. Kentik is customizable for an enterprise organization’s unique needs, and users can add in custom tags, data fields or labels. In addition, the software supports any network, such as data centers, internet, wireless, firewalls and cloud-based services (e.g., Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud).

Kentik has numerous benefits, such as:

• Real-time actionable insights
• Robust features
• Increased network security
• Improved digital experience for customers

Features

Here are some of the platform’s key features.

K/ML – As mentioned, the machine learning engine monitors the entire network for any issues or abnormalities. Once the issue is detected, the software sends alerts to the user by email, Slack or text. The severity of the alerts (e.g., low priority, critical) and frequency of notifications can be set by the user.

K/Ingest and K/Enrich – Kentik can ingest network traffic data from different sources via the K/Ingest feature. Some of the sources include network flow data (e.g., NetFlow, sFlow), External Border Gateway Protocol (eBGP), GeoIP, and threat feeds. The K/Enrich feature can then enrich the data with infrastructure or business context data based on the company’s use case.

K/Advise – With this feature, users can customize their dashboards, so they can get an at-a-glance view into their current network status. There’s the Data Explorer feature that lets users drill into their data by running queries with unlimited filters.

K/Automate – Because users integrate their third-party systems with Kentik, there’s the Query API feature that lets them run queries into those systems’ data with unlimited visualizations. Users can also set up automated workflows and notifications.

In addition to the above platform features, there are six modules that companies can purchase as needed. The modules are:

Core – Users can see all the statuses of their entire network on one screen, run queries, troubleshoot issues, create reports and set up automated workflows.

Synthetics – With this module, users can run synthetic monitoring tests on an application’s performance. The software allows for continuous testing, and users can set up automatic configurations of each test.

Cloud – The Cloud module lets users monitor their cloud and hybrid environments in a single place. They can verify that security is free from any threats, ensure that the performance of the data center is running well and analyze any outstanding costs.

Edge – This module includes several features, such as monitoring the edge network (e.g., discovering origin and destination networks), moving traffic to relieve congestion and a built-in calculator for optimizing costs.

Protect – Kentik can detect DDoS attacks and botnets, and users can set up rules that alerts them when there’s unusual traffic spikes or other activity. Users can mitigate the attacks using Remotely-triggered Black Hole routing (RTBH) or by integrating with a threat mitigation tool. Users can also analyze incidents in real time, secure BGP routing and streamline response procedures with a third-party incident response software.

Service Provider Analytics – Users can monitor their digital supply chain for Over The Top (OTT) traffic or other activities, to pinpoint new areas of growth or revenue and optimize performance and cost.

Target Market

Kentik targets IT teams in large and enterprise organizations in many industries, such as finance, media, education and telecommunications. We’ve listed 10 of its clients below.

Implementation/Integration

New clients can sign up for a 30-day free trial. Kentik can be deployed in the cloud, on-premise or in a hybrid environment. The implementation process and timeline can vary based on the client’s requirements.

Customer Service & Support

Kentik offers email support during regular business hours, 24/7 email and phone support for emergencies and onsite training. Users can also browse articles within the knowledge base or join the Kentik Community on Slack.

Pricing

Kentik has two editions, which are:

• Kentik Pro – The Kentik Pro edition accommodates up to 100 users and includes many features, such as 120-day traffic visibility data retention, 45-day forensic data retention, up to 50 dashboards and 15 scheduled reports, 50 API queries per hour, up to four customer-defined data fields and up to 5,000 customer-defined data tags.
• Kentik Premier – The Kentik Premier edition accommodates up to 1,000 users and includes up to 500 dashboards and 30 scheduled reports, 100 API queries per hour, up to 10 customer-defined data fields and up to 25,000 customer-defined data tags.

Pricing is not publicly available, so please contact the vendor directly for a quote.

Shortcomings

Some users have mentioned that there’s a steep learning curve and that the interface is not always user friendly.

Screenshots

About

Founded in 2014, Kentik’s mission is to provide companies with a scalable, affordable and powerful infrastructure visibility solution. It achieved several milestones, such as new funding from Vistara Capital Partners and other venture capital firms, expansion into the European and Asian markets and the launch of a Global Channel program. Kentik received accolades, such as NetworkWorld’s 2020 list of 5 Hot Network Automation Startups to Watch and a “Representative Vendor” in Gartner’s 2020 Network Performance Monitoring and Diagnostics Market Guide.

The company is headquartered in San Francisco.

 

Related Solutions