Datadog: Performance monitoring tool (from Zero to Hero)

Name: Datadog: Performance monitoring tool (from Zero to Hero)
Rating: 4.2 (9004 reviews)

Analyze performance key metrics using APM services, Traces, Profiling, Dashboard and create Advanced Monitoring system

Created byEmin Salim

Last updated 3/2025

English

German [Auto],English [Auto],

What you'll learn

Understand basic and advanced concepts of APM and Datadog tool usage.
Datadog Agent installations and configurations. Includes IIS integration
Datadog APM Service monitoring, Traces observations and Error Tracking. This includes .NET Core API monitoring with the SQL service layer
Datadog Custom Tags usage from your .NET application.
Dashboards creation with different widgets like timeseries, query values, toplists, tables, pie charts, service maps and watchdog.
Alerts/Monitors creation for host and services. Monitors for latency, error and success call rates and sql query duration.
Understand SLA, SLO, SLI and Error Budget by creating Datadog SLO for success rate (DevOps)
Monitor application key aspects like availability, reliability, scalability and duration. Also monitor top slowest queries.
Integrate monitors with Slack and PagerDuty
Synthetic Monitoring and Performing API and Browser Tests. Using GET/Post methods with request body and Authorization Bearer Token
Log Management: Basics, Log Entries, Log Exceptions, NLog usage
How to investigate an issue using Notebook and collaborate it with the team members
How to setup and monitor NodeJS application with MongoDB in Datadog - with custom metrics and traces
Latest updates and features

Course content

16 sections • 56 lectures • 5h 50m total length

Welcome and Introduction to course1:54
Master Datadog for performance monitoring, learn to monitor scalability, availability, duration, and latency with dashboards and monitors, set alerts, and leverage integrations like PagerDuty and Slack.
What is Application Performance Management?3:05
Why Application Performance Management (APM) is critical for modern applications and production systems.
The Four Golden Signals of monitoring and how they help you detect performance issues early.
The benefits of a well-designed monitoring system, including faster troubleshooting, better reliability, and improved user experience.

What is Datadog and why do we need it?3:22
What Datadog is and how it fits into modern observability and monitoring stacks.
Why Datadog is needed in real production environments and what problems it solves.
Key benefits of using Datadog, including faster troubleshooting, better visibility, and improved system reliability.
How Datadog compares to traditional monitoring tools and why teams choose it for modern applications.
Pricing Information - free and paid options4:14
Explore Datadog pricing by plan (free, pro, enterprise) across infrastructure, log management, and APM plus Continuous Profiler, with host-based pricing, data retention, and support considerations.
Basic Definitions - host, agent and tags1:59
What a host, agent, and tags are in Datadog and how they relate to each other.
How the Datadog Agent works and why it is required for collecting metrics and traces.
Why tags are important for filtering, grouping, and analyzing monitoring data.
How these basic concepts are used in real monitoring scenarios throughout the course.
Registration and Agent installation3:46
Register for Datadog and install the agent on Windows to monitor your first host during a 14-day trial, configure an API key, region, and agent manager.
Quiz For Datadog - Section 2

Datadog Agent - definitions and configurations7:12
Explore how the Datadog Agent collects host data using the collector and code forwarder, and configure integrations with datadog.yaml and conf.d to monitor Windows, Mac OS, Ubuntu, and Amazon Linux.
Datadog Agent - display host basic metrics and default host dashboards7:32
Learn how the Datadog agent exposes host and system metrics, uses default cost dashboards, and filters costs with user defined tags like location, enabling targeted monitoring across infrastructure.
Datadog Agent - integration with Internet Information Server (IIS)5:25
Install the Datadog IIS integration, edit the iis.d YAML to enable metrics and service checks, restart the agent, and view IIS metrics and app pool status in Datadog.
Quiz for Datadog Agent

Metrics Explorer2:39
Explore the metrics explorer in Datadog, learn to search metrics, filter by cost and location, adjust timeframes, and export graphs to a notebook or to a new or existing dashboard.
Metrics Summary and Metrics Types4:54
Learn how metrics summary and types work in Datadog, filtering by timeframe and tags, and understanding distribution, count, rate, and gauge for reporting and graphing.
Quiz on Datadog Metrics - Explorer, Summary and Metric Types

APM will monitor our DogsWorld application based on .NET Core6:02
Monitor the dogs world dotnet core api with swagger using datadog apm, installing the agent on the host to track create, read, update, and delete calls and sql queries.
APM - download, installation and basic configuration (Windows)8:49
Install and configure Datadog APM, including the .NET Tracer and environment variables, instrument the application, restart IIS and the Datadog Agent, and explore services, traces, and the service map.
APM Services and Service Map18:05
Master Datadog APM services and the service map to monitor inter-service calls between web and database components, with traces, error tracking, and latency metrics P50, P90, P99.
APM Traces - Transactions, Basic search, Search pane and Facets9:39
APM Traces - Flame graph, Span list and System Tags10:34
APM Traces - Error Tracing3:29
APM - Profiling3:54
Discover Datadog profiling for .NET apps to spot bottlenecks by inspecting method names, line numbers, and latency, and use the APM profile search to filter by namespace.
Quiz for APM

APM - Custom Tags and Sending custom tags using .NET Tracer Nuget Package4:24
Learn to send custom tags, including username, from a .NET app to Datadog using the Datadog trace NuGet package, with a helper logger for set tag and set exception.
APM - Custom Tags, Search, Filter and Facet usage4:41
Learn to use APM custom tags, search, filter, and facets in Datadog by tagging MVC requests with dog request ID and username, turning them into searchable facets for future calls.
Quiz for Datadog Tags

Dashboard List and Definitions4:45
Dashboard - Create a New Dashboard with many Widgets19:28
Create and customize a Datadog dashboard with timeboard or screenboard layouts, add widgets such as timeseries, query values, and tables, and monitor latency, error rate, endpoints, and service maps.
Dashboard - Import widgets/graphs into Dashboard from Services and Metrics Page4:29
Create a dashboard, import widgets from services and metrics pages, and export graphs for Dogs World Errors into the Dogs World Errors dashboard. Update the timeframe to past two days.
Dashboard - Import and Export as JSON3:55
Dashboard - Variables usage4:51
Quiz for Datadog Dashboards

Monitors - Create Monitors14:16
Create and manage monitors in Datadog to prevent incidents by configuring host, metrics, APM, and watchdog monitors, then test notifications and review status and history.
Monitors - Suggested Monitors5:37
Monitors - Management7:35
Monitors - Integration with Slack5:03
Explore how to link Datadog with Slack to route monitor alerts to the dogs world alerts channel, enabling test notifications and emails for incidents like high request latency.
Pager Duty - Account Creation2:07
Create a PagerDuty account and a DogsWorld service, explore incident management basics, and prepare for Datadog integration by navigating the integrations tab.
Monitors - Integration with Pager Duty5:45
You will learn how integrate Datadog with Pager Duty and receive an alert
Quiz for Datadog - Monitors

Requirements

Almost no programming experience needed. Only for 2-3 specific lectures .NET or NodeJS coding skills are needed.

Description

This course will help you to:

Understand basic and advanced concepts of Application Performance Management (APM) and Datadog tool usage.
Build APM for your application from scratch using Datadog.
Visualize the entire request path and quickly identify where bottlenecks or errors occur.
Track application errors and slow queries with just a few clicks.
Install and configure the Datadog Agent and query essential system and application metrics.
Analyze Datadog APM services, trace searches, and code profiling, including .NET Core API monitoring with SQL service layer visibility.
Create dashboards using different widgets, including:
- Time series
- Query value
- Top lists
- Tables and pie charts
We will build dashboards together for:
- Latency (time series & query value)
- Error rate (time series & query value)
- Top API endpoints
- Host resource usage
- Service map visualization
- Applying formulas for advanced insights
Create monitors and alerts for hosts, services, endpoints, IIS, and Watchdog:
- Request latency
- Error rate
- Specific API endpoints
- SQL query duration
- Host data reporting
- Watchdog monitors
Understand SLA, SLO, SLI, and Error Budgets by creating Datadog SLOs for success rate tracking.
Integrate monitors with Slack and PagerDuty for real-time incident notifications.
Use Synthetic Monitoring with API and browser tests, including
GET/POST requests with Bearer token authorization.
Manage logs in Datadog, including saving and viewing logs using NLog.
Use Datadog Notebooks to:
- Investigate incidents
- Collaborate with team members using comments
- Create and reuse custom templates
Monitor key application aspects such as availability, reliability, scalability, and performance duration.
Set up and monitor a Node.js application with MongoDB, including:
- Service configuration
- Custom metrics
- Distributed tracing
Learn the latest Datadog updates and features used in modern production environments.

Who this course is for:

For Developers, DevOps Engineers, SREs, and IT Managers who want to enhance their application performance, reliability, and security.
For Anyone responsible for ensuring high availability, scalability, and observability in modern applications.

Datadog: Performance monitoring tool (from Zero to Hero)

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Introduction2 lectures • 5min

Get started with Datadog: Registration, Pricing, and Agent installation4 lectures • 13min

Datadog Agent: Definitions, Configuration and Integrations3 lectures • 20min

Datadog Infrastructure: Host maps and Infrastructure List1 lecture • 6min

Datadog Metrics: Explorer, Summary and Metric Types2 lectures • 8min

Datadog APM: Download, Installation, Services, Traces and Error Tracking7 lectures • 1hr 1min

Datadog APM: Custom Tags, Exception Handling and Facets2 lectures • 9min

Datadog Dashboards: Create (with Graphs), Import, Export and Variable Usages5 lectures • 37min

Datadog Monitors (Alerts) and Notifications by Email, Slack and PagerDuty6 lectures • 40min

Datadog: SLA, SLO, SLI and Error Budget (DevOps)2 lectures • 15min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: