IT Operations

How to use PowerShell JEA for task delegation

System administrators don't have to do every mundane task themselves anymore with help from Just Enough Administration. Get started with these instructions using PowerShell. Continue Reading

By

• Adam Bertram

Top server sizing strategies for VMs

How many VMs can you put on a server? That depends on whether your hardware and virtual environment are well-matched. This tip offers four criteria to select the right servers. Continue Reading

By

• Alexander S. Gillis, Technical Writer and Editor

Netflix Spinnaker pipelines tighten bond with Kubernetes

The Netflix- and Google-led Spinnaker continuous deployment software project has added enterprise appeal with revamped Kubernetes integration. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

Can this Active Directory quiz stump you?

How much do you know about Active Directory? Find out with this Active Directory quiz on the service's basics, structure and capabilities. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Does DevOps for operations mean learning how to code?

What do operations folks need to know before they dive into DevOps? Automation is the key to a responsive environment, and users are your guiding light. Continue Reading

By

• Adam Fowler

Chef InSpec 3.0 horns in on Terraform territory

Chef InSpec 3.0 can scan Terraform infrastructure-as-code files for security and compliance gaps, which knocked HashiCorp Sentinel off the evaluation list at Chef customer Pacific Life. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

SRE model requires technical, organizational optimization skills

Practitioners categorize SRE job descriptions two ways -- by distributed systems architecture design that evolves rapidly, and also by the ability to optimize human workflows. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

What VM automation tools are available?

There are many different VM automation tools available -- some of them part of much wider product and feature suites. Determine which features you need and find the tool that works. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

What are the most common virtualization automation mistakes?

Avoid automation issues by coordinating with the wider organization to ensure employees know how to provision resources and remain aware of evolving business needs and policies. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Microsoft Exchange Unified Messaging change presents dilemma

The arrival of Exchange 2019 also means the end of unified messaging in the on-premises offering. Admins who use voicemail in Outlook should explore their options. Continue Reading

By

• Reda Chouffani, Biz Technology Solutions

Strive for real-world technical debt management in DevOps orgs

Technical debt is a bit like the kitchen junk drawer: It's cobbled-together, useful stuff that just needed to go somewhere. But the longer you wait to sort it out, the worse it gets. Continue Reading

By

• Adam Bertram

What are the primary use cases for VM deployment automation?

Automate the deployment of VMs to meet the demand for resources while ensuring each VM remains properly configured and follows lifecycle and governance policies. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

How do you optimize a virtual database server?

Avoid virtual database performance hiccups by incorporating monitoring and alerting tools. Stay abreast of any issues and head them off before users encounter them. Continue Reading

By

• Alexander S. Gillis, Technical Writer and Editor

Implement security for DevOps across the board

Security for DevOps isn't about the devices or the data center facility anymore. Learn how to protect valuable data as it moves beyond the corporate network into hybrid cloud and among various applications composed of microservices. Continue Reading

By

• Clive Longbottom

How do you virtualize database servers?

Virtualizing database servers has consolidation and efficiency benefits, but you must carefully choose which databases to virtualize and which tools to virtualize with. Continue Reading

By

• Alexander S. Gillis, Technical Writer and Editor

New Relic acquisition of CoScale boosts Kubernetes prowess

Kubernetes monitoring is all the rage, and New Relic's CoScale buy gives it an edge in an increasingly noisy market for container monitoring tools. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

Tips to track down and neutralize PowerShell malware

The benefit of PowerShell is its wide-ranging access to Windows systems, but industrious hackers can exploit its abilities to launch attacks from inside your data center. Continue Reading

By

• Edward van Biljon, Global Micro Solutions

DevOps to DevSecOps adjustment banks on cross-group collaboration

It takes collaboration across several levels -- between the C-suite and in cross-functional teams -- to successfully move to DevSecOps and meet compliance requirements. Continue Reading

By

• Will Kelly

Bevy of Microsoft containers range from cloud to captive workloads

Windows wasn't always an ideal environment for containers, but recent changes offer a wealth of options, including those for Windows Server and the Azure public cloud. Continue Reading

By

• Adam Bertram

How to manage Active Directory groups with 7 PowerShell commands

Managing users, devices and other resources with Active Directory doesn't always require a GUI tool. Try PowerShell to streamline some of your administrative workload. Continue Reading

By

• Richard Siddaway, Independent consultant

Puppet Enterprise updates give IT ops pros a leg up on DevOps

Puppet Enterprise 2019, Puppet Bolt 1.0 and Puppet Insights broaden enterprise IT ops pros' options for DevOps support and infrastructure automation tools. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

Embrace DevOps innovation to modernize legacy applications

To bring legacy applications into the DevOps fold, IT teams must be creative and collaborate in ways that may differ sharply from approaches to greenfield projects. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

October Patch Tuesday grounds JET Database Engine flaw

Administrators have a relatively light workload for October Patch Tuesday, but IT workers should pay attention to multiple workstation fixes and issues with older patches. Continue Reading

By

• Kristen Gloss

Tap the Chocolatey package manager to usher in Windows DevOps

Create a Chocolatey package with this tutorial on DevOps for Windows. Simplify package management and installation, and swap the GUI for a CLI client. Continue Reading

By

• Dan Franciscus

Make IT infrastructure documentation a regular task

Even though documenting IT processes might not be at the top of an admin's to-do list, they should not let it fall by the wayside. Learn documentation best practices here. Continue Reading

By

• Adam Fowler

Users mull Ansible Tower features' config management controls

Ansible users know their way around a CLI, but some envision an all-inclusive IT automation platform based on the Ansible Tower management console UI and features. Continue Reading

By

• Meredith Courtemanche, Director of Editorial Training

Automated root cause analysis moves into the mainstream

DevOps monitoring tools that offer automated root cause analysis are now in production within mainstream enterprises. When it comes to their ease of use, however, there is still room to improve. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

Get to know the Hyper-V processor compatibility mode feature

Hyper-V processor compatibility is relatively easy to use, but it disables some advanced CPU features and is only intended for specific circumstances on a temporary basis. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

Ansible roadmap steers toward network, security via integrations

Through simply written automation and granular access control, Ansible will attempt to put networking and security teams in step with IT infrastructure and DevOps counterparts. Continue Reading

By

• Meredith Courtemanche, Director of Editorial Training

Getting started with AWS Tools for PowerShell

Want to make a move from on-premises systems? The AWS Tools for PowerShell module builds on your knowledge of handling Windows machines and carries it into the Amazon cloud. Continue Reading

By

• Dan Franciscus

Incorporate NIST security and virtualization recommendations

Review NIST virtualization security recommendations with this overview of hypervisor security guidelines, including tips on VM lifecycles and hypervisor platform management. Continue Reading

By

• Robert Sheldon

Tame the virtualization infrastructure management beast

IT administrators must manage virtual infrastructure requirements, such as patches, reboots and component lifecycles, to create and maintain an efficient data center. Continue Reading

By

• Nick Moore, Assistant Site Editor

Understand how Docker works in the VM-based IT world

With advantages for microservices architectures, disaster recovery and utilization density, among other areas, containers should step out from virtual machines' shadow. Continue Reading

By

• Clive Longbottom

Compare Go vs. Python for infrastructure programming

Both code languages get the infrastructure-as-code job done, but each from a different angle. This comparison tutorial puts their similarities and differences center stage. Continue Reading

By

• Walker Rowe

Kubernetes TLS tweaks whet user appetite for easier management

Kubernetes TLS bootstrap improvements in version 1.12 tackle container management complexity, and users hope there's more where that came from. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

How to compare Windows and Linux for enterprise workloads

How do Windows and Linux rank when it comes to running production workloads? Organizations should consider more than just the initial cost. Continue Reading

By

• Brian Kirsch, Milwaukee Area Technical College

CloudBees sets a path to Cloud Native Jenkins

CloudBees advanced its core CI/CD platform to broaden developers' options to create apps and access additional services in the cloud. Continue Reading

By

• Darryl K. Taft

Is 'Continuous Delivery with Docker and Jenkins' right for you?

If your IT organization is ready to bring DevOps from mindset to tool set, containers and CI/CD are probably on the agenda. See what you'll learn from Rafal Leszko's book on Docker and Jenkins to advance a pipeline project. Continue Reading

By

• Adam Bertram

Top five SCVMM 2016 features to look out for

SCVMM 2016 provides new features, such as Nano Server management, and enhancements to existing networking and security features to better manage the entire virtualization stack. Continue Reading

By

• Nirmal Sharma

Design a custom Hyper-V Integration Services component

The steps for creating a new component of Hyper-V Integration Services include registering an app, creating and binding a Hyper-V socket, and compiling server and client apps. Continue Reading

By

• Nirmal Sharma

Windows Admin Center unlocks Server 2019 features

Not just for troubleshooting, Windows Admin Center helps admins unlock the full potential of the latest Windows Server offering. Continue Reading

By

• Tom Walat, Editor

Grasp container basics to plan enterprise adoption

To transition from virtualization that mimics hardware to a new level of portable, isolated workloads, absorb key tenets of containers and where container deployment differs from VMs and cloud instances. Continue Reading

By

• Tom Nolle, Andover Intel

How to drive an effective DevOps for business approach

Don't adopt DevOps for the sake of operational and development efficiency. Do DevOps because it yields business gains. In fact, what you should be doing is BizDevOps. Continue Reading

By

• Clive Longbottom

Docker for Windows shows permission errors on shared volumes

Understand and work around one of the more common Docker for Windows errors -- permissions for shared volumes -- to read, write and execute to the shared volume. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Mulling a public folders migration? Weigh your options

Should you stay or should you migrate? Microsoft offers a bevy of alternatives to public folders. This tip breaks down each option to help you make a decision. Continue Reading

By

• Reda Chouffani, Biz Technology Solutions

Use nested virtualization to run a container in a VM

IT administrators should familiarize themselves with the benefits and limitations of using nested virtualization to run containers in VMs before implementation. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Jenkins on Kubernetes is promising, but integration needs work

Jenkins and Kubernetes are a natural fit for automated application development and delivery, and the open source community has plans to improve how Jenkins runs on containers. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

A fine-tuned change request template minimizes user discontent

Change management is an essential ITSM practice, but it doesn't have to come at the expense of end users. Use templates to clarify expectations and set changes in motion without disruption. Continue Reading

By

• Adam Fowler

Is your VM frozen? Isolate the cause and problem solve

Many issues cause VMs to become unresponsive, including invoking particular tasks, such as snapshots or migrations, resource configuration and infrastructure unavailability. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Common VM network latency causes explained

There are many potential causes of network performance problems when it comes to VMs. Familiarize yourself with the most common causes to aid in troubleshooting. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Use VMware vSphere templates to manage VMs at scale

VM templates in vSphere enable IT administrators to manage large environments by rapidly deploying fully configured VMs using the content library interface. Continue Reading

By

• Stuart Burns

CloudBees Core sets its sights beyond enterprise Jenkins

CloudBees and its competitors vie to offer the visibility and data-driven performance measurement into CI/CD processes that enterprises need to strive for better DevOps governance. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

What are the steps for an Exchange certificate renewal?

An expired Exchange 2010 certificate is one of those issues that catches everyone's attention. Check and replace certificates with these basic commands. Continue Reading

By

• Edward van Biljon, Global Micro Solutions

DevOps security takes on the dark side of digital transformation

Without better organizational discipline, digital businesses are at risk for massively disruptive data breaches and attacks. Can DevSecOps transform IT in time to avert disaster? Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

Create VM templates without encountering errors

Creating a VM template is a fairly straightforward process. Even so, it's a good idea to familiarize yourself with Microsoft's documentation to avoid common mistakes. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

The journey to DevOps starts with solving problems

If you want to do DevOps, don't just follow the prescribed strategies and roadmaps that other companies lay out. Assess your own process, and start addressing your own problems. Continue Reading

By

• Rob J. Lambert, Cultivated Management

How to achieve application performance improvement in ops

With more complex infrastructure and applications comes increased need for sophisticated performance monitoring and management tools, accompanied by strengthened processes. Continue Reading

Explore the Cubic congestion control provider for Windows

Microsoft made Cubic the default congestion control provider for Windows 10 and plans to do the same for Windows Server 2019. Learn what this means for your organization. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

IT experts exchange container security tips and caveats

Real-world container security requires users to dig in to the finer points of container, host, Kubernetes and application configurations. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

Mix test and production environments with hyper-convergence

Despite the enhanced separation that hyper-converged infrastructure can offer, it's better to mix environments and use rules to create a hardware-independent workload balance. Continue Reading

By

• Brian Kirsch, Milwaukee Area Technical College

Adopt the Git version control system for configuration as code

Configuration files define infrastructure as code, which enables IT admins to control updates and enforce standardization. Start using a version control system to codify configurations with just a handful of commands. Continue Reading

By

• Stuart Burns

Microsoft shuts down zero-day exploit on September Patch Tuesday

Administrators should prioritize patching systems affected by four public disclosures resolved by the Patch Tuesday updates. Continue Reading

By

• Kristen Gloss

PagerDuty incident response tools loop in business stakeholders

PagerDuty follows Atlassian with incident response tracking for corporate management, while IT pros on the front lines of incident triage also seek enhancements to low-level alerting configurations. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

Anomaly detection methods unleash microservices performance

When distributed applications run in containers, admins suddenly have a whirlwind of metrics to track instead of just a short list. These methods reach into the heart of the task. Continue Reading

By

• Kurt Marko, MarkoInsights

The future of composable infrastructure and virtualization

Composable infrastructures -- frameworks of compute, storage and network resource services -- will still make use of virtualization to run applications. Continue Reading

By

• Robert Sheldon

Microsoft Ignite 2018 conference coverage

Keep up to date on the latest developments from the Microsoft Ignite 2018 conference and get a closer look at the latest software and hardware offerings from the company. Continue Reading

Create and configure a shielded VM in Hyper-V

In just a few easy steps, including installing a Host Guardian Service server and creating certificates, you can shield a Hyper-V VM to protect it against access or tampering. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

Windows troubleshooting tools to improve VM performance

Fine-tune virtualized workloads and diagnose performance issues with help from these Windows troubleshooting tools every server administrator should know. Continue Reading

By

• Brian Kirsch, Milwaukee Area Technical College

How does AD DS differ from Microsoft Azure Active Directory?

On-premises Active Directory or Azure AD? It doesn't have to be an either/or situation, as more cloud services are making their way into traditional data center environments. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Rev up IT with continuous delivery and DevOps

IT operations is on the software team with continuous delivery, continuous deployment and DevOps. Done right, the collaboration in tools and culture produces better software faster than previous methodologies. Continue Reading

Atlassian shops size up OpsGenie buy, Jira for incident management

Atlassian snapped up OpsGenie and rolled out Jira Ops as part of a shift in focus to IT incident management. Users will follow the strategy cautiously. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

Build a secure Docker host environment on Linux systems

In the cutting-edge technology world of containers, don't lose sight of the fundamental security best practices that protect workloads and minimize attack surfaces. Continue Reading

By

• Stuart Burns

Learn the tricks for using Microsoft Teams with Exchange

As Microsoft Teams gains prominence for business collaboration, administrators should investigate the integration options with their Exchange Online or on-premises Exchange setup. Continue Reading

By

• Neil Hobson

Third-party Kubernetes tools hone performance for database containerization

Kubernetes tools look to carve out a market niche in database containerization with performance monitoring and quality-of-service management features. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

Kubernetes community takes over massive Google test bed

Google will donate $9 million in GCP resources and undergo a three-year handoff process to put a massive Kubernetes test bed under CNCF control. Users wonder, what happens next. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

Application performance metrics and tools fit for modern architectures

Distributed applications and cloud hosting have led to new application interactions and KPI categories -- and different performance concerns need different metrics. Continue Reading

By

• Alan R. Earls

Get into DevOps with cross-functional skills and culture

There's no well-traveled path to a DevOps career. But it's not rocket science. Learn how to explain DevOps and master skills, such as CI/CD, and you'll be on your way. Continue Reading

By

• Aymen El Amri

Open source hypervisor technical support, update considerations

Even though open source software itself is completely free to obtain and use, effective hypervisor technical support options for production environments might cost money. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Build an IT maintenance plan around infrastructure needs

Don't delay maintenance reboots. It's easy to forget to reboot hosts, tools and drivers, so use a reboot schedule to ensure your infrastructure remains functional. Continue Reading

By

• Brian Kirsch, Milwaukee Area Technical College

Free Kubernetes security tools broaden enterprise choices

Kubernetes security tools give enterprise IT shops strategic approaches to container security that go beyond shoring up individual container instances. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

VMware vSphere update tweaks HTML5 client, bundles AppDefense

Hoping to keep its broad base of vSphere users engaged, VMware debuted an updated version of the virtualization offering and a version bundled with AppDefense. Continue Reading

By

• Ed Scannell, Freelancer

Is the XenServer hypervisor worth the cost?

There is a free, easy-to-obtain version of Citrix XenServer, but additional features and commercial support from Citrix -- which some shops might need -- require a license. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Continuous delivery pipeline tools build IT efficiency

The range of CD tools available is as varied as the organizations that need them. Choose between three primary tool set constructions to suit your organization's structure. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Evaluate Oracle VM Server as a potential hypervisor

Oracle VM provides useful features such as high availability and live migration, but it's important for admins to size the server for the workloads it's intended to host. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

The DevOps hiring process should be audition-based

How do we ensure competence? Certification is now a big business, but the way we test a 6 year old should differ from the way we test a doctoral candidate or DevOps engineer. Continue Reading

By

• Bob Reselman, CogArtTech

Red Hat Virtualization hypervisor adoption considerations

IT admins considering Red Hat Virtualization might inadvertently overlook certain system requirements or forget to consider whether they need support. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Most jobs in the IT industry pay well, but skills matter

A survey of tech professionals identified which IT skills are most in demand. Find out how salaries compare from region to region, and how expertise affects compensation. Continue Reading

By

• Phil Sweeney, Industry Editor

Emotional intelligence in the workplace makes a difference

Technologists need to know people as well as they know their craft. Applying emotional intelligence in the workplace helps convey ideas and change organizations. Continue Reading

By

• Theresa Neate

Big data processing could be the way all data is processed

Some organizations take their time with new technologies to let first adopters suffer the growing pains. But there's no treading water in the big data stream; the current won't wait. Continue Reading

By

• Mike Matchett, Small World Big Data

Benefits of infrastructure as code range from speed to scaling

Provisioning large numbers of servers takes time. One of infrastructure as code's benefits is that once you declare a desired state, code maintains that environment with ease. Continue Reading

By

• Alan R. Earls

PowerShell logging boosts security in the enterprise

Want to track any suspicious PowerShell activity across your network? Use these PowerShell logging techniques to curb potential threats that originate from scripts. Continue Reading

By

• Dan Franciscus

Understand Active Directory basics for enterprise success

You can't get the most out of a tool unless you understand its features. This tip explains the basics of Active Directory and how it controls access and maintains order. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Benefits of infrastructure as code range from speed to scaling

 Continue Reading

Big data processing could be the way all data is processed

 Continue Reading

Most jobs in the IT industry pay well, but skills matter

 Continue Reading

Emotional intelligence in the workplace makes a difference

 Continue Reading

Microservices challenges fluster even the sharpest IT shops

Freed from the needs of a large and traditionally structured application, a development team working in the microservices architecture builds apps via services that can be more easily isolated, manipulated, updated and fixed. Still, developers and IT professionals should expect to encounter some microservices challenges as they make the switch.

One of the reasons IT organizations turn to the microservices architecture is to free themselves of the many unavoidable burdens inherent in monolithic applications. When done well, building in modules can greatly ease those burdens.

Among the biggest microservices challenges is the need to resist those habits formed when working in more traditional architectures. Those bygone ideas simply won't mix with the requirements of microservices. Mistakes and those old ways of thinking will get in the way of results and possibly even sink a microservices project.

Dependencies and configurations are too easily mishandled -- especially if development teams approach them with traditional and outdated IT mindsets. Some organizations will stumble in their microservices efforts by creating a microservice that's simply too small for the task at hand; others will encounter trouble by building them too large.

There is plenty that can go wrong when you are getting started in microservices. Bad things will result not necessarily from technical failings, but from a failure of imagination and plain old inertia. Applying the wrong thinking to microservices is, in effect, how an organization inadvertently sabotages an initiative.

TechTarget's Jan Stafford delves into these microservices challenges with her feature story in this issue of Modern Stack. She talks with experts about where these projects go wrong and how the missteps can be avoided.

Also in the new Modern Stack are features and columns that explore the role emotional intelligence plays in organizational change, how geography and specialty affect a tech worker's salary, why infrastructure as code deserves a closer look, how advances in big data may punish those who wait too long to get started, and why the pace of cloud innovation may begin to slow as hyperscale providers focus more on keeping their enterprise customers happy.

 Continue Reading

How a domain-specific language affects configuration management

Learn a domain-specific language -- it's easier than French! A DSL's programming style enables administrators to operate with more precision and flexibility, but don't write off YAML yet. Continue Reading

By

• Walker Rowe

SCVMM PowerShell commands for server health checks

Perform regular SCVMM health checks -- such as monitoring clustered shared volume utilization and host participation in SCVMM placement -- using simple PowerShell commands and scripts. Continue Reading

By

• Nirmal Sharma

Identify mutable and immutable infrastructures in action

Change is constant in app code, server configuration and VM security policies alike. IT orgs enforce consistency while embracing change with immutable infrastructure. So what does it look like? Continue Reading

By

• Emily Mell, Former Site Editor