IT Operations

Let's develop best practices for security in DevOps

We've turned to DevOps and microservices because they've made it faster and easier to release and update applications. It's past time we developed security practices for them. Continue Reading

By

• Clive Longbottom

IT incident management best practices -- and myths that scare you away

When IT activity inevitably goes awry, admins need to know the best course of action to take to ensure accountability, efficiency and accuracy -- and not get lost in myths. Continue Reading

By

• Adam Fowler

XCP-ng offers new hypervisor option for cost-conscious shops

A new open source fork of Citrix XenServer includes many features proprietary hypervisors offer, but it's not likely to displace market leaders any time soon. Continue Reading

By

• Stuart Burns

August Patch Tuesday closes CPU bug, two zero-day exploits

Administrators have their work cut out for them, with more than 60 vulnerabilities to handle for August Patch Tuesday, after reeling from the effects of a bad batch of July updates. Continue Reading

By

• Kristen Gloss

Set up Office 365 alerts to keep threats at bay

Office 365 offers administrators integrated tools to warn the IT staff about potential attacks or breaches of conduct. Find out what the options are and how to configure them. Continue Reading

By

• Steve Goodman, Content and Code

Network capacity planning in the age of unpredictable workloads

When you manage network spaces carefully and make informed choices, the flexible, easily scaled workloads of distributed public and hybrid cloud applications become manageable. Continue Reading

By

• Tom Nolle, Andover Intel

Manage VMM library servers with PowerShell

Using PowerShell commands can save you time when searching for all the shares on a VMM library server, exporting and importing VMM library resources, and checking for VMM templates. Continue Reading

By

• Nirmal Sharma

Troubleshoot common VM live migration errors

VM live migration errors in Hyper-V include connection issues, virtual switch mismatches and incompatible hardware. Learn more about these common errors and how to resolve them. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

AIOps platforms delve deeper into root cause analysis

AIOps tools offer fresh insights into the root cause of IT incidents, triangulating between application outages, code changes and infrastructure issues. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

Adopt these continuous delivery principles organization-wide

Follow these principles to advocate for, adopt and adapt continuous delivery. The work won't always be easy, but well-conceived continuous delivery pays off for everyone involved. Continue Reading

By

• Adam Bertram

Should you virtualize an edge computing server?

The need to pack a lot of compute power into a small package leaves many wondering whether containers and serverless frameworks could replace virtualization at the edge. Continue Reading

By

• Robert Sheldon

Application performance tuning tips and tricks

Tune hardware, resource allocations and prioritizations to make applications perform their best. Just don't do it without tracking the results. Continue Reading

By

• Brian Kirsch, Milwaukee Area Technical College

Write cloud-config automation scripts into the configuration file

Bypass the need for excess infrastructure, and put off the automation languages seminar -- you need to configure the cloud now. Fortunately, you can still do that. Continue Reading

By

• Stuart Burns

Enterprise IT struggles with DevOps for mainframe

Mainframe automation tools are nascent, and many mainframe experts are reluctant to embrace DevOps. But large enterprises must address legacy platforms to realize app delivery goals. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

SCVMM vs. Hyper-V Manager: Which tasks are best suited to each?

Although SCVMM offers capabilities far exceeding those of Hyper-V Manager, Hyper-V Manager has the advantage of being simpler to use and not requiring an additional license. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

IT pros debate upstream vs. packaged Kubernetes implementations

As IT vendors race to package Kubernetes implementations, their fiercest competition is not from other vendors, but from pure upstream code and DIY container orchestration projects. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

Support a guest security policy with endpoint hardening

Guest security relies not only on a series of tools and best practices, but also on a security mindset that starts with endpoint hardening and follows the deployment of every VM. Continue Reading

By

• Brian Kirsch, Milwaukee Area Technical College

Can container communication cross over to noncontainerized apps?

Can an application have Python as a container, run SQL queries on an external Microsoft SQL database and publish the results on an Apache web server container? Continue Reading

By

• Chris Moyer, ACI Information Group

Words to go: Incident management KPI categories

Because incident management is a vital task for IT operations departments, admins need a way to measure its success. This list of KPIs offers a good place to start. Continue Reading

By

• Emily Mell, Former Site Editor

Top continuous delivery benefits and how to get them

Continuous delivery doesn't come without challenges -- like getting every disparate IT team on board -- but its list of perks makes the entire process worthwhile. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Find the ideal incident management automation tool or tools

Unless the data center floods or a digger cuts a network cable, incident management takes place via software tools. The quality of these tools determines how quickly work can resume. Continue Reading

By

• Clive Longbottom

How do you decide to scale up or scale out a workload?

Scaling up or scaling out is not a decision to be made lightly. Use monitoring data to determine the strategy that fits your use case and to inform future decisions. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

A DevOps mindset shouldn't overemphasize speed

DevOps isn't really about the fastest release process. Ultimately, DevOps should make the user's life better. Find a balance between velocity and utility. Continue Reading

By

• Brian Kirsch, Milwaukee Area Technical College

How do you analyze the costs of virtualization scalability?

It's easy to allocate more resources to a VM, but scaling decisions require careful deliberation. Without retrospective analysis, scaling can quickly become costly. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Exchange 2013 hybrid to Exchange 2016 hybrid considerations

Part of the work required for a successful shift from one hybrid Exchange environment to another is to have a full understanding of all the areas that will be affected by the move. Continue Reading

By

• Theresa Miller

Three log analytics use cases set better ops in motion

The path to more resilient, bug-free and available IT deployments is hiding in plain sight, in log data. Parse short- and long-term data these three ways to improve operations. Continue Reading

By

• Brian Kirsch, Milwaukee Area Technical College

Atlassian HipChat shutdown surprises enterprise IT pros

IT pros had been skeptical about Atlassian's Stride, but HipChat's disappearance leaves them with lingering questions about licensing and support. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

Google Cloud Build puts GCP spin on cloud CI/CD

Enterprise DevOps shops have yet another cloud CI/CD choice, as well as additional options for managed Kubernetes, function as a service and service mesh. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

Plan your Exchange migration to Office 365 with confidence

Make your move to Office 365 with help from our experts who explain how to prepare before the transition and provide checklists to make sure the migration goes as planned. Continue Reading

Climb the five steps of a continuous delivery maturity model

The continuous delivery maturity model lays out the five increasingly intense -- and capable -- levels of the process. Know where to start and when to progress. Continue Reading

By

• Kurt Marko, MarkoInsights

Insurer accelerates DevOps test data refreshes with Actifio

Data-intensive applications can hobble DevOps velocity, but one IT team makes fresh test data available to its developers with a tool that makes rapid copies of large data stores. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

Workplace culture is about cultivating behaviors, not beanbags

To really do DevOps, organizations will have to address and cultivate more effective workflows. It's not as easy as bringing in beanbags and pingpong tables. Continue Reading

By

• Theresa Neate

Fail at scale: Build failure into virtual infrastructure design

It's better to be over-prepared than surprised. Design virtual infrastructure around the possibility that it might fail and have a plan in mind for when it does. Continue Reading

By

• Brian Kirsch, Milwaukee Area Technical College

Is the CTO the new standard for a DevOps leader?

For DevOps initiatives to work, they need support from the C-suite. With more companies focusing on products, not services, is the CTO the flagbearer of DevOps leadership? Continue Reading

By

• David Savage, Harvey Nash Group

Troubleshooting application performance: Issues and answers

Workflow congestion, sluggish switches, pointless parameter settings -- application flaws don't come from a single source, but they're easier to solve when you know where to look first. Continue Reading

By

• Tom Nolle, Andover Intel

Why is Docker's container approach so important?

The name has become synonymous with containers, but there are other container management tools available. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Create a shielded VM template in SCVMM in four easy steps

SCVMM templates simplify the process of deploying shielded VMs. Prepare the disk to use shielded VM technology before creating the template. Continue Reading

By

• Nirmal Sharma

How a bastion forest limits exposure of admin privileges

A Windows Server 2016 feature called a bastion forest is the centerpiece of Microsoft's privileged access management model that limits the exposure of admin rights. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

Manage all your Hyper-V snapshots with PowerShell

Using PowerShell commands to take and remove Hyper-V snapshots, and to restore VMs to a previous state is easy and efficient, especially when working with bulk VMs. Continue Reading

By

• Nirmal Sharma

Follow a Kubernetes and Go tutorial in your home lab

Learn how to use the Kubernetes Go client, dep for dependency management and other capabilities for Kubernetes and Go in this home lab exercise on Minikube. Continue Reading

By

• Walker Rowe

GCP Marketplace beats AWS, Azure to Kubernetes app store

Google is the first major public cloud provider to sell prepackaged apps for container orchestration clusters, but expect AWS and Azure to follow quickly with Kubernetes marketplaces of their own. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

Container security emerges in IT products enterprises know and trust

Established IT security vendors add containers to their repertoire, and IT pros must decide between trusted platform integration and the latest features from startups. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

Manage Hyper-V containers and VMs with these best practices

Containers and VMs should be treated as the separate instance types they are, but there are specific management strategies that work for both that admins should incorporate. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

Heuristic automation prevents unmitigated IT disasters

IT automation isn't about doing everything faster -- although that's how it started. Heuristics make automation smarter and responsive to changes in the IT environment. Continue Reading

By

• Clive Longbottom

Log analytics tools gain application performance support skills

Log analytics tools are boosting real-time capabilities to monitor application performance, and users are in the market for tools that best slice, dice and store log data. Continue Reading

By

• Alan R. Earls

Perform this Octopus Deploy tutorial in under 60 minutes

Octopus Deploy extends a variety of agents called Tentacles that manage a wide swath of tasks. In just one hour, create an Octopus Deploy instance in a simple home lab. Continue Reading

By

• Adam Bertram

What are the Microsoft IRM requirements for Exchange 2016?

Before a company can take advantage of information rights management on the Exchange 2016 platform, administrators must ensure the server setup meets the technical requirements. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

How do you use Outlook IRM to protect email content?

The information rights management feature in Exchange prevents unauthorized parties from viewing sensitive content. Admins can tailor the settings to fit the company's needs. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

July Patch Tuesday brings three public disclosures

Microsoft resolved three public disclosures and updated its Spectre and Meltdown advisory this July Patch Tuesday. In total, Microsoft addressed about 54 vulnerabilities. Continue Reading

By

• Kristen Gloss

Modern service management, DevOps streamline app administration

DevOps and service management are synonymous in modern IT, insofar as their guidelines match. Regardless of the term, ensure organizational practices are built for today's reqs. Continue Reading

By

• Kurt Marko, MarkoInsights

Set up Hyper-V nested virtualization for production

There are several considerations for using nested virtualization in Hyper-V production environments, including system requirements, networking, storage and memory considerations. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

How infrastructure as code benefits and eases provisioning

Being able to provision services with code means a simplification to sometimes complicated processes. Plus, you won't need to worry about the platform that service will run on. Continue Reading

By

• Adam Bertram

Zabbix monitoring requires experience for best results

Not every IT tool is as easy to learn as it is potentially useful. Zabbix offers several views into an environment, but that flexibility comes at the price of admin experience. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Satisfy GDPR standards and identify issues early in the pipeline

GDPR requirements are here to stay. Get your developers involved early and shift security left to make your pipeline secure. Everyone is responsible for compliance now. Continue Reading

By

• Will Kelly

Istio service mesh tech boosts Kubernetes' work, with trade-offs

Why wouldn't IT teams use a tool that enables developers to focus on writing app code and operations to focus on IT resources? For all its benefits, Istio does require a study on pros and cons. Continue Reading

By

• Alan R. Earls

Build an IT infrastructure plan from the ground up

IT infrastructure improvements require careful planning that includes evaluating new technologies, such as converged and hyper-converged, and building for future flexibility. Continue Reading

By

• Brian Kirsch, Milwaukee Area Technical College

Salary snapshot: Embrace an entry-level DevOps role

New DevOps engineers make much more than their software engineer counterparts. If you have DevOps skills, maybe it's time to rebrand. Continue Reading

By

• Ryan Dowd, Associate Site Editor

IT pursues zero-touch automation for application support

The best and most efficient approach to IT automation features as little human intervention and interaction as possible. Continue Reading

By

• Tom Nolle, Andover Intel

What are the Windows Defender management tools?

If you're using Windows Defender AV to protect your company, it's imperative to configure the malware protection properly. This tip lays out the management options for admins. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Taking stock of Windows Server management tools

Microsoft provides a mix of server management tools that administrators can choose from to control the machines that run the business. This comparison can help steer your decision. Continue Reading

By

• Kristen Gloss

Use HashiCorp's Terraform tool and companions for production IaC

Developers want isolated systems for prototyping. Testers want mimicry of production. And IT operations wants to configure this infrastructure for them without reinventing the wheel. Continue Reading

By

• Stuart Burns

Database DevOps tools bring stateful apps up to modern speed

Database DevOps is no longer a contradiction in terms, as enterprises roll out database management and persistent storage software that makes stateful apps more flexible. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

IT infrastructure management software learns analytics tricks

Not every enterprise IT shop is ready to take the AIOps plunge, but IT ops automation is increasingly data-driven -- even at mainstream companies. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

Can virtual SAN performance create VM performance issues?

Monitor the performance of your VSAN and VMs to ensure one isn't affecting the other. Performance metrics and alerts can make it easy to spot VSAN issues before they affect VMs. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

How can VSAN network requirements affect performance?

Virtual SAN network configuration problems can detract from performance and availability. Update your drivers and check that no security products are blocking connections. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Simplify the production deployment process with these tips

DevOps shops emphasize production-ready code, which doesn't cause a stir when it moves from dev to test to prod. Experts share how to deploy top-notch code swiftly and accurately. Continue Reading

Tackle DevOps compliance challenges with automation

The same DevOps principles that help address compliance issues should be the same principles that are applied to development in the first place. Continue Reading

By

• Will Kelly

How do VSAN compatibility issues affect performance?

Effective VSAN performance requires compatible hardware and software. Review compatibility guides and use diagnostic tools to keep your system updated. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

How is the future of PowerShell shaping up?

Microsoft no longer develops PowerShell behind closed doors. While there are perks to the tool's move to open source, users must cope with the consequences of the shift. Continue Reading

By

• Richard Siddaway, Independent consultant

How the Nagios monitoring tool tracks IT environment details

Nagios users can monitor diverse components of an IT infrastructure, across Linux and Windows OSes, networks and servers, so long as they roll up their sleeves and dig into agents and plug-ins. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

How to tackle an email archive migration for Exchange Online

A move from on-premises Exchange to Office 365 also entails determining the best way to transfer legacy archives. This tutorial can help ease migration complications. Continue Reading

By

• Steve Goodman, Content and Code

Consider Hyper-V live migration requirements before configuration

An effective live migration setup is key to a complete Hyper-V configuration. Consider these expert recommendations, such as limiting concurrent live migrations, to ensure success. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

Will the Kubernetes sidecar deliver container happiness?

IT teams tasked with managing containerization -- or that might be imagining a future full of containers -- may want to take a look at Kubernetes sidecar software. This proxy technology built into the service mesh architecture could prove useful in the ongoing battle to solve network management troubles.

Proponents tout the technology's ability to sort out the complicated network relationships that result from the use of containers and microservices. The Kubernetes sidecar technology found in service mesh technology first proved useful in giant online operations where conventional networking configurations weren't up to the task of managing microservices. But is there that same type of usefulness for organizations not named Twitter and Google? Does an IT shop that's not on the leading edge of DevOps need to look at Kubernetes sidecar software?

That's the question TechTarget's Beth Pariseau takes up in this edition of Modern Stack. She explores how the service mesh architecture works and how realistically its benefits might be applied to real-world IT scenarios. Some will see these advanced capabilities as unnecessary, at least for their current configurations. Others may be intrigued by the enhancements to security and greater control of traffic afforded by Kubernetes sidecar software in the mesh architecture.

If service mesh isn't in your near-term plans, it might be something to work toward, especially if your business intends to do more with containers and microservices in the years to come.

Also in this issue are features and columns delving into the practicality of the serverless approach; how developers influence an organization's decisions about cloud platforms; where containers, cloud computing and other emerging strategies affect application componentization practices; what no-code/low-code trends mean for the pace of application development; and how managing cloud spending can easily become a source of frustration even for those organizations that consider themselves especially prudent planners.

 Continue Reading

Service mesh architecture radicalizes container networking

Containerization is the IT industry's favorite superhero, so it's only fitting that containers have a powerful sidekick in service mesh. Together, they fight network management chaos. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

These Go code examples showcase its main features

Google's golang uses many of the same functions as older code languages, such as key-value pairs and compiling, but is better fitted to modern systems development requirements. Continue Reading

By

• Walker Rowe

Cloud applications demand a new IT operations strategy

Business and software development trends are putting more pressure on IT operations staff and changing the way teams deploy applications. Continue Reading

By

• Nick Martin, Senior Director of Content Strategy and Member Engagement

Prepare a Hyper-V configuration report with PowerShell

Generate a report with valuable Hyper-V configuration information, such as the virtual disk path, using a PowerShell script to ensure your server settings match the design documentation. Continue Reading

By

• Nirmal Sharma

How to build a Packer image for Azure

Packer is an open source tool that automates the Windows Server image building process to give administrators a consistent approach to create new VMs. Continue Reading

By

• Adam Bertram

How the three phases of automation dictate human employment

Automation might end human employment as we know it. The final result is in question, but we can draw clues from the relationship between automation and employment. Continue Reading

By

• Bob Reselman, CogArtTech

Cloud applications demand a new IT operations strategy

 Continue Reading

Service mesh architecture radicalizes container networking

 Continue Reading

Three tools enable DevOps for Windows shops

DevOps isn't just the domain of open source Linux experts. These three tool options tailor DevOps to how Windows applications and systems operate. Continue Reading

By

• Adam Bertram

How many Hyper-V virtual processors should I configure per VM?

There isn't a set number of virtual processors you should configure for a Hyper-V VM, but there are steps you can take to ensure your workloads receive enough processor resources. Continue Reading

By

• Nirmal Sharma

KVM troubleshooting in six simple steps

To troubleshoot common KVM issues, start by checking the logs. Then, isolate the issue and check the VM status using virsh commands. Finally, check the disk space, memory and networking. Continue Reading

By

• Stuart Burns

How do I get access to Office 365 preview versions?

Your power users will want to be the first in line to try out upcoming features through the Office 365 targeted release program. Set up early access with this step-by-step guide. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Kubernetes books put container deployments on the right track

Whether you're tasked to set up and manage or deploy applications with Kubernetes, these books offer guidance and support. Co-author Brendan Burns shares insights from the texts. Continue Reading

By

• Meredith Courtemanche, Director of Editorial Training

Docker pledges Kubernetes for Windows support in Docker EE

Docker Enterprise Edition will add Kubernetes for Windows features in the coming months, but Microsoft shops haven't decided on a container orchestration strategy. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

Docker roadmap champions multi-cloud container management

Docker Enterprise Edition will roll out multi-cloud container management in beta later in 2018 and go head-to-head with Red Hat OpenShift and Rancher. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

Cisco roadmap plots course through clouds to DevOps future

From a Google Cloud partnership to API-based network data integration, Cisco showcased application hosting flexibility and DevOps process flows in its product plans at its annual conference. Continue Reading

By

• Torsten Volk, Principal Analyst

Thorough Exchange Server testing regimen eliminates doubt

Don't assume your Exchange 2016 implementation will work because you bought the right gear. Follow these pointers to execute a successful Exchange 2016 migration project. Continue Reading

By

• Steve Goodman, Content and Code

Organize Active Directory with these strategies

Administrators tasked with cleaning up the Active Directory user group structure need not search any further. Use these tips to avoid Active Directory maintenance headaches. Continue Reading

By

• Tim Warner

Manage Switch Embedded Teaming in Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V

You can create and manage a Switch Embedded Team in Hyper-V using just a few PowerShell commands, but there are specific requirements and limitations you should be aware of. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

Adobe zero-day fix precedes June Patch Tuesday

Adobe closed a zero-day vulnerability last week, which Microsoft added to its June Patch Tuesday updates. Administrators have a lighter workload, with about 50 exploits to address. Continue Reading

By

• Kristen Gloss

Splunk's VictorOps acquisition extends alerts, but narrows lanes

Splunk's purchase of VictorOps, its fifth deal in the past year, adds DevOps incident management, on-call scheduling and alerting, and opens doors into adjacent markets. Continue Reading

By

• Ed Scannell, Freelancer

Use Sysprep to generalize Hyper-V VMs for rapid deployment

Microsoft's Sysprep tool enables rapid Hyper-V VM configuration and deployment through image generalization. Use commands to speed up configuration and disaster recovery. Continue Reading

By

• Nirmal Sharma

Reflect adds color to Puppet DevOps tools

Puppet plans to add data visualization and analysis to spruce up its DevOps tools now that it has acquired Reflect, but it's still playing catch-up in a crowded, noisy market. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau

Small-scale infrastructure testing requires transparency

Use small-scale tests for a cheaper alternative to expensive, duplicate test environments, but be wary of limitations, such as hardware functionality and performance. Continue Reading

By

• Brian Kirsch, Milwaukee Area Technical College

What is the Hyper-V VHD Set format and how is it optimized?

VHD File Set -- a file format new to Windows Server 2016 -- is helpful for IT administrators using guest clusters. Get up to speed on the basics and learn how to optimize it. Continue Reading

By

• Nirmal Sharma

What are containers and how do they work?

Containerization is a new approach to application provisioning for many enterprises and requires a fundamental understanding of how containers operate, where they differ and the pros and cons. Continue Reading

By

• Clive Longbottom

DevOps shops weigh risks of Microsoft-GitHub acquisition

An online outcry about Microsoft's GitHub acquisition seems overblown to enterprise DevOps pros, but that doesn't mean there's no cause for concerns. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau and Darryl K. Taft