IT Operations

DevOps goes to Washington: How DevOps in government works

From procurement to compliance and security, the federal government will face enormous challenges as it brings DevOps on board. Here's how what to expect. Continue Reading

By

• Will Kelly

The top 5 unheralded Windows Server 2016 features

Windows Server 2016 is still a novel operating system for many administrators. Check out some of its new and enhanced features that might have slipped under the radar. Continue Reading

By

• Brian Kirsch, Milwaukee Area Technical College

Not sure how to start with DevOps? Here's one option

A new consulting firm with roots in Netflix and Amazon aims to help even legacy-heavy companies ship software faster. It starts with 15 metrics and small wins. Continue Reading

By

• Valerie Silverthorne

How do I convert VMDK to VHDX using PowerShell commands?

Download and install Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter to gain access to several PowerShell commands that enable VMware VMDK to Hyper-V VHDX conversions. Continue Reading

By

• Nirmal Sharma

Self-service automation gives WLA maximum power

Users don't want to wait for an admin to run a report. Admins don't want to drop their work to do it. Set parameters on self-service options and let workers help themselves. Continue Reading

By

• Emily Mell, Former Site Editor

Will Exchange Server 2019 address admin issues?

As Exchange Server 2019 draws closer, one administrator hopes Microsoft will incorporate some of the feature requests from the Exchange technicians in the field. Continue Reading

By

• Edward van Biljon, Global Micro Solutions

IT pros test out fresh crop of serverless monitoring tools

Serverless monitoring is still more of an art than a science, but tools that offer comprehensive insight into serverless infrastructure dependencies are in development. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

Why personal alignment is the secret sauce in top DevOps teams

It's not magic, exactly, but there is a little-known secret at the heart of successful DevOps teams. Try personal alignment to improve team performance. Continue Reading

By

• Bob Reselman, CogArtTech

How to protect PowerShell credentials in task automation

When administrators use unencrypted credentials in PowerShell scripts, they expose sensitive information. Find out the ways to secure credential use with automated tasks. Continue Reading

By

• Tim Warner

How do I avoid Windows Defender compatibility issues?

Microsoft offers a free antimalware tool for client and server systems, but administrators need to tune the layers of protection to avoid problems. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Serverless infrastructure calls for updated IT ops expertise

IT ops participation is necessary for successful serverless infrastructure management, but operations pros will need to sharpen their skills in systems engineering and infrastructure as code. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

DevOps is a culture, but here's why it's actually not

What DevOps needs today isn't more culture or more technology. It needs standards to help companies do a better job with implementation. Expert Aymen El Amri explains. Continue Reading

By

• Aymen El Amri

Use event-driven architecture to design for DevOps 2.0

Collaboration is key to DevOps, but it will be even more important to DevOps 2.0. Expert Bob Reselman explains how event-driven architecture will help us build the next-gen DevOps. Continue Reading

By

• Bob Reselman, CogArtTech

Top-tier ITSM skills go beyond a good tool set

An organization can supply all the tools IT wants and still struggle to succeed. Build up key soft skills in IT and you'll boost productivity and business relationships. Continue Reading

By

• Alan R. Earls

Serverless deployment lifts enterprise DevOps velocity

Mainstream companies see mounting demand for serverless deployments for their new apps, but for existing apps, it's another story. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

Azure IaaS vs. PaaS: Find the right service to reduce costs

Ready to migrate on-premises workloads to the cloud? Administrators should question their assumptions before diving in with Azure IaaS and consider the benefits of PaaS. Continue Reading

By

• Tim Warner

Expedite Ansible KVM provisioning with automation

Creating KVM virtual machines with virsh and virt-install can be onerous. Use Ansible to automate deployment with templates and modules or to extend to functions like cloning. Continue Reading

By

• Larry E. Smith, Jr., Business Technology Architects

Red Hat Virtualization 4.2 updates include UI and DR enhancements

The latest updates to Red Hat's virtualization platform enhance enterprise-grade features. But despite improvements, it's still not a VMware killer. Continue Reading

By

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

A Go programming language tutorial for IT ops

Go is a diversely applicable programming language that ops admins can use on distributed systems without the complications of traditional languages such as C or Java. Continue Reading

By

• Walker Rowe

Exchange Online security setup requires joint effort

A company that moves to Exchange Online must coordinate the efforts of its email administrators and its security team to maximize protections and meet compliance requirements. Continue Reading

By

• Reda Chouffani, Biz Technology Solutions

ServiceNow positions Now Platform as workflow engine

ServiceNow made a move to become a major player in the DevOps market by gearing up its Now Platform as a workflow engine that creates cloud-based applications quickly. Continue Reading

By

• Ed Scannell, Freelancer

Manage KVM at scale with these best practices

KVM management is easy when VM density is low, but managing hundreds or thousands of VMs can present a challenge. Plan ahead, configure the right drivers and optimize for scale. Continue Reading

By

• Stuart Burns

ServiceNow Virtual Agent looks to bolster AI strategy

ServiceNow's Virtual Agent technology is designed to automate routine IT tasks and free users and IT workers to focus on more important tasks. Continue Reading

By

• Ed Scannell, Freelancer

Failover cluster quorum considerations for Windows admins

Microsoft introduced Cloud Witness in Windows Server 2016, which adds a new wrinkle to its quorum model for failover clusters, but it might not be a good fit for some enterprises. Continue Reading

By

• Nirmal Sharma

Which IT security roles fall to the ops team?

To help secure data and applications, an IT ops team needs to do much more than put up firewalls and apply other traditional security measures. Here's where to begin. Continue Reading

By

• Chris Moyer, ACI Information Group

Can you ace our DevOps quiz? Maybe, but beware SnackOps

Do you know the difference between BizDevOps and DevOps 2.0? How about HumanOps and HugOps? What about SnackOps? Time to test your DevOps methodology knowledge. Continue Reading

By

• Ryan Dowd, Associate Site Editor

Zero-day exploits resolved by Microsoft on May Patch Tuesday

Microsoft resolved two zero-day exploits and two public disclosures, amid more than 65 exploits affecting operating systems, browsers and Microsoft Office this May Patch Tuesday. Continue Reading

By

• Kristen Gloss

APM strikes back in Kubernetes monitoring wars

New Relic and AppDynamics up the ante on Prometheus with dashboards that display Kubernetes time-series data, and monitoring alerts that sync with IT automation tools. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform adds CoreOS automation

Red Hat plans to swiftly integrate technology recently acquired from CoreOS into its current product line, but the CoreOS name will stick around. Continue Reading

By

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

Blue/green deployment on the cloud makes updates easier

App deployment in the cloud operates differently than it does on physical infrastructure. The blue/green deployment model has a couple variations, each of which can save on time and errors. Continue Reading

By

• Kurt Marko, MarkoInsights

Windows Server pricing muddies purchasing decision process

As the cost of Windows Server continues to rise with each new version, enterprises must evaluate whether the price of admission for the latest enhancements is too much to bear. Continue Reading

By

• Jonathan Hassell

Cisco and CoreOS Kubernetes integrations swell IT buyer choices

Cisco and CoreOS added to a growing number of Kubernetes integration options, prompting enterprise IT buyers to consider whether they should rely on one vendor or take on heavy lifting themselves. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

Why management thinks your DevOps implementation is great

Tech choices and testing are hard in DevOps, according to GitLab's 2018 Global Developer Report. But it turns out DevOps makes management happy. Here's why. Continue Reading

By

• Valerie Silverthorne

How do admins check the Exchange IRM setup?

Testing Exchange information rights management functionality can be tedious, but Microsoft offers a dedicated cmdlet for Exchange 2016 administrators that streamlines the process. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Google gVisor serves up container security isolation

There are other VM-like approaches for container security isolation, but Google's Kubernetes cred could make its gVisor a multi-cloud standard for security-sensitive enterprise apps. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

Get started with AIOps tools

Instead of admins doing all the tedious work to resolve issues reactively, AIOps tools promise predictive analytics, health assessments and preventative action suggestions. Continue Reading

By

• Muddu Sudhakar, Startup companies

Kubernetes distributions vs. the open source option

There are always benefits to going it alone on open source software, such as Kubernetes, but with containers, there's equal benefit to hitching the cart to a vendor distribution. Continue Reading

By

• Clive Longbottom

What are System Center DPM 2016 limitations?

Not every tool is right for the job of backing up data. Find out what limits System Center DPM 2016 protection and which alternatives cover what it lacks. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

VMware NSX portfolio aims to unify local and cloud workloads

VMware's NSX strategy aims to help enterprises stitch together data centers and cloud environments, though it could be overkill for IT shops with simpler needs that are more specific. Continue Reading

By

• Ed Scannell, Freelancer

Microsoft Outlook on the web (formerly Outlook Web App, OWA)

Outlook on the web is the browser-based email client for users to access email, calendars, tasks and contacts from Microsoft's on-premises Exchange Server and cloud-based Exchange Online. Continue Reading

By

• Alexander S. Gillis, Technical Writer and Editor

How do you reconnect a Hyper-V virtual switch to your VMs?

Save time by using PowerShell commands to reconnect your VMs to a new Hyper-V virtual switch. Different commands can access single VMs or many VMs whether they are local or remote. Continue Reading

By

• Nirmal Sharma

Data center operations best practices checklist

Independent experts guide you to better data center operations with tips and advice on best practices and the right management tools. Continue Reading

By

• Meredith Courtemanche, Director of Editorial Training

A proper DevOps feedback loop includes business leaders

What the modern IT organization needs isn't DevOps -- it's BizDevOps. IT exists to serve the business, but that relationship must be fully reciprocal. Continue Reading

By

• Clive Longbottom

Salary snapshot: What is a lead DevOps engineer paid today?

Our monthly salary snapshot looks at lead DevOps engineer salaries, which are high and getting higher due to the worsening developer shortage. Here's how the paychecks stack up. Continue Reading

By

• Valerie Silverthorne

DevOps and security can coexist with a little planning

If you want to bring the complicated-sounding DevSecOps into your organization, start with these three easy steps from Akamai's Ari Weil. Start where you are and ask a lot of questions. Continue Reading

By

• Valerie Silverthorne

Distributed tracing gives microservices monitoring more clarity

When you have users interacting with multiple services with each action, finding the cause of a problem becomes a difficult hunt. Distributed tracing helps highlight the issues. Continue Reading

By

• Alan R. Earls

How do you extract an ISO file before booting a VM?

Take advantage of PowerShell commands to clear ISO files from your VMs before booting and ensure their configuration is set to boot from the virtual hard drive, not the ISO. Continue Reading

By

• Nirmal Sharma

Cloud Foundry users grapple with stateful cloud-native apps

Cloud Foundry shops can refactor stateless apps according to cloud-native principles, but would like to bring stateful applications on board as well. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

Is IT workload management easier on software-defined infrastructure?

Our IT organization uses deployment automation, monitoring tools and virtualized resources. What do we need to do to manage IT workloads? Continue Reading

By

• Brian Kirsch, Milwaukee Area Technical College

CF community debates Cloud Foundry and Kubernetes integration

Cloud Foundry PaaS and Kubernetes container orchestration each appeal to DevOps shops, and users want consolidation, as the two camps continue to negotiate. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

It's time to convey the value of DevOps to your CFO

Take the DevOps lead and turn your CFO into your organization's strongest DevOps supporter. It's not as daunting as you think. DevOps aligns with business interests. Continue Reading

By

• Will Kelly

Don't panic! The definitive guide to IT troubleshooting

IT problems can cause distress, chaos and, well, panic -- but they don't have to. These tips and tools guide admins through IT troubleshooting for the best chance of success. Continue Reading

Cloud Foundry PaaS shops hone software delivery process

Enterprises that have deployed Cloud Foundry platform as a service found it catalyzed new thinking about the application delivery process and other organizational practices. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

Who put the AI in software?

With artificial intelligence, anything seems possible. And that leaves a whole lot of room for the imagination to wonder about how the use of AI in software tools can change how the work gets done -- and who does it.

The anxiety is understandable. The hyperbole is harder to sort out because, well, when it comes to AI, no one knows quite where to put the line between rational and irrational worries. Will AI at some point control every aspect of your life? Probably not. Will AI push you out of a job? Quite possibly.

Using AI in software development is one way to make your IT resources more intelligent and more automated. If AI can test software faster and better, shouldn't you be doing it that way? That's a question we take up in this first issue of Modern Stack. Also included are articles and columns delving into multi-cloud management, serverless computing and how operations teams can hold up their end of the DevOps bargain.

 Continue Reading

Embrace change to make the DevOps operating model succeed

Operations pros have more to gain and less to lose from DevOps than they understand. Brian Kirsch offers the reasons why ops needs to get on board with DevOps. Continue Reading

By

• Brian Kirsch, Milwaukee Area Technical College

Serverless technology obfuscates workflows, performance data

Serverless and microservices reshape the application stack into something that looks like a swath of stars in the sky. How do you find a slow, misconfigured component in this interconnected galaxy? Continue Reading

By

• Mike Matchett, Small World Big Data

How do I keep Windows Defender definitions current?

Administrators in charge of keeping antivirus software up to date have a few options to protect their servers. Learn about the methods and services to use with Windows Defender Antivirus. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Why DevOps? The simple answer is it creates safer processes

Is it possible to take an old-fashioned organization actually hostile to technology and move it into the 21st-century DevOps world? Expert David Savage says it is. Continue Reading

By

• David Savage, Harvey Nash Group

Bots know better: Maybe AIOps tools should drive your stack

As more IT tool vendors add AI capabilities, organizations are speeding up delivery and cutting waste, but a lack of integration and trust is holding back the intelligent stack. Continue Reading

By

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

Best practices for sizing a server

Serving sizing requires a number of comparisons, especially between having a few large servers or many popcorn servers. Compare use cases to find what fits. Continue Reading

By

• Jim O'Reilly

How does the Office Insider program work?

The Office Insider program can benefit organizations that want as much lead time as possible to see what new features Microsoft plans to release for its Office 365 platform. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Master application scalability in cloud computing alongside devs

Just because cloud scales endlessly doesn't mean every component in an application should, too. Teams throw money away and degrade app performance when ops isn't involved in design and test. Continue Reading

By

• Tom Nolle, Andover Intel

The DevOps process is hard. But here are seven ways it's easy

Attend a DevOps conference and it seems every company struggles with the methodology. We asked seven experts to tell us how DevOps is easy. Hint: It's not the people. Continue Reading

By

• Valerie Silverthorne

Docker vs. Mesosphere battleground shifts focus to Kubernetes

Kubernetes integrations in Docker and Mesosphere are generally available, vying for enterprise attention with a focus on ease of use. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

Resolve issues between Python and Linux with virtualenv

While Linux OSes favor Python 2, Python 3 is the widely preferred version. Install virtualenv to isolate Python 2 and 3 and prevent IT issues. Continue Reading

By

• Walker Rowe

How does Windows Defender Antivirus protect against malware?

Microsoft offers Windows Defender Antivirus as its native tool to prevent malware attacks. Discover how it works and what advanced protections it provides. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Get started with this Nutanix Community Edition installation guide

Install Nutanix Community Edition to test its features in your infrastructure for free. Learn about the download, installation, configuration and VM creation processes. Continue Reading

By

• Stuart Burns

Monitoring thresholds determine IT performance alerts

An IT monitoring strategy depends on the applications and systems it governs. Static and dynamic thresholds each have benefits and drawbacks, but it's possible to find a balance. Continue Reading

By

• Alastair Cooke

Bharti Airtel overhauls test/dev with container infrastructure

Startup AppOrbit's approach to container infrastructure deployment beat out Red Hat's OpenShift as a large Indian telco overhauled its test environments for speedier development. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

Azure PowerShell cmdlets monitor, manage VMs

PowerShell gives administrators a way to customize reports that hone in on the details that matter to the business, such as the configuration of production VMs. Continue Reading

By

• Nirmal Sharma

Enable resource metering in Hyper-V to collect usage data

Easily monitor resource utilization for your Hyper-V VMs by first enabling the resource metering feature and then collecting data with a few PowerShell commands. Continue Reading

By

• Nirmal Sharma

Exchange IRM helps enterprises lock down information

Exchange Server's information rights management features put boundaries on messages and documents to avoid the mishandling of restricted content. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Embrace change to make the DevOps operating model succeed

 Continue Reading

Serverless technology obfuscates workflows, performance data

 Continue Reading

Bots know better: Maybe AIOps tools should drive your stack

 Continue Reading

Try these Salt commands to master the config management tool

The command line is an IT administrator's best friend. Salt users should try these commands to understand how the configuration management tool works. Continue Reading

By

• Walker Rowe

Windows out-of-band patches overshadow April Patch Tuesday

Microsoft delivered out-of-band security patches to address the Total Meltdown and malware engine exploits as a precursor to its regularly scheduled April Patch Tuesday fixes. Continue Reading

By

• Tom Walat, Editor

Migrate virtual machines from development to production

Administrators must prepare carefully before moving test or development VMs to production. Check connectivity, security, compliance and licensing before beginning a migration. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

Become an infrastructure developer to get code to production faster

Wondering where to take your IT career in a future that is increasingly software-defined? Learn the role of an infrastructure developer from one expert with experience in the field. Continue Reading

By

• Adam Bertram

AWS' managed Kubernetes service faces tough competition in GKE

Amazon's native integration of Kubernetes puts all the major cloud providers on the same playing field, but it's not an even match. Continue Reading

By

• Kurt Marko, MarkoInsights

Microsoft Project Honolulu shows promise but needs work

Microsoft Project Honolulu is still in the technical preview stage, but it needs to resolve a number of issues before it's a viable alternative to manage production machines. Continue Reading

By

• Richard Siddaway, Independent consultant

Hunt zombie VMs and control virtualization sprawl

VM tagging is an effective tactic for discovering and eliminating zombie VMs. Cut useless VMs, redundant data and confusing configurations to enable efficient resource consumption and limit VM sprawl. Continue Reading

By

• Brian Kirsch, Milwaukee Area Technical College

Select the best container monitoring tools for your environment

Organizations that run containers should monitor them, too. Choose container monitoring that integrates into other systems monitoring tools, or take a different route. Continue Reading

By

• Sander van Vugt

What types of VHD files does Hyper-V support?

Fixed VHD files, dynamic VHD files, and differential or differencing VHD files are all supported by Hyper-V. Learn more about these file types and the best use cases for each. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Cloud-based email security tools barricade entry to Exchange

The pressure is on Exchange administrators to avoid a ransomware outbreak that cripples the on-premises email system. Cloud-based security tools can help blunt trending attacks. Continue Reading

By

• Reda Chouffani, Biz Technology Solutions

Seven steps to move a DevOps team into the ML and AI world

Artificial intelligence and machine learning can bring a lot to the software development and deployment table. But patience and experimentation will be key to make it work in an enterprise. Continue Reading

By

• Torsten Volk, Principal Analyst

512e disks attempt to bridge the gap between 512n and 4Kn

It's important to ensure that your OS and hypervisor support 512e and 4Kn disks, but there are always alternatives to work around any incompatibilities. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

IT's application support model depends on everyone outside IT

IT wants to reduce application outages, boost performance and make users more productive. The best way to achieve these goals is to welcome outsiders onto the app support team. Continue Reading

By

• Adam Fowler

Migrating public folders requires extensive planning

Do your homework to find the right option for public folders when making a move to Exchange Online. Here are guidelines to help you navigate the requirements and limitations. Continue Reading

By

• Neil Hobson

What are the best log consolidation and storage methods?

Storing log data is an important part of the log management process. Maintain performance, security and backup policies with careful log consolidation. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

SaltStack Enterprise GUI features outreach Salt Open territory

For enterprise IT shops that require a mix of reports on systems, and audit compliance, SaltStack Enterprise offers more than the pure open source version of Salt. Continue Reading

By

• Walker Rowe

Azure AD B2B offers a secure way to grant external access

Organizations that open up their resources to external users can restrict access using the Azure AD B2B service with minimal effort on the part of the administrators. Continue Reading

By

• Adam Fowler

What logging best practices can help with log management?

Logs can produce immense amounts of data, but logging standards, such as standardized formats and security procedures, can help IT professionals minimize information overload. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

PowerShell 6 expands reach but lags behind Windows version

Cross-platform PowerShell arrived without all the functionality that's available in Windows PowerShell -- but it brings the ability to manage Linux and macOS systems. Continue Reading

By

• Richard Siddaway, Independent consultant

Microservices management tools harmonize polyglot chaos

IT ops must replenish its toolkit to standardize infrastructure management and let developers experiment with the latest programming languages and application designs. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

Monoliths-to-microservices move refactors IT ops skills

As enterprises seek speed and efficiency with microservices, IT ops pros must learn skills and consolidate tools to deal with increased infrastructure and application complexity. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

How do you analyze log data for relevant information?

Log files can contain enormous amounts of potentially useful information, but without log data analysis and log filtering, it can be difficult to sort, prioritize and read. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Salary snapshot: Which city has the highest DevOps pay scale?

Salary data from Glassdoor shows DevOps experience continues to give paychecks a substantial advantage over other developer roles. If you want to make the most money, move to San Francisco. Continue Reading

By

• Valerie Silverthorne

How does an effective logging strategy improve data analysis?

Logs and log analytics can produce vast amounts of information. Save time and use resources efficiently with an effective logging strategy that prioritizes relevant data. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

How to list the Hyper-V virtual processors configured for VMs

To see virtual processors configured for VMs on the local host, execute a simple PowerShell command. For vCPUs configured for VMs on remote servers, a script is needed. Continue Reading

By

• Nirmal Sharma