Evaluate

Evaluate

Weigh the pros and cons of technologies, products and projects you are considering.

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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 ... Continue Reading

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• Build the Kubernetes home lab that's right for your job

  Kubernetes and the growing number of commercial container management tools based on it require specialized skills and experience from the application to the infrastructure.Continue Reading

• Hyper-V Manager update in Windows Server 2016 replete with features

  Microsoft developed several improvements to Hyper-V Manager in Windows Server 2016. These new Hyper-V features improve VM management with added security and flexibility options.Continue Reading

• Automated continuous deployment tools produce successful code

  Continuous deployment skips the operations oversight step in software production. So, automated tools must ensure code success in administrators' stead -- before mistakes go live.Continue Reading

• Predictive IT analytics improves distributed application monitoring

  Data analysis on app performance isn't an instantaneous process, but it's worth the wait given the time it will save IT admins in problem-solving in the future.Continue Reading

• Want to be the best at DevOps? You need a DevOps bot

  A DevOps bot with access to all business, technical and customer profile information would make software development and deployment a breeze. Expert Torsten Volk introduces DOBO.Continue Reading

• Ten lessons for enterprises deploying containers

  The majority of medium to large enterprises surveyed by EMA foresee containers replacing VMs in two to five years. Unsurprisingly, container management and shadow containers are pressing concerns.Continue Reading

• Why operations metrics and telemetry matter in DevOps too

  The earlier developers think about what operations pros need, the tighter the feedback loop will become. Expert Theresa Neate explains how metrics are key to shifting ops left.Continue Reading

• What to know about container management tools

  Containerization isn't simple. Implementing a management tool that fits your strategy can make the difference between success and failure.Continue Reading

• Keep DevOps operations relevant in the age of code

  The operations role isn't going away in DevOps, but it is going to change -- in some cases, dramatically. Expert Matthew Heusser explains what you need to do to be prepared.Continue Reading

• Use an IT incident management system to enable automation

  IT admins and gurus can't tackle every issue every hour of the day -- let alone predict them first. A dynamic combination of monitoring and incident management makes for better admins.Continue Reading

• Integrate DevOps and containers with simple tool adjustments

  Organizations with an established DevOps pipeline can migrate from VMs to containers without tossing out the entire toolstack. Focus on these steps to enable containers in production.Continue Reading

• IBM roadmap of cloud, AI-enabled IT drives Think conference

  IT operations must absorb automation, AI, machine learning and cloud trends, which result in a more data-driven, predictive and responsive department -- if everything goes right.Continue Reading

• Can container tools box out configuration management?

  What will happen to your infrastructure programming skills when containers take over?Continue Reading

• Impact Awards honor the best cloud and data center tools

  Each year, the Modern Infrastructure Impact Awards program salutes the data center tools and cloud management technologies that stand out from the crowd. The winners are the products that prove particularly useful and draw raves from users. These ...Continue Reading

• What's our future if we don't secure IoT devices?

  When everything from the coffee maker to the manufacturing plant's robots to the electric grid is connected, shouldn't security be IT's primary concern?Continue Reading

• Rely on the DevOps methodology to avoid disaster

  DevOps concepts rely on both developers and operations to uphold the stability of applications in production. One side can't do it alone.Continue Reading

• Data center and cloud computing products that make an impact

  The Modern Infrastructure Impact Awards recognize the best IT infrastructure and cloud computing products in seven categories, from cloud to DevOps to converged infrastructure.Continue Reading

• Nutanix Acropolis hypervisor components and capabilities

  Nutanix hypervisor components, including controller VMs, and Prism, its management control plane, help simplify management. Learn more about how these components work together.Continue Reading

• Why not every DevOps strategy is worthy of your attention

  DevOps advice is plentiful today. Some, like Cameron McKenzie, would say it is too plentiful. Here's his advice for weeding out the unworkable from the sensible.Continue Reading

• Hype for future of container development gets dose of reality

  Realistic timelines have replaced the big promises of container disruption. Virtualization administrators should expect security and microservices features as the market matures.Continue Reading

• Cloud ops doesn't solve your problems, it creates new ones

  There are many reasons to consider a cloud migration, but if you expect to cut costs or dramatically ease management, you'll be disappointed.Continue Reading

• Customize a Hyper-V network adapter for security, performance

  Look beyond basic network adapter settings in Hyper-V to enable features like IPsec task offloading, DHCP guard, protected networks, port mirroring and NIC teaming, among others.Continue Reading

• Salary snapshot: It's a very good time to be a DevOps pro

  In 2017, the number of job postings for DevOps jumped 15% over the previous year, and salaries increased, too. Do you have today's most in-demand skills?Continue Reading

• Explore Ansible for DevOps configuration management

  The configuration management tool is adept at managing workloads across different infrastructure environments. This Ansible overview preps admins to automate apps and infrastructure.Continue Reading

• Unikernels vs. containers: See the lightweight championship fight

  The drive to minimize app hosting resources yielded unikernels and containers, the IT equivalent of a tiny house and apartment. Containing only the barest essentials, unikernels pose unique benefits and challenges.Continue Reading

• Make smart container hosting decisions for enterprise IT

  Containers promise enticing benefits, so when they hit real-world production IT, they must land on a hosting infrastructure built for new challenges and capabilities.Continue Reading

• Want a DevOps success story? Try employee net promoter score

  The more likely an employee is to recommend an employer to a friend, the more likely the company is healthy and successful. Here's how to apply that practice to DevOps.Continue Reading

• An IT automation strategy wilts under cloud's shadow

  Organizations have been striving to keep abreast of IT automation trends, but with the ongoing cloud takeover, operations must consider new skill requirements instead.Continue Reading

• Container orchestration tools ease distributed system complexity

  Containers simplify some aspects of enterprise apps, but the deployment process is no walk in the park. Orchestration tools bring standardization and automation to complex hosting scenarios.Continue Reading

• How to choose the best hardware for virtualization

  Selecting the best hardware for virtualization is the foundation of maintaining or designing a robust, reliable and scalable data center.Continue Reading

• Are DevOps responsibilities in production unfair to developers?

  When Nike.com gave developers live production support responsibilities, the shakeup unearthed fundamental questions about app design and support processes.Continue Reading

• It's tough to explain DevOps, that nebulous IT concept

  DevOps is more about goals and aspirations than any set of practices or tools. Right? Or is it just about collaboration and culture? Either way, it's tough to define DevOps.Continue Reading

• It's critical to create the correct DevOps team structure

  With new-to-DevOps enthusiasm, some companies go too far when it comes to creating teams or dividing responsibilities. Chris Tozzi outlines the warning signs of too much DevOps.Continue Reading

• Quiz yourself on Red Hat virtualization pricing and updates

  The Red Hat Virtualization platform can be a powerful tool in your arsenal. Take this quiz on RHV pricing, updates and functionality to see if you know your stuff.Continue Reading

• The ITIL 2018 update better catch up to modern IT

  When ITIL last updated, DevOps was in its infancy. In the face of rapidly evolving IT practices and technologies, ITIL 2018 must be powerful and usable for diverse IT organizations.Continue Reading

• IT ops pros predict routes to DevOps efficiency in 2018

  Operations admins have a lot on their plates already, and they'll pile on more in 2018. These IT pros and analysts share what's coming and how to handle it.Continue Reading

• Make the case to follow a container strategy at your company

  Sorting through container management software can be overwhelming. Determine what your organization actually needs in terms of security and cloud capabilities before leaping in.Continue Reading

• Unleash application dependency mapping tools to combat outages

  Create a detailed map of application dependencies from the CMDB and cloud resources and help prevent unexpected outages.Continue Reading

• Want to understand DevOps? Look to open source's history

  Studying the past in order to not repeat it is something that can be applied to DevOps, too. Expert Chris Tozzi outlines how to understand DevOps by studying open source.Continue Reading

• Evaluate ChatOps tools and bots for the right fit

  ChatOps is still a niche in IT operations and DevOps shops, but organizations that have set it up love it. That means you should join the fun and give it a try. Here's what you need to know about ChatOps tools.Continue Reading

• Get serious about patch validation and deployment -- fast

  Zero-day exploits are more dangerous than ever, but so is applying an untested patch to live systems. Without a strategy to quickly validate patches -- outside of production -- you're playing with fire.Continue Reading

• What you'll build with software-defined architecture

  It's been two years since Gartner declared that the future of the data center was software-defined. And while we're still a ways from that reality, there's plenty of reason to think IT is indeed moving toward the software-defined architecture.

  ...Continue Reading

• Enterprise shops look to AIOps for IT root cause analysis

  IT ops pros look to AIOps tools to help find the smoking gun in failing IT stacks, but some call automated root cause analysis more dream than reality.Continue Reading

• To build or to buy? That is the DevOps toolchain question

  An organization should assess its strengths and weaknesses before choosing a DevOps toolchain. A pre-made pipeline is simpler than individually collected tools, but it sacrifices flexibility.Continue Reading

• Container OS options abound: Make the right selection

  There is an assortment of OSes that support containerized applications, so go into the decision with a set of wants, needs and must-avoids.Continue Reading

• Standardize configuration management software for smoother DevOps

  If your organization uses different configuration management software for development and operations, you're not alone. Even better, it's no engineering feat to migrate to one main tool.Continue Reading

• An IT operations job description written for the future

  Forward-looking IT ops jobs require more Python and less cable management. To reach valued positions in the IT organization, align your skills with these popular job requirements.Continue Reading

• Early adopters of technology belong in every organization

  In today's rapidly changing tech environment, avoiding new opportunities means falling behind. Thorough research into newly available tools leads organizations to success.Continue Reading

• Configuration management processes take down GRC challenges

  Configuration management processes speed deployments, but tools that know effective licenses and data storage details aid in another area that businesses are keen to get right.Continue Reading

• Know how container host machine resources get used?

  What's a container's resource limit? How do they scale? What OS does a host machine need? Answer 10 questions to prove your container deployment knowledge.Continue Reading

• Do ops skills fall into an IT engineering job description?

  What are some ways to level up from an IT operations or administration role into an IT engineering one? Will my experience in IT operations translate into engineering tasks?Continue Reading

• A serverless architecture could live in your data center

  Just because you don't see the server doesn't mean it's not there. Serverless frameworks are superseding containers, but is the extra abstraction worth it?Continue Reading

• Agentless Ansible structure opens up configuration management potential

  Ansible is easy to use for IT ops pros, and it supports multicloud functionality within its automation structure. This simple walkthrough gets sys admins started with the tool.Continue Reading

• Server OS patching doesn't have to be as painful as you fear

  OS patching is like a mechanic's job -- you need different tools for different makes and models. SCCM, Satellite and Landscape provide upkeep for IT's sports cars and SUVs.Continue Reading

• Machine learning algorithms make life easier -- until they don't

  Algorithms govern many facets of our lives. But imperfect logic and data sets can make results worse instead of better, so it behooves all of us to think like data scientists.Continue Reading

• Securing containers keeps IT jumping through hoops

  Container isolation doesn't cut it in production. Instead, beef up security from the infrastructure to the application code, and be prepared to use some new tools to do it.Continue Reading

• Three DevOps toolchain options refine IT automation

  DevOps tools that don't interconnect form a bottleneck that teams can easily avoid -- or retroactively remedy -- if the CI/CD workflow merits the time commitment.Continue Reading

• When to use Docker alternatives rkt and LXD

  Docker can't meet the needs of every IT scenario. LXD and CoreOS rkt are additional container formats to try out when Docker doesn't make sense.Continue Reading

• IT asset tracking informs better capacity, management decisions

  Detailed IT asset inventories are a result of granular asset tracking and lead to better server and storage management -- among other benefits.Continue Reading

• Lessons fall from the cloud, changing data center strategies

  The transformative power of cloud computing is long past the point of being news. The cloud model, after all, has irrevocably changed how IT functions. What's interesting to consider is how cloud technologies and methodologies are changing even how ...Continue Reading

• Log management systems benefit greatly from AI

  Organizations with massive volumes of IT operational data need log management tools that can quickly and adeptly process it. AI embedded into tools might be the answer.Continue Reading

• Justify CMDB ROI with these strategies

  IT pros can easily list off CMDB benefits. But when it comes to convincing the business to pay for a CMDB implementation, you'll need to discuss ROI.Continue Reading

• Note these ops issues before you deploy with Docker containers

  Docker regularly updates its containerization offering, but it's not click-to-deploy ready for production. Ops professionals should acknowledge these points before deploying Docker containers.Continue Reading

• DevOps lab: Build Vagrant VMs to learn immutable infrastructure

  This article is part of a series to help IT ops professionals learn DevOps by building a home lab. In this first step, a cluster of Vagrant VMs represents immutable infrastructure.Continue Reading

• Learn DevOps techniques and tools in this home lab setup

  This DevOps lab uses Linux VMs and Docker containers to teach administrators the basics of immutable infrastructure, configuration automation and other modern IT concepts.Continue Reading

• Deep dive into Hyper-V files and folders

  Understanding all aspects of a Hyper-V installation now makes it easier to troubleshoot problems later. Look under the hood of Hyper-V files and folders to prep for the worst.Continue Reading

• When the big cloud infrastructure providers aren't the right fit

  When a business chooses one of the major providers for its cloud services, there shouldn't be a lot of surprises. You do your homework, consider the available services, select instance types, compare costs and then make a decision. At that point, ...Continue Reading

• Are there IT jobs in cloud capacity management?

  If a company moves only 30% of workloads from its data center to the public cloud, that will reduce IT ops demand. Is there still a role for the ops engineer?Continue Reading

• Not playing games: The GPU vs. CPU question gets more interesting

  Putting thousands of cores to work makes perfect sense when you're powering a video game. But graphics processing units, or GPUs, can't serve much practical purpose in a corporate data center, can they?

  The GPU vs. CPU discussion isn't as odd as ...Continue Reading

• Orchestration software: The functions and vendors to watch

  Enterprises must keep their IT processes on track to stay ahead in the DevOps era. Solid orchestration software will pull automation tasks together and accelerate workflows.Continue Reading

• The future of containerization goes more abstract

  Containers have benefits over VMs in the data center, but the future of containerization is broader than that.Continue Reading

• Top cloud and data center technologies win Impact Awards

  Plenty of data center technologies enter the market, aiming to solve this problem or that problem. (Or every problem, if the hype is to be believed.) But which products really hit the mark? Which ones stand out, coming along at just the right moment...Continue Reading

• 2017 Impact Awards honor the best IT products and services

  The votes are in. From AWS partners to system management, Modern Infrastructure readers recognize the best IT products in the 2017 Impact Awards.Continue Reading

• Automated deployment tools mitigate the risk of human error in DevOps

  There are dozens of application and infrastructure automation tools for IT shops. Choosing the right one requires project and feature evaluation.Continue Reading

• Real-life change management examples prove it's harder than it looks

  Whether your IT shop rigorously follows a service management framework or takes a laissez-faire approach to changes, these examples help hone change management procedures.Continue Reading

• Agent vs. agentless: Monitoring choices for diverse IT ops needs

  All management tools must run on a device, but the standards for agent and agentless monitoring vary widely. The determination is easier once you understand monitoring data needs.Continue Reading

• Why orchestration services are important in the DevOps age

  Automation and orchestration services are critical for modern IT systems to function well. Learn more about how these functions facilitate IT processes and workflows.Continue Reading

• Use these DevOps examples to reimagine an IT organization

  These before and after DevOps adoption stories from real IT organizations yield insights into processes and tools, metrics for success and mistakes made.Continue Reading

• DevOps capabilities vary widely by industry vertical

  DevOps isn't the same from one IT shop to another, let alone from healthcare to retail IT. Some verticals rise higher than others when it comes to agility and communication.Continue Reading

• The steps in selecting the right configuration management system

  Configuration management helps enterprises standardize IT systems and eases updates. This guide assists buyers in selecting the right tools for their CM systems.Continue Reading

• CFEngine configuration management tool up close and in-depth

  CFEngine is a widely known and used configuration management tool. Learn about its primary features and functions and if and how your organization could benefit from it.Continue Reading

• Inside Docker configuration management functions

  Docker may not be a standard configuration management tool, but it possesses a set of capabilities that have made it a growing player in the CM market.Continue Reading

• The Cobbler configuration management tool's ins and outs

  Cobbler is a configuration management tool best suited for Linux-based IT environments. Learn more about this tool and if it can benefit your enterprise.Continue Reading

• Google Project Aristotle - 5 Keys to Team Success

  If I picked one word to collectively describe the five components from Project Aristotle, it would have to be value.Continue Reading

• SaltStack configuration management tools and their many functions

  SaltStack is a relatively new tool in the configuration management market with powerful capabilities and an active user community. Read more about this emerging product here.Continue Reading

• What Chef configuration management can do for your IT systems

  Chef configuration management tools possess a huge community of users. Learn more about product versions, capabilities, user resources and what Chef can offer an enterprise.Continue Reading

• Boost continuous delivery by developing a unified cloud and DevOps model

  The DevOps model, which more cohesively aligns application development with IT operations tasks and personnel, can play a useful role in an organization's IT modernization effort. When software can be developed in ways that support continuous ...Continue Reading

• Select the best configuration management tools for your company

  What characterizes the best configuration management tools for your company? Read about the different tools available and which ones would address your company needs the best.Continue Reading

• Decision criteria for choosing configuration management software

  Selecting the right configuration management software is vital for your company to function well in this modern age. Learn what you need to know in order to select the best tool.Continue Reading

• How application scalability works in event-driven vs. IaaS computing

  Event-driven computing saves IT admins' time and helps application scalability, compared to managing traditional cloud infrastructure. But IaaS and event-driven computing aren't exclusive.Continue Reading

• Hadoop workflow automation lets IT pros go with the flow

  Hadoop workflow managers are not just resource schedulers. They handle intricate tasks and service handoffs that are essential for managing big data services.Continue Reading