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Matching IT Resources to Application Requirements

• Create a self-signed certificate to control PowerShell scripts

  Signing code ensures that every change is official and approved. This helps to prevent errors and security breaches. Write a PowerShell self-signed certificate for code testing. Continue Reading

• Navigate different network ports, from physical to virtual

  Physical network ports, virtual network ports, uplink ports and group ports all have different functions in virtual infrastructures. Learn more with this in-depth breakdown. Continue Reading

• VM networking: Physical and virtual switches explained

  In order for VMs to communicate, they must utilize VM networking technologies that enable them to emulate and access the existing physical network and provide additional features. 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

• Chef (software)

  Chef is an open source systems management and cloud infrastructure automation platform. Continue Reading

• Definitions to Get Started

  • GitOps
  • IT operations (IT ops)
  • disaggregated server
  • phased rollout

  • cloud orchestration (cloud orchestrator)
  • virtual machine (VM)
  • IT monitoring
  • configuration file

  View All Definitions

• Learn YAML through a personal example

  Some code languages take countless hours of formal training and practice. YAML strikes out in the opposite direction. To comprehend its hierarchical format, follow this coding example.Continue Reading

• Catch the IT automation technology wave

  IT automation is taking over in operations as tasks get bigger and more complex, handling distributed systems. Stay current with these five big trends.Continue Reading

• SaltStack

  SaltStack, often referred to as simply "Salt," is an open source configuration management and orchestration tool for automating repeated system administrative and code deployment tasks.Continue Reading

• Ensure container monitoring and control via smart tooling

  Don't try to stick with traditional monitoring tools when your organization matures to containers; they won't do enough. Seek out monitoring and management tools with targeted capabilities.Continue Reading

• LXD (Linux container hypervisor)

  LXD is an open source container management extension for Linux Containers (LXC).Continue Reading

• Master the seven key DevOps engineer skills for 2018

  We all know DevOps is hard, but complex new technologies are going to make the development methodology even more challenging. Expert Bob Reselman outlines the skills you'll need.Continue Reading

• The future of DevOps in 2018? More people, more integration

  From DataOps to function as a service, DevOps adoption is going to mean acquiring some new skills in 2018. Contributor George Lawton asks the experts.Continue Reading

• Embark upon ITSM asset management with systematic tagging

  The journey to an organized data center begins with a single tag. Start using IT tags today to apply updates, control access and help automate management.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

• Know when to implement serverless vs. containers

  Containers save resources and reduce deploy times. So does serverless. Containers are a great host for microservices. So is serverless. But the deployment options are more different than they are alike.Continue Reading

• A good IT orchestration system saves time for users and admins

  Rather than fight with business workers about runaway IT resource consumption and complex demands on tight deadlines, let an orchestration platform control the process.Continue Reading

• Red Hat Virtualization (RHV)

  Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) is an enterprise-class virtualization platform produced by Red Hat.Continue Reading

• Two Ansible playbook examples illustrate config management

  Configuration management enables automation for many operations tasks. Ansible uses a simple structure and a dynamic language to enable admins to easily complete jobs, once they get the hang of a playbook.Continue Reading

• Centralize Ubuntu server management on Landscape

  Canonical Landscape brings centralized server management to Ubuntu on physical and virtual machines, as well as cloud systems. See how it works, and explore features such as tagging.Continue Reading

• Citrix XenServer

  Citrix XenServer is an open source server virtualization platform based on the Xen hypervisor.Continue Reading

• With continuous security, SecDevOps deconstructs CI/CD

  Nothing is set in stone when an organization follows a DevOps methodology -- a DevOps security model pushes developers and ops to constantly retune, slow down and speed up.Continue Reading

• Follow a PXE boot tutorial to increase OS configuration automation

  PXE boot servers are simple to set up and can aid in IT operations' goals toward high-level efficiency and automation. This tutorial runs through setup and optimal settings.Continue Reading

• Infrastructure as code benefits range from audits to ops

  When an auditor asks to see how the entire application stack is configured, you'll recognize the benefits of an infrastructure-as-code implementation.Continue Reading

• The application runtime environment is as important as the app

  To avoid cascading failures and never-ending troubleshooting, take the time to understand the software and hardware -- the runtime environment -- that keeps an app ticking.Continue Reading

• CoreOS rkt

  CoreOS rkt (pronounced rocket) is a containerization engine to run application workloads in isolation from the underlying infrastructure.Continue Reading

• The future of cloud computing looks foggy

  The concept of cloud, while never sharply defined, may be growing even less clear. The intenet of things, for example, means more connected devices are showing up in more places, an unstoppable trend that will affect the future of cloud computing. ...Continue Reading

• Windows Server containers and Hyper-V containers explained

  It's important to not only understand the differences between these two container types but also the specific requirements, deployment considerations and management practices.Continue Reading

• Paravirtualization advantages, disadvantages and use cases

  Despite a promising start, paravirtualization comes with significant disadvantages that limit the number of use cases that make sense for enterprise IT, but it still has its place.Continue Reading

• ITSM processes must take this chance to help the business

  ITSM implementations still have value in today's DevOps world, but only if admins can get their processes aligned with the grander business goals.Continue Reading

• Learn DevOps techniques in a home lab

  Not allowed to put work projects on GitHub? Want to run containers even though your company is still virtualizing servers? Get ahead with techniques and tools in a DevOps home lab.Continue Reading

• Rethinking your place on the early adopter curve

  The best-run organizations will have a technology infrastructure in place to thoroughly support the business and all its goals. While most companies fall short of that perfection, even an operation that's close to the ideal should feel good about ...Continue Reading

• Container Linux by CoreOS

  Container Linux by CoreOS, originally named CoreOS Linux, is an open source operating system (OS) that provides the functionality required to deploy and manage applications within containers.Continue Reading

• Ubuntu Core

  Ubuntu Core is a transactional version of the Ubuntu Linux OS, made specifically for internet of things (IoT) devices and large container deployments.Continue Reading

• Docker Hub

  Docker Hub is a cloud-based repository in which Docker users and partners create, test, store and distribute container images.Continue Reading

• Alpine Linux

  Alpine Linux is a small, security-oriented, lightweight Linux distribution based on the musl libc library and BusyBox utilities platform instead of GNU.Continue Reading

• Red Hat Atomic Host

  Red Hat Atomic Host is a variant of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux supported, open source operating system, designed to be a minimal OS with optimizations for container hosting.Continue Reading

• RancherOS (Linux)

  RancherOS is a lightweight Linux operating system distribution that includes only the necessary libraries and services to deploy and scale containers.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

• A deployment pipeline keeps infrastructure ducks in their rows

  IT infrastructure is difficult to get right. Whether to stand up a test/dev server or deploy a new app to production, infrastructure developers turn to a deployment pipeline to build IT.Continue Reading

• Come to grips with immutable infrastructure in production

  Immutable infrastructure is a developer approach to application hosting that's made its way into the IT ops lexicon. It's time to understand the changes it brings to application support.Continue Reading

• Ansible playbook

  An Ansible playbook is an organized unit of scripts that defines work for a server configuration managed by the automation tool Ansible.Continue Reading

• Docker Engine

  Docker Engine is the underlying client-server technology that builds and runs containers using Docker's components and services.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

• The art of managing IT risk is never quite mastered

  Risks abound, and no amount of preparation or caution will eliminate them entirely from our lives. This is as true now as it was in the past, and it likely will remain true in the future.

  While technology enables us all to work more effectively ...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

• Learn shell scripts: A sys admin's guide to automation

  Shell scripts and sys admins should be best friends. A day rarely goes by without using some form of shell script or another. Learn how those scripts work and start writing them.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

• How well do you know Docker components and services?

  With Docker containers moving into more enterprise IT shops, it's imperative to grasp how the technology works. Test your knowledge of Docker components and services with this quiz.Continue Reading

• Draw a DevOps adoption roadmap by learning from current users

  The DevOps methodology is rapidly on the rise, with one estimate that three-fourths of businesses are using it. There are some best practices to make the transition less rocky.Continue Reading

• site reliability engineering (SRE)

  Site reliability engineering (SRE) is the application of scripting and automation to IT operations tasks such as maintenance and support. The goal of SRE is to swiftly fix bugs and remove manual work in rote tasks.Continue Reading

• Staring down the security issues in cloud computing

  Adoption of cloud computing has no doubt been slowed by worries about the security of those out-of-sight servers and resources. While reasonable, those worries have given way over time to acceptance and even optimism.

  In this month's Modern ...Continue Reading

• Virtual Machine Management Service

  Virtual Machine Management Service, also known as VMMS or vmms.exe, is the main module in Microsoft Windows operating system that controls all aspects of Hyper-V server virtualization.Continue Reading

• Shipyard floats a Docker GUI for easier container management

  Deploying new Docker images is the easy part; managing and reporting on those instances is tricky. IT teams can use the Shipyard GUI to stop, start, orchestrate and manage Docker.Continue Reading

• Application support and maintenance add up to operational ALM

  An application isn't fully grown when it moves from development to production -- it still needs nurturing to meet its full potential.Continue Reading

• How the Puppet architecture manipulates configurations

  Puppet is intrinsically scalable, enabling IT teams to manage one machine or hundreds. Its architecture makes the configuration management tool compatible with a range of IT setups.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

• Puppet (Puppet Labs)

  Puppet is an open source systems management tool for centralizing and automating configuration management. Administrators can encode the configuration of a service as a policy, which Puppet then monitors and enforces.Continue Reading

• Idempotent configuration management sets things right -- no matter what

  Idempotency ensures a system won't stray from its designated desired state, sending alerts to systems administrators if a requested change would cause a disruption.Continue Reading

• Salt minions and grains facilitate deployment at scale

  A tiered management setup and finely grained monitoring capabilities make SaltStack's configuration management tool worth considering.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

• IT service delivery model uses BPM to translate ops to biz

  A business process management structure for IT service delivery can bridge the gap between IT and the rest of the business, allowing IT leaders to sit at the table for important decisions.Continue Reading

• Setting up and controlling resources on a Proxmox cluster

  You're learned how to create Proxmox hosts and group them into a cluster. Now it's time to add resources to your cluster and assign access rights to them.Continue Reading

• Linux Containers Project

  Linux Containers is a project created to provide a distro- and vendor-neutral environment for the development of Linux container technologies.Continue Reading

• shift left testing

  Shift left testing is an approach used to speed software testing and facilitate development by moving the testing process to an earlier point in the development cycle.Continue Reading

• DevOps certification

  DevOps certification is a formalized testing program intended to ensure that applicants have achieved an appropriate level of skills and knowledge for working in the converged areas of software development and IT operations.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

• How is runtime as a service different from PaaS or IaaS?

  What is runtime as a service and how does it differ from platform as a service and infrastructure as a service?Continue Reading

• Docker Swarm

  Docker Swarm is a clustering and scheduling tool for Docker containers. Orchestration frees containers from a single host for failover, load balancing and other benefits.Continue Reading

• A continuous delivery model right on time

  With continuous delivery, good enough makes things better for business. Changing to this delivery model doesn't alleviate all app problems, but the right implementation means fewer of them.Continue Reading

• Apache Mesos

  Apache Mesos is a cluster manager that isolates and shares pooled resources from across clusters with applications and frameworks. Mesos is open source and uses schedulers and executors in a master-slave architecture.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

• Modern open source systems management

  The open source sector abounds with configuration management, monitoring and analytics, CI/CD tools and more to arm IT teams against failure in complex apps and infrastructure.Continue Reading

• Primer on DevOps roles and responsibilities

  DevOps planning in enterprises revolves around getting the right teams in place, the necessary skills spiffed up and the proper tools to make it all come together.Continue Reading

• Adding an additional virtual bridge to a KVM environment

  Virtualization expert Sander Van Vugt offers tips to simplify the process of adding a second software bridge to your KVM environment to run VMs in an isolated SDN.Continue Reading

• Pop quiz: Test your knowledge of open source terminology

  Open source technology is a wild west at times. Make sure your open source terminology is up to snuff with this short quiz.Continue Reading

• VM BIOS (virtual machine basic input/output system)

  A VM BIOS (virtual machine basic input/output system) is the set of instructions that controls the booting process of a virtual machine.Continue Reading

• An initiation into infrastructure automation tools and methods

  IT infrastructure automation isn't always easy, but the right tools with the right implementation strategy will pay off with faster provisioning and fewer errors.Continue Reading

• Change boot settings from a VM BIOS

  Often overlooked, a VM's BIOS is more limited than a physical machine's BIOS, but will allow you to adjust boot settings.Continue Reading

• Brace your infrastructure for a microservices approach

  Before transitioning to microservices, it's crucial to consider the effects on your underlying infrastructure and network -- and to plan ahead.Continue Reading

• How to integrate IT infrastructure monitoring tools

  When done successfully, performance monitoring tool integrations enhance administrative insight and productivity across a busy data center.Continue Reading

• Here and there: Blending on-premises and cloud environments

  Data center technologies and strategies are evolving toward a blend of infrastructures that reside partly on-premises and partly in the cloud. More and more, IT shops are being asked to coordinate technology resources rather than simply control them...Continue Reading

• How do I use SR-IOV for Hyper-V VMs?

  Single Root I/O Virtualization, or SR-IOV, can help reduce latency and increase I/O throughput when enabled for Hyper-V VMs.Continue Reading

• virtual memory ballooning

  Virtual memory ballooning allows a physical host to recapture unused memory on its guest virtual machines and allocate the resource where needed.Continue Reading

• storage pools

  Storage pools are capacity aggregated from disparate physical storage resources in a shared storage environment.Continue Reading

• How to implement a solid DevOps team structure

  DevOps collaboration can wipe development and operations teams of hostility and negativity. Dashboards and tiger teams turn wartime to peacetime.Continue Reading

• How to adopt a successful DevOps enterprise

  No two DevOps shops are alike, but there are common threads that run throughout. So what does it take for an IT shop to successfully implement the DevOps culture?Continue Reading

• stretched cluster

  A stretched cluster is a deployment model in which two or more virtualization host servers are part of the same logical cluster but located in separate geographical locations.Continue Reading

• What do you need to roll out application containerization?

  Containers have a significant following these days, thanks to Docker. Find out how containers can help and what you need to get started.Continue Reading

• Linux virtual machine (Linux VM)

  A Linux virtual machine is a virtual machine (VM) that is running a distribution of Linux as the guest operating system (guest OS).Continue Reading

• Component cloud model powers agile application development

  In the future, IT pros see cloud as a place to spin up applications to respond to problems on the fly. The component cloud model is just step one.Continue Reading

• VMQ (Virtual Machine Queue)

  VMQ (Virtual Machine Queue) is a type of hardware packet filtering that delivers packet data from an outside virtual machine network directly to a virtualized host operating system. Continue Reading

• DevOps overhauls app dev scripts

  Applications don't run in a vacuum. Operations -- the last step of app development and maintenance -- actually belongs in every stage of the cycle.Continue Reading

• Successful DevOps practices from the start

  Here's all you need to know to get started with DevOps, from identifying goals and roadblocks, to useful tools to scale DevOps to the next level.Continue Reading

• policy engine

  A policy engine is a software component that allows an organization to create, monitor and enforce rules about how network resources and the organization's data can be accessed.  Continue Reading

• A look inside the DevOps movement

  DevOps is a culture, not a job or procedure for an IT team. That said, there are DevOps tools and organizational strategies to help you get there.Continue Reading

• Virtual security tactics for Type 1 and Type 2 hypervisors

  It's no surprise that Type 1 and Type 2 hypervisors require different security considerations, but we asked an expert to clarify.Continue Reading

• Recognizing and correcting common VM migration problems

  A careful and systematic approach can speed the recognition and correction of common VM migration problems.Continue Reading

• Optimal BIOS settings for server virtualization

  The ideal mix of performance and reliability starts with learning which server BIOS settings you should configure for a virtualized system.Continue Reading

• Quiz: The basics of server virtualization

  Take this quiz to find out how much you know about the basics of server virtualization.Continue Reading

• Best practices for naming VMware virtual machines

  Are you naming your VMware virtual machines in a way that will help you keep track of where they are and what they do? If not, you must read this expert response by Andrew Kutz.Continue Reading