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• 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

• IT incident report

  An IT incident report is documentation of an event that has disrupted the normal operation of some IT system (or that had the potential to do so) and how that situation was handled. Continue Reading

• Definitions to Get Started

  • software asset management (SAM)
  • event-driven application
  • golden image
  • guest virtual machine (guest VM)

  • DevSecOps
  • Kubernetes operator
  • composable infrastructure
  • serverless computing

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• 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

• Git

  Git is a free and open source distributed code management and version control system that is distributed under the GNU General Public License version 2.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

• ChatOps

  ChatOps is the use of chat clients, chatbots and real-time communication tools to facilitate how software development and operation tasks are communicated and executed.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

• rolling deployment

  A rolling deployment is the installation of software updates on one server or server subset at a time, rather than updating all servers or server subsets at the same time.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

• IT performance management (information technology performance management)

  IT performance management includes purchasing decisions, the standardization of IT equipment and guidance on capital and human resources. The goal is to ensure that key performance indicators (KPIs), service levels and budgets are in compliance with...Continue Reading

• disaggregated server

  A disaggregated server is a server that breaks up components and resources into subsystems. Disaggregated servers can be adapted to changing storage or compute loads as needed without replacing or disrupting an entire server for an extended period ...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

• IT operations management (ITOM)

  IT operations management (ITOM) is the administrative area involving technology infrastructure components and the requirements of individual applications, services, storage, networking and connectivity elements within an organization.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

• log management

  Log management is the collective processes and policies used to administer and facilitate the generation, transmission, analysis, storage, archiving and ultimate disposal of the large volumes of log data created within an information system.Continue Reading

• Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)

  Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is a management and orchestration system for Docker containers and container clusters that run within Google's public cloud services.Continue Reading

• Open Container Initiative

  The Open Container Initiative, formerly known as the Open Container Project, is a Linux Foundation project designed to establish common open standards for container platforms.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

• friendly name

  A friendly name is the title given to an application file, certificate or other IT asset so that a person easily understands and remembers it.Continue Reading

• phased rollout

  Phased rollout is a hardware or software migration method that involves incremental implementation of a new system. A phased migration might be conducted either by implementing the entire new system in some locations or business units or by ...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

• memory paging

  Memory paging is a memory management technique for controlling how a computer's memory resources are shared.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

• STONITH (Shoot The Other Node In The Head)

  STONITH (Shoot The Other Node In The Head) is a Linux service for maintaining the integrity of nodes in a high-availability (HA) cluster. Continue Reading

• hardware emulation

  Hardware emulation is the use of one hardware device to mimic the function of another hardware device.  Microsoft's Hyper-V includes hardware emulation because the Integration Services can only be installed on certain guest operating systems.Continue Reading

• virtual file system (VFS)

  A virtual file system (VFS) is programming that forms an interface between an operating system's kernel and a more concrete file system. 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

• bare-metal provisioning

  Bare-metal provisioning is the process of installing an operating system (OS) or Type 1 hypervisor directly on a computer's hardware. Continue Reading

• VMDK file (virtual machine disk file)

  VMware Virtual Machine Disk File (VMDK) is a format specification for virtual machine (VM) files. A file with a .VMDK file extension is essentially a complete and independent virtual machine.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

• AMD-V (AMD virtualization)

  AMD-V (AMD virtualization) is a set of hardware extensions for the X86 processor architecture. Advanced Micro Dynamics (AMD) designed the extensions to perform repetitive tasks normally performed by software and improve resource use and virtual ...Continue Reading

• event stream processing (ESP)

  Event stream processing (ESP) is a software capacity designed to support implementation of event-driven architectures... (Continued)Continue Reading

• early adopter

  An early adopter is a person who embraces new technology before most other people do. Early adopters tend to buy or try out new hardware items and programs, and new versions of existing programs, sooner than most of their peers. According to a ...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

• PowerPC

  PowerPC is a microprocessor architecture that was developed jointly by Apple, IBM, and Motorola.Continue Reading

• MIPS (million instructions per second)

  The number of MIPS (million instructions per second) is a general measure of computing performance and, by implication, the amount of work a larger computer can do.Continue Reading