IT systems management and monitoring
Learn about the tools and technologies that enable more visibility into IT infrastructure, integration between IT management tools, tailored alerts for IT professionals and new areas of performance monitoring and management.
Top Stories
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Tip
29 Nov 2022
5 tips for reaching full-stack observability
Achieving full-stack observability remains fraught with challenges, but it's a necessary move for enterprises running complex multi-cloud and hybrid environments. Continue Reading
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Feature
23 Nov 2022
7 reasons why websites crash
There are several reasons a website can crash, including broken code, malicious attacks and hosting errors. Another big reason websites can go down is massive traffic. Continue Reading
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News
17 Nov 2022
Server-side WebAssembly prepares for takeoff in 2023
Server-side WebAssembly is still a work in progress, but engineers at Adobe and BMW say it shows promise for fast, flexible app management among cloud and edge environments. Continue Reading
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Tip
14 Nov 2022
Dissect open source ransomware code to understand an attack
To protect your organization from ransomware, it's helpful to know what goes on behind the scenes. Unpack this ransomware code example to understand and defend against attacks. Continue Reading
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Opinion
10 Nov 2022
3 actions to optimize infrastructure as code initiatives
Learn how to get the most out of IaC and read analyst insights from HashiConf 2022, including Terraform updates and predictions about what's next for observability. Continue Reading
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News
03 Nov 2022
New ServiceNow apps automate organizational productivity
ServiceNow rolled out applications for the Now Platform that assists IT shops with organizational productivity planning and building flexible hybrid work environments. Continue Reading
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Tip
26 Oct 2022
Configure Azure Load Balancer for session persistence
Session persistence ensures users connect to the same server for the duration of their session. Find out how and why to set up session persistence in Azure Load Balancer. Continue Reading
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News
20 Oct 2022
Observability tools add FinOps amid macroeconomic worries
FinOps features added to observability tools from Datadog and Sysdig this week reflect concerns about cloud cost management amid gloomy economic forecasts. Continue Reading
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Tip
17 Oct 2022
What is a Raspberry Pi used for?
IT infrastructure can get expensive fast, making single-board computers like the Raspberry Pi appealing for small projects. Learn what a Raspberry Pi does and explore IT use cases. Continue Reading
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Tip
14 Oct 2022
What DevOps teams need to know about API management
Managing today's sprawling API ecosystems is increasingly daunting for DevOps teams. Learn what to look for when choosing a tool to reduce the complexity of API management. Continue Reading
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Tip
12 Oct 2022
Combat ransomware with continuous backup software, strategy
No IT organization is safe from a ransomware attack, making backup maintenance critical. Learn the pros and cons of continuous backups in terms of costs, storage and recovery time. Continue Reading
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News
06 Oct 2022
ServiceNow buys Era Software to unify observability strategy
ServiceNow's acquisition of Era Software looks to strengthen the company's position in the observability market and make digital transformation projects easier to implement. Continue Reading
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News
06 Oct 2022
Splunk suit claims Cribl built on stolen log management IP
Former Splunk employees and industry watchers reacted to a lawsuit filed by Splunk this week alleging that Cribl's business is based on stolen log management code. Continue Reading
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News
06 Oct 2022
Terraform Cloud continuous validation inches toward GitOps
Terraform is already part of the GitOps workflow for some enterprises, but a new continuous validation feature could increase its overlap with tools such as Argo CD and Flux. Continue Reading
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News
05 Oct 2022
HashiCorp cloud security evolves via Boundary, Consul, Vault
With the debut of Boundary on HashiCorp Cloud Platform, along with updates for Vault and Consul, the vendor lays the foundation for a long-term product strategy. Continue Reading
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Tip
04 Oct 2022
How to stop ransomware: 4 steps to ransomware containment
Even with the best security efforts, ransomware sometimes breaches organizations' defenses -- but IT teams can prevent a ransomware attack from escalating with these four steps. Continue Reading
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News
04 Oct 2022
Dynatrace overhauls AIOps back end, beefs up log analytics
The AIOps vendor unveiled a new approach to data management that has enterprise customers such as BT hopeful it could eliminate the need for separate log analytics products. Continue Reading
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News
29 Sep 2022
Cloud Custodian spans FinOps, SecOps cloud policies
Users such as Avalara and HBO Max use Cloud Custodian to manage cloud cost and security policies, as the project's founders prepare Kubernetes support to rival OPA and Kyverno. Continue Reading
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Tip
28 Sep 2022
Creating an effective change management process for IT ops
Handling changes is challenging in complex virtualized environments with extensive automation and dependencies. Learn what IT teams need to know for effective change management. Continue Reading
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News
20 Sep 2022
Aqua adds software supply chain security to DevSecOps mix
A new software supply chain security module for Aqua's platform correlates runtime security monitoring with pre-deployment scans as IT pros look to merge disparate tools. Continue Reading
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Feature
14 Sep 2022
5 distributed tracing tools to ease application monitoring
DevOps and IT teams can use distributed tracing to monitor microservices and ensure applications run smoothly. Explore five tools to help pinpoint any system issues. Continue Reading
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Tip
09 Sep 2022
Help desk documentation: Best practices for DevOps teams
Creating accurate, up-to-date documentation for help desks is critical to software development and adoption -- but it also poses challenges for DevOps organizations. Continue Reading
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Tip
06 Sep 2022
Prepare for ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure
Prevention and protection are often the focus of ransomware discussions, but IT teams must understand ransomware's effects on operations and how to react in an attack scenario. Continue Reading
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News
30 Aug 2022
VMware Tanzu teases vSphere, PaaS tie-ins -- but doubts linger
VMware said enhanced Kubernetes integrations for vSphere and Cloud Foundry, some in the works for years, will ship soon, but the pending Broadcom deal gives some observers pause. Continue Reading
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Tip
26 Aug 2022
What IT admins should consider when licensing a VM
Licensing for virtual machines can be particularly tricky to navigate for IT admins, who must ensure proper licensing for hosts -- as well as software running inside VMs. Continue Reading
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Tip
25 Aug 2022
Emerging approaches to HCI for IT services
Hyper-converged infrastructure's increased support for containers, composability and hybrid cloud deployments has attracted IT teams with reduced costs and improved efficiency. Continue Reading
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News
11 Aug 2022
Sigstore co-creator talks GitHub, Kubernetes and next steps
Dan Lorenc reflects on a whirlwind year for his open source project, now officially incorporated into Kubernetes and GitHub's npm registry, and his plans for the year to come. Continue Reading
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News
10 Aug 2022
AWS, Splunk and more launch cybersecurity analytics standard
AWS and other IT vendors will start building connectors based on a new standard schema meant to streamline data sharing between cybersecurity tools. Continue Reading
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Feature
04 Aug 2022
Explore the 2022 application performance monitoring market
APM helps organizations get a leg up with insight into customers and applications -- and the market is only going to grow bigger as technology advances and becomes more complex. Continue Reading
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Tutorial
04 Aug 2022
Step-by-step guide to working with Crossplane and Kubernetes
Crossplane is built to extend Kubernetes resources to and from external sources like databases, the cloud or the edge. Try out the tool, and learn its processes with this tutorial. Continue Reading
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Tip
01 Aug 2022
An introduction to SRE documentation best practices
SRE documentation stands distinct from other types of IT documentation, not least because it's a core responsibility for site reliability engineers. What else makes it distinct? Continue Reading
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News
28 Jul 2022
AWS adds Kubernetes security tie-ins amid SecOps tool sprawl
Amazon Detective pulls Kubernetes security data into a broader threat detection and CSPM context as IT pros at large orgs seek integrated multi-cloud security workflows. Continue Reading
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News
28 Jul 2022
How Zoom security incident response survived the pandemic
March 2020's influx of users meant the video conferencing company had to massively scale its incident response operation and the observability infrastructure that fed it, and fast. Continue Reading
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Tip
25 Jul 2022
Observability as code is key to the cloud operating model
Why is everything becoming 'as code'? Believe it or not, it's easier to manage and can save the headache of adopting a new, specialized tool. Use the tools you have for OaC. Continue Reading
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Tip
21 Jul 2022
Patching best practices IT ops and security can agree on
Patches are necessary for maintenance, but can often cause a rift between IT ops and security teams. Follow these best practices to unify expectations and keep tension at bay. Continue Reading
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News
20 Jul 2022
CNCF, CISA address hurdles to SBOM for cloud security
Discussions in the tech industry about how to overcome cloud security challenges for SBOMs include an early-stage CNCF idea that uses a graph database to manage transitory metadata. Continue Reading
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Opinion
13 Jul 2022
IRL: Cisco Live 2022 goes full-stack o11y
Observability, or o11y, looks more deeply and broadly into an IT environment than traditional IT monitoring. At Cisco Live in June, Cisco unveiled plans for full-stack o11y. Continue Reading
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Tip
11 Jul 2022
Adopt a zero-trust framework for a safer IT ecosystem
Zero trust sounds like opposition to DevOps' all-for-one culture model, but it's a safety model organizations should evaluate. Safeguard everything with identity authentication. Continue Reading
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Tip
07 Jul 2022
6 technical debt examples and how to solve them
Technical debt can be critical to an organization's success or failure -- and many don't even know it exists. Discover six examples of where it collects and how to eliminate it. Continue Reading
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Tip
06 Jul 2022
Top observability tools for 2022
Observability tools can give developers and IT administrators better insight on applications to improve delivery, performance and customer experience -- and avoid potential issues. Continue Reading
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News
29 Jun 2022
ServiceNow ITSM users recharge workflows with familiar tools
Digital transformation hasn't required Flex and the city of Santa Monica to replace the IT service management system they already had, and a new IT ops workflow is on the way. Continue Reading
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Answer
24 Jun 2022
Do hypervisors limit vertical scalability?
Knowing hardware maximums and VM limits ensures you don't overload the system. Learn hypervisor scalability limits for Hyper-V, vSphere, ESXi and Red Hat Virtualization. Continue Reading
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Feature
23 Jun 2022
How to approach sustainability in IT operations
Running Kubernetes clusters can add up in cost and energy use. To address the problem, IT teams must know where to look to save energy and set conservation goals. Continue Reading
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Tip
17 Jun 2022
7 principles of observability in modern applications
Organizations must keep these seven principles top of mind when monitoring and organizing data to institute observability practices that resolve problems quickly. Continue Reading
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News
16 Jun 2022
Splunk AIOps development to be led by new 'hands-on' CEO
Splunk product development will be led by the company's new CEO following another high-ranking exec's departure, prompting speculation about the vendor's long-term priorities. Continue Reading
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Tip
16 Jun 2022
Observability vs. monitoring: What's the difference?
Although observability and monitoring are different concepts, they aren't mutually exclusive; both provide IT administrators with valuable insights on their systems. Continue Reading
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News
15 Jun 2022
Splunk Enterprise users push more data into DevSecOps
Splunk shops are expanding their collection of log and observability data to offer developer self-service, correlate ops with security alerts and consolidate edge management. Continue Reading
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Tip
13 Jun 2022
Common use cases for observability
These use cases for observability enable an organization to dig deeper into its systems monitoring and analysis to get ahead of potential issues and alert IT staff. Continue Reading
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Tip
10 Jun 2022
8 observability best practices
Observability enables organizations to analyze data on a continuous basis and act on it quickly. Learn best practices for implementing the technology. Continue Reading
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News
09 Jun 2022
OpenTelemetry inspires CDF's event-driven architecture plan
The CDEvents project and others like it aspire to standardize how CI/CD pipeline tools share data, filling a role similar to OpenTelemetry's in the observability realm. Continue Reading
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Tip
07 Jun 2022
The 3 pillars of observability: Logs, metrics and traces
Logs, metrics and traces offer their individual perspectives on system performance. When analyzed together, they provide a complete picture of your infrastructure. Continue Reading
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Tip
31 May 2022
How to track -- and measure -- technical debt
Technical debt can grow without an organization's knowledge or control -- unless they address it at the start. Here are different methods and tools to track and manage it. Continue Reading
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Tip
26 May 2022
Where the future of AIOps use cases will take IT ops
AIOps is poised for rapid growth and maturity as it becomes accepted in the market. Organizations should draw plans to integrate it into DevOps and systems management. Continue Reading
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Feature
26 May 2022
Whip up recipes with 'Elasticsearch 8.x Cookbook'
Elasticsearch is a powerful and potentially complicated tool. With 'Elasticsearch 8.x Cookbook,' users can split exercises into manageable bites. Continue Reading
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Tip
19 May 2022
Reduce cloud waste with careful DevOps cost management
To keep up with swift business demands and managing the costs of the cloud, organizations can turn to DevOps. Follow these four principles to reduce waste. Continue Reading
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News
18 May 2022
Embattled New Relic cuts Kubernetes observability overhead
New Relic made its Kubernetes observability agent more efficient and added vulnerability management to its APM tool but is struggling financially as open source tools proliferate. Continue Reading
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Tip
17 May 2022
Proactive backup measures simplify virtual server recovery
Backups and CDP are two ways to prevent VM data loss. Backups can quickly restore data despite file recovery limits. CDP stores every piece of data in use but may lag in production. Continue Reading
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Tip
17 May 2022
Demonstrate ROI in IT with these metrics
When IT ops teams must validate a project's worth to the business to receive funding, they have to look beyond general benefits. Here are several metrics that help prove ROI. Continue Reading
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News
12 May 2022
Red Hat CEO: We're going SaaS-first with OpenShift
Red Hat President and CEO Paul Cormier offers a glimpse into the OpenShift roadmap as IT reckons with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and hybrid work. Continue Reading
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News
12 May 2022
Red Hat CEO on IBM, VMware and hybrid cloud coopetition
Two years into his tenure as Red Hat CEO, Paul Cormier discusses his company's relationship with IBM and how it's competing with its own partners in hybrid cloud. Continue Reading
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Conference Coverage
12 May 2022
Red Hat Summit 2022 news and conference guide
Use this Red Hat conference guide to get the latest information from keynote speakers and industry experts on current trends and emerging technologies. Continue Reading
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Tip
10 May 2022
Brace IT ops teams for server end of life
The end of a server's life is rarely an enjoyable time. With it comes reevaluating applications and preparing for migrations. Here's what to keep in mind as the time approaches. Continue Reading
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News
03 May 2022
Atlassian cloud outage postmortem seeks to build back trust
A detailed post-incident analysis of Atlassian's cloud outage last month is prompting both the vendor and its customers to revise and expand their resiliency plans. Continue Reading
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Tutorial
02 May 2022
How to secure passwords with PowerShell
Storing passwords in plain text is bad, but what methods are good? Try one of these approaches, such as secure strings or the SecretManagement module, to encrypt passwords. Continue Reading
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Tip
20 Apr 2022
Basic virsh network commands to know
It's helpful to know how to use virsh commands to manage VMs and virtual networks; some cloud providers don't support Ansible or VirtualBox. Get started with a few commands. Continue Reading
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Tip
19 Apr 2022
The future of OpenTelemetry for observability
To collect and analyze telemetry data from cloud-native apps, many organizations use OpenTelemetry for system observability. Discover its benefits and primary components. Continue Reading
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News
13 Apr 2022
IT pros lambaste Atlassian communication amid cloud outage
IT pros including affected Atlassian customers and prospective cloud users were critical of Atlassian's communications both publicly and privately during its ongoing SaaS outage. Continue Reading
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News
12 Apr 2022
Atlassian cloud outage could take weeks to resolve
As Atlassian's cloud outage neared the one-week mark, the company informed affected customers that it could take up to another two weeks to fully recover. Continue Reading
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Tip
11 Apr 2022
Assign GPUs to virtual machines with VMware vGPU mode
Resource delegation across an IT system can be troublesome, but it doesn't have to be. Follow this guide to assign the right amount of GPU to support virtual machines on VMware. Continue Reading
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Feature
08 Apr 2022
Compare 8 tools for IT monitoring
IT monitoring is a staple in any IT environment. Before deciding what to use, examine all the options available and compare the features, benefits and costs of the top tools. Continue Reading
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News
07 Apr 2022
Atlassian product expansion raises fresh integration questions
Atlassian added analytics and new Atlas and Compass apps to orchestrate work among distributed teams, but some customers still seek deeper integrations between its cloud tools. Continue Reading
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News
05 Apr 2022
New Relic adds SRE features, preps security offering
A New Relic observability update this week reflects the crucial role of SREs in microservices architecture, and there are plans to align with the firm's DevSecOps ambitions. Continue Reading
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Tip
05 Apr 2022
Manage resource use with VMware Horizon application pools
Load balancing is challenging in any environment, but with virtual desktops, uniformity of user experience is high priority. Use VMware Horizon to distribute vital resources. Continue Reading
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News
04 Apr 2022
Can 'shift left' in DevOps pipelines go too far?
More and more functionality, from security to cost management, is now packed into DevOps pipelines -- but if done improperly, "shift left" can create more problems than it solves. Continue Reading
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Tip
31 Mar 2022
Improving open source software governance stature
Open source governance is a vital part of a software project's maturity. Embrace these tools and tips to monitor open source security, use permissions and code quality. Continue Reading
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News
25 Mar 2022
Observability maturity favors data clarity over quantity
Experienced SREs share lessons learned about making effective use of copious amounts of observability data, from pre-collection priorities to data visualization. Continue Reading
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News
23 Mar 2022
NPM 'protestware' raises questions on open source security
The deliberate sabotage of an NPM package to protest war in Ukraine worsens the already complex threat of software supply chain attacks, open source and security experts said. Continue Reading
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News
14 Mar 2022
ServiceNow pricing bucks tradition for incident response
Lightstep Incident Response, a SaaS product, also opens new competitive fronts against PagerDuty, Splunk, Atlassian and other observability vendors. Continue Reading
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Tip
08 Mar 2022
Fixing a critical bug in IT takes coordination and patience
Critical bugs are unavoidable, but IT staff can take measured steps to ease the process. The best approach combines respect for the IT staff and systems with the issue's severity. Continue Reading
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Tutorial
04 Mar 2022
How to use Git to save PowerShell scripts
Git eases scripting by pushing developers into better habits -- especially around change documentation. Get familiar with the technology and how to use it with PowerShell. Continue Reading
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News
03 Mar 2022
New Splunk CEO inherits a company in transition
Splunk is at a crossroads as a new chief executive takes over and the vendor navigates the classic Innovator's Dilemma. Continue Reading
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Tip
28 Feb 2022
Virtual network load balancing tools and tips
There are many virtual load balancer options for IT teams to choose from, and each offers something a little different. Compare four of these tools here. Continue Reading
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News
11 Feb 2022
Observability data finds its way into BizDevOps
The digitize-or-die catalyst of the COVID-19 pandemic forced enterprises toward BizDevOps, and IT observability data has begun to inform cooperation with business users. Continue Reading
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News
10 Feb 2022
Dynatrace hands observability-as-code reins to DevOps
Dynatrace expanded observability-as-code tools to let developers and DevOps engineers determine how production services send feedback via a self-service interface. Continue Reading
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Tip
04 Feb 2022
How to create a runbook template for uniform documentation
To avoid inconsistencies and disaster, implement a runbook template to strengthen your existing runbooks -- this includes detailed and clear steps for structure and organization. Continue Reading
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News
31 Jan 2022
Enterprise AIOps quietly gets real
Machine learning algorithms are being used to automate some aspects of enterprise IT operations, but the original goal of advanced self-healing systems is still a long way off. Continue Reading
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Tip
28 Jan 2022
Manage your IT service contracts to save money
IT contracts amount to paperwork, which IT staff members tend to hate. But it's critical to manage service contracts to prevent runaway bills -- and unused features carrying a price tag. Continue Reading
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Tip
25 Jan 2022
Apply policy-as-code best practices to reap benefits
A spinoff of infrastructure as code, policy as code applies its core principles to policy management and implementation. Here's why -- and the best way -- to adopt it. Continue Reading
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Tip
21 Jan 2022
Discover the benefits of virtualization for ROBO
Virtualization brings cost benefits and saves time for IT teams that oversee ROBOs. Effective implementation requires cloud-based management tools and enough network bandwidth. Continue Reading
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Tip
21 Jan 2022
Xen vs. KVM: What are the differences?
Admins often evaluate Xen vs. KVM as open source options. The main factors to consider in a primary hypervisor are organizational infrastructure and cloud adoption interests. Continue Reading
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News
12 Jan 2022
AIOps vendor BigPanda raises $190 million
The vendor's funding round was led by Advent International and Insight Partners. BigPanda plans to use the funds to build out its machine learning technology and product teams. Continue Reading
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Feature
29 Dec 2021
Anywhere Operations infrastructure enables decentralized IT
The pandemic forced companies into an abrupt hybrid workforce model. Anywhere Operations helps IT organizations support their workers, users and infrastructure -- wherever it is. Continue Reading
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Tip
20 Dec 2021
Establish an effective ransomware playbook
In an attack, an effective playbook offers IT teams a set of processes to identify compromised systems and alert the right individuals to recover the systems. Continue Reading
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Opinion
16 Dec 2021
ITIL vs. DevOps: What path should an enterprise choose?
Frameworks and methodologies must keep pace with technology stacks. ITIL fell too far behind between the release of ITIL 3 and ITIL 4, but there might be a middle ground. Continue Reading
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Tip
11 Nov 2021
6 common IT problems in business and how to navigate them
Remote work has created an array of new problems to address for business operation and support. Tackling them might be a little tricky. Continue Reading
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Tip
10 Nov 2021
Update incident response runbooks to meet new requirements
Incident response runbooks provide IT teams with the information needed to resolve common and serious incidents. Break a runbook down into flows to construct documentation. Continue Reading
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Tip
08 Nov 2021
Spreading the DevOps observability responsibility across IT
In a DevOps environment, who oversees observability? Learn how to divide IT observability tasks and management, starting with a solid communication and collaboration strategy. Continue Reading
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Tip
01 Nov 2021
Dark data discovery: How and where to find it
Before an organization can use dark data, it must find it. Here's how an enterprise can build a plan to locate, use and manage dark data and overcome its challenges. Continue Reading
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News
21 Oct 2021
Splunk pricing, observability updates push cloud shift
Some Splunk customers are newly receptive to the vendor's cloud push in a pandemic-stricken economy, and it's piled on further pricing incentives to sweeten the deal. Continue Reading
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Tip
18 Oct 2021
Consider Grafana vs. Prometheus for your time-series tools
Grafana and Prometheus both monitor logs, manage reports and store time-series data -- but differ significantly. Discover their pros and cons with these examples and use cases. Continue Reading
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Tip
12 Oct 2021
How machine learning strengthens incident management
As systems failures pile up, machine learning stands as an alternative to improve response quality and save money. Learn the benefits and drawbacks to the approach. Continue Reading
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Tip
21 Sep 2021
How to mine dark data with machine learning and AI
Machine learning and AI can transform unstructured dark data into valuable business insights. Learn how to process dark data and use the information to your advantage. Continue Reading