Real-Time Performance Monitoring and Management
This resource center on application and infrastructure performance monitoring and management gathers expert information and advice from peers on ensuring the health of a company's IT portfolio. Real-time IT dashboards offer feedback for Ops teams to help guide app code updates, plan IT infrastructure capacity, pinpoint problem areas and improve user experience.
Top Stories
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Tip
27 Mar 2023
9 end-user experience monitoring tools to know
The end-user experience monitoring market is chock-full of options that can be confusing to keep track of. Take a look at nine EUEM tools IT professionals should know about. Continue Reading
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Feature
28 Feb 2023
Top benefits of SOAR tools, plus potential pitfalls to consider
To ensure successful adoption, IT leaders need to understand the benefits of SOAR tools, as well as potential disadvantages. Explore pros, cons and how to measure SOAR success. 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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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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Answer
10 Feb 2022
Application vs. network load balancing: What's the difference?
Network load balancing and application load balancing both handle traffic requests. But they process and direct those requests with different levels of speed and efficiency. 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
21 Dec 2021
12 DevOps KPIs you should track to gauge improvement
What's missing from your DevOps workflow? Cold, hard, impartial numbers. Track these key metrics to ensure DevOps processes achieve stated goals. 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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News
19 Nov 2021
LogicMonitor introduces centralized log management platform
The data observability platform vendor's new platform enables enterprises to use AIOps and automation to find anomalies with their IT system, report them and head off widespread problems. 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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Feature
01 Nov 2021
Vantage DX brings digital experience monitoring to Teams
Martello Technologies' Vantage DX platform has won our Network Innovation Award for its ability to proactively monitor Microsoft Teams UX in hybrid work environments. Continue Reading
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News
21 Oct 2021
Splunk SOAR low-code tool bridges IT automation gaps
Splunk's security orchestration tool bolstered low-code integration features this week, which in the case of Lockheed Martin eased self-healing IT infrastructure tasks as well. 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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News
23 Sep 2021
Logistics firm refreshes SecOps, replaces EDR with XDR
A refresh of SecOps tools led Flexport to Uptycs, enabling the firm to centralize security monitoring and incident response for endpoints and cloud resources. Continue Reading
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News
26 Aug 2021
Observability vendors push further into SecOps territory
Cybersecurity market consolidation continues, as observability players push beyond security monitoring and into enforcement via XDR and SOAR products. Continue Reading
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Tip
12 Aug 2021
An introduction to eBPF and where it shines
With eBPF, developers can customize Linux OS software without changing the kernel. Discover the utility's basics and how it can be used for networking, monitoring and security. Continue Reading
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Feature
05 Aug 2021
An A-to-Z guide to a microservices architecture transition
This comprehensive guide to microservices explains everything: comparisons to monolithic architectures, the role of APIs and containers, and design and deployment best practices. Continue Reading
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Tip
15 Jul 2021
Navigate hybrid cloud observability with 3 techniques
Observability isn't just monitoring, and hybrid cloud environments have unique management demands. Use these techniques to get the best out of your organization's ecosystem. Continue Reading
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Feature
12 Jul 2021
Best practices for defining a cloud monitoring strategy
Uptime. Downtime. Security protections. There are plenty of things to watch for, so an effective cloud monitoring strategy requires an organization to set some priorities. Continue Reading
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Tip
15 Jun 2021
Evaluate 3 application performance monitoring strategies
There is more than one approach to performance monitoring, and each comes with its own advantages. Compare these three strategies to find the right fit for your organization. Continue Reading
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Tip
27 May 2021
AI augments capacity planning with machine learning smarts
With lower costs and better task optimization, AIOps can revolutionize IT infrastructures. Learn why this approach is a must-have for enterprises. Continue Reading
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News
26 May 2021
New Relic streamlines DevOps monitoring tools amid upheavals
Amid price reductions, executive changes and layoffs, New Relic hones ease of use for its DevOps monitoring tools in a bid to boost its cachet among software engineers. Continue Reading
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Tutorial
09 Apr 2021
Kubernetes basics: A step-by-step implementation tutorial
This Kubernetes implementation example demonstrates how to create a single-node cluster on Windows 10 to get a containerized application up and running. Continue Reading
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Tip
08 Apr 2021
Master containerized microservices monitoring
Before IT teams can enjoy the benefits that containers and microservices bring, they must tackle several monitoring hurdles first. Continue Reading
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News
22 Mar 2021
Nordic bank fights money launderers with log analytics
The IT team at Lunar created an interface into its log analytics system for the bank's fraud investigators, which helped uncover specific data about questionable accounts. Continue Reading
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Tip
17 Mar 2021
Tackle Kubernetes observability with the right metrics
Observability is a natural extension of IT monitoring -- and container environments only get more complicated. Use the right metrics for the greatest return. Continue Reading
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News
11 Mar 2021
Mendix dumps cluttered DevOps monitoring tools for Datadog
The IT teams that run Mendix PaaS sped up incident response by tossing out a confusing mix of DevOps monitoring tools and settling on one vendor. Continue Reading
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Tip
25 Feb 2021
Improve help desk workflows via stronger staff support
Subject experts can be expensive to retain on the help desk, but they're vital to success. Balance training and task delegation to ensure staff engagement and growth. Continue Reading
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News
24 Feb 2021
Observability updates target DevOps pipelines
LogicMonitor's Airbrake acquisition and a new Dynatrace product strengthen correlations between code releases and IT infrastructure performance. Continue Reading
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News
12 Feb 2021
Dynatrace expands observability tools with an eye toward BI
With new features and roadmap plans, Dynatrace looked past IT observability toward becoming a broader business intelligence platform. Continue Reading
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Feature
28 Jan 2021
IT observability and monitoring illuminate application data
Observability extends beyond traditional IT monitoring tools and processes to arm DevOps teams with the level of insight they need. Continue Reading
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Tip
07 Jan 2021
4 monitoring and alerting best practices for IT ops
Monitoring is vital in modern IT environments, but the variety of metrics to track can swiftly overtake admins' capacity -- and sanity. Continue Reading
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Tip
22 Dec 2020
How AI in the help desk transforms IT support
For IT help desk staff, it should no longer be a question of whether AI will transform their jobs -- but when. Prepare for changes around ticket workflows, troubleshooting and more. Continue Reading
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News
16 Dec 2020
SolarWinds attack stumps SecOps experts
An attack on U.S. government agencies via vendor software updates illuminates a SecOps frontier where users must figure out how to reliably evaluate third-party dependencies. Continue Reading
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Tip
20 Nov 2020
Boost Windows Server performance with these 10 tips
A small investment in time to execute these Windows Server performance tuning tips and techniques can optimize server workloads for more satisfactory results. Continue Reading
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Feature
20 Nov 2020
The evolution and history of software configuration management
IT and software configuration management challenge tech professionals. It's been that way for decades, and best practices continue to evolve. Continue Reading
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Tip
20 Nov 2020
These IT automation scripts take little effort and save a lot of work
Doing some IT tasks by hand is doing them wrong. Whether to provision components, research an issue or report on performance, IT automation scripts are powerful and easy to write. Continue Reading
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News
18 Nov 2020
Observability standards emerge as Kubernetes matures
Enterprise IT pros have tackled how to handle Kubernetes deployments. Now, they're relying on open source observability standards to help keep cloud-native apps healthy. Continue Reading
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Answer
12 Nov 2020
What are the cost considerations when buying AIOps tools?
AIOps tools can reduce overhead for IT staff, but first, enterprises must decide how they will use the tool to know which features to budget for. Continue Reading
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Tip
06 Nov 2020
Bolster remote IT management with these security tips
The remote management of IT systems has become essential -- but admins need to uphold that responsibility in a way that doesn't compromise security. Continue Reading
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Tip
05 Nov 2020
Remote possibilities: Out-of-band management admin options
COVID-19 puts added strain on administrators who need to compensate for lack of personnel in data centers, which leads to the need for a remote access strategy. Continue Reading
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News
29 Oct 2020
Observability blitz intensifies with Grafana, AppDynamics
Grafana and AppDynamics are the latest monitoring vendors to try to capitalize on the hype around observability, as users face more complex choices than ever in this market. Continue Reading
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News
22 Oct 2020
Splunk Observability integrates acquisitions, boosts AIOps
Splunk opened the product update floodgates this week with a new Observability Suite that integrates recent acquisitions, enhanced AIOps and the purchase of two more companies. Continue Reading
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Tip
12 Oct 2020
Compare runbooks vs. playbooks for IT process documentation
Despite some contextual differences, runbooks and playbooks serve a similar purpose in the enterprise: to document critical processes. Continue Reading
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News
08 Oct 2020
Sumo Logic ships tools for AWS, Kubernetes observability
Sumo Logic has rolled out AWS and Kubernetes observability tools with automated root cause analysis. Users say they offer easy setup at an affordable price. Continue Reading
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News
07 Oct 2020
Oracle launches Cloud Observability and Management Platform
Oracle's new Cloud Observability and Management Platform seeks to appeal to customers with complex multi-cloud and on-premises environments. Continue Reading
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Feature
23 Sep 2020
Monitor VDI with these top tools
VDI monitoring helps IT pros get to the bottom of end-user experience issues. Understand what to monitor, and review some of the top VDI tools on the market. Continue Reading
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Tip
17 Sep 2020
6 steps for effective real-time monitoring across hybrid IT
Infrastructure monitoring can span multiple stakeholders, data center sites and metrics. Use the five W's to establish a comprehensive monitoring strategy. Continue Reading
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News
03 Sep 2020
Kubernetes monitoring eases migration, security at scale
IT pros in high-scale environments have found that moving to Kubernetes-based infrastructure called for a fresh approach to monitoring for performance and security. Continue Reading
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Tutorial
26 Aug 2020
Kubernetes performance testing tutorial: Load test a cluster
Follow along step by step to run Kubernetes performance tests with Metrics Server and Horizontal Pod Autoscaler. This tutorial works for cloud-, data center- or locally hosted clusters. Continue Reading
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News
21 Aug 2020
OpenTelemetry aids distributed tracing, Kubernetes monitoring
OpenTelemetry combines multiple CNCF observability projects, as well as multiple enterprise data collection mechanisms, simplifying Kubernetes monitoring. Continue Reading
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Tip
21 Aug 2020
How to build a successful IT service desk
The IT service desk has a lot to manage. With a strong foundation and the right steps in place to handle issues, it can take on anything users throw at it. Continue Reading
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News
30 Jul 2020
New Relic pricing plummets with product overhaul
New Relic dropped pricing for a newly unified set of IT monitoring tools, as it faces fresh competitive pressures and users adjust to cloud-native complexity. Continue Reading
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Feature
06 Jul 2020
Modern IT KPIs emphasize cloud, DevOps and user experience
When it comes to KPIs, IT ops teams have typically prioritized process-centric metrics, but recent technical and cultural shifts have started to change that. Continue Reading
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Tip
02 Jul 2020
Explore common machine learning use cases in IT operations
Machine learning is a hot topic with use cases that span IT and the business. Learn how IT operations teams most commonly apply the technology -- from help desk response to gauging end-user satisfaction. Continue Reading
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News
02 Jul 2020
AIOps tools expand as users warm slowly to autoremediation
AIOps tool vendors keep expanding the environments they can support with automated remediation features, but users are taking their time to move beyond root cause analysis. Continue Reading
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Tip
26 Jun 2020
5 critical help desk KPIs to track and manage
IT operations teams shouldn't view help desk KPIs in isolation, but rather as a set of closely related metrics that work together to track the user experience and costs. Continue Reading
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News
25 Jun 2020
Puppet unveils event-driven IT automation plans
Puppet's IT automation system Relay, now in beta, offers an event-driven take on IT workflows, but the vendor must clearly establish the product's value over competing DevOps systems. Continue Reading
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Tip
25 Jun 2020
Evaluate 3 IT ops use cases for the Aternity monitoring tool
Operations teams can use data from an IT environment to detect, prevent and remediate issues. With Aternity, they can specifically track metrics and manage tasks related to user experience. Continue Reading
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Feature
17 Jun 2020
Lessons learned: Strategies to adjust IT operations in a crisis
Curious how other businesses adjusted their IT operations strategies in light of COVID-19? Look back at these five recent SearchITOperations news stories to find out. Continue Reading
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Feature
12 Jun 2020
ServiceNow vs. Jira Service Desk for ITSM workflow management
ServiceNow and Jira Service Desk are both big names in ITSM, but which one is better for your workflow management needs? Compare the two tools in terms of flexibility, integration support and more. Continue Reading
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Feature
11 Jun 2020
The definitive guide to enterprise IT monitoring
This comprehensive IT monitoring guide examines strategies to track systems, from servers to software UIs, and how to choose tools for every monitoring need. Continue Reading
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News
05 Jun 2020
New ServiceNow workflows extend into more markets
ServiceNow continues to direct its workflows toward vertical markets with new offerings for telecommunications, financial services and healthcare markets. Continue Reading
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Tutorial
04 Jun 2020
How to set up Prometheus for Kubernetes monitoring
Prometheus enables IT teams to automate and quickly configure infrastructure monitoring with open source tools natively in Kubernetes. Follow this tutorial to get started. Continue Reading
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Feature
29 May 2020
How to integrate DevOps into an IT monitoring strategy
When it comes to IT monitoring, a DevOps toolchain presents opportunities and challenges. Follow best practices to ensure your teams see and fix problems appropriately. Continue Reading
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Tip
27 May 2020
Get started with threshold monitoring
IT monitoring doesn't have to be difficult to set up and use. Learn how to set thresholds and dashboards, know when and how to escalate responses, and keep IT systems humming along. Continue Reading
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Tip
26 May 2020
Evaluate Grafana vs. Kibana for IT data visualization
Take a deep dive into how Grafana and Kibana can help IT admins visualize critical system data through this database monitoring example. Continue Reading
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Tip
22 May 2020
How to respond to 3 common IT alerts
When those IT alerts pop up, the ops team needs to respond. Take steps to deal with the problems -- but also look out for possible sources of the trouble. Continue Reading
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Photo Story
22 May 2020
5 IT automation examples that ops teams should implement today
IT automation use cases are plentiful and highly variegated -- but organizations should emphasize these five examples in their roadmaps. Continue Reading
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Tip
19 May 2020
Container auditing best practices for large-scale deployments
Container auditing and reporting are essential security and compliance measures in a production environment. Apply these practices to uncover abnormalities, control user access and choose the right tool. Continue Reading
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Opinion
19 May 2020
Forget monitoring alerts, turn to IT root cause analysis
Alerts get your attention, but they don't always tell you where the core of a problem is to be found. Maybe it's time to shift your IT management strategy. Continue Reading
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Tip
19 May 2020
6 quick server troubleshooting tips
Understand, communicate, monitor, check logs, ask for support. Follow these guidelines, and make troubleshooting server problems quick and easy. Continue Reading
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Tip
18 May 2020
How to build a network monitoring business case
As network teams construct a business case for a new network monitoring tool, they should include a cost comparison of alternative tools and a strong defense for the selected tool. Continue Reading
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Tip
18 May 2020
How -- and why -- to add SolarWinds modules
SolarWinds is known for its capabilities in network monitoring, but flexible modules give IT operations staff the ability to monitor systems far and wide. Continue Reading
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News
15 May 2020
Essential firms forge on with AIOps for incident response
AIOps systems for incident response have helped a bank and a provider of care services in the home streamline operations amid a pandemic emergency and an ongoing IT skills shortage. Continue Reading
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Tip
13 Apr 2020
Improve container monitoring with these strategies and tools
Containerized infrastructure significantly expands the number of available metrics within an IT environment. Take a layered approach to container monitoring and lean heavily on automation. Continue Reading
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Tip
10 Apr 2020
Container logging tips for IT troubleshooting and more
Don't just leave container log data on a host and forget about it. Instead, establish a detailed strategy to index, search, correlate and analyze that data. Continue Reading
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Feature
09 Apr 2020
Find value in real-time application monitoring
What started as a way for administrators to know if a system went offline has morphed into a broad combination of monitoring that involves admins, engineers and operations staff. Continue Reading
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Tip
08 Apr 2020
4 components of a disaster recovery plan to prepare for a crisis
IT teams must take a proactive approach to crisis management and disaster recovery. Use these four guidelines around communication, monitoring and more to build a plan that works. Continue Reading
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Tip
06 Apr 2020
Tap into these dark data use cases for IT ops and the business
Untapped data sources cause enterprises to forgo a wealth of information that benefits both IT operations and the business. Here's why -- and how -- to shine a light on dark data. Continue Reading
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Tip
03 Apr 2020
Discover how Catchpoint helps end-user experience monitoring
The Catchpoint end-user experience monitoring tool supports several notable integrations with enterprise software and monitoring capabilities such as real user monitoring. Continue Reading
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News
31 Mar 2020
Log monitoring refinements control data growth, costs
Whether it's pricing according to access frequency or reducing the volume of logs sent by IT infrastructure, fresh IT monitoring approaches make cloud-native visibility manageable. Continue Reading
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Tip
30 Mar 2020
What to expect as AI for DevOps advances in the enterprise
While still an emerging practice, the use of artificial intelligence in DevOps shops will have major implications on monitoring, cost optimization and more. Continue Reading
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Tip
24 Mar 2020
How to set up a chaos engineering game day
Is it fun to spend the day breaking stuff in a war room with your coworkers? Of course, but more than that, it's vital to the security and stability of certain applications. Continue Reading
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Feature
06 Mar 2020
Compare Grafana vs. Datadog for IT monitoring
Before committing to either Grafana or Datadog, understand how the two monitoring tools compare in terms of supported data sources, visualization features and more. Continue Reading
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News
05 Mar 2020
Biometrics firm fights monitoring overload with log analytics
Log analytics tools have become more popular as enterprise IT pros contend with complex, continuous microservices application deployments at scale. Continue Reading
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Tutorial
21 Feb 2020
Use this Nagios monitoring tutorial for proactive IT monitoring
Learn how to install and run Nagios to monitor your organization's IT assets. Follow these steps so you're prepared to catch problems before they get out of hand. Continue Reading
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News
12 Feb 2020
Grafana Loki users reap log data savings, with tradeoffs
Grafana Loki won't replace advanced log analytics tools, but it may be a boon for shops that want to collect massive amounts of log data for troubleshooting applications. Continue Reading
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Tip
10 Feb 2020
Learn how New Relic works, and when to use it for IT monitoring
New Relic is one of many tools that can help an IT team track application performance and health. Before adoption, understand primary use cases and SaaS installation requirements. Continue Reading
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News
07 Feb 2020
Dynatrace deepens AIOps ties with Kubernetes monitoring
Dynatrace has expanded the number of metrics it can feed into its Davis AIOps engine from Kubernetes infrastructure, thereby enhancing autoremediation features for container workloads. Continue Reading
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Tip
06 Feb 2020
Apply the K-means clustering algorithm for IT performance monitoring
Modern machine learning frameworks reduce the heavy lifting in IT performance monitoring. Follow this example, using Apache Mesos and the K-means clustering algorithm, to learn the basics. Continue Reading
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Tip
29 Jan 2020
3 ways to react to an IT system failure avalanche
In complex IT infrastructures, a system or resource failure can spur follow-up issues. Compare three approaches to prevent these dreaded domino effects and reach the root of the problem. Continue Reading
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News
28 Jan 2020
Cisco folds AppDynamics AIOps into its infrastructure tools
Cisco shops might welcome new integrations between AppDynamics AIOps tools and Cisco Intersight management software, but whether they will draw in other users is uncertain. Continue Reading
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Feature
24 Jan 2020
IT incident management best practices to minimize disruptions
IT issues can come out of nowhere, but an incident response plan can guide teams through troubled times. Follow these best practices to optimize each part of the plan. Continue Reading
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Tip
22 Jan 2020
Overcome these challenges to detect anomalies in IT monitoring
Faster and more accurate anomaly detection is a major benefit of machine learning in IT systems monitoring -- but it's not something that enterprises can achieve overnight. Continue Reading
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News
17 Jan 2020
AIOps exec bets on incident response market shakeup
Resolve Systems, under a newly appointed CEO, will soon roll out a new product based on its FixStream acquisition that combines AIOps and IT automation. Continue Reading
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Tip
15 Jan 2020
Gain deeper IT insight with machine learning for log analysis
As the log analysis tool market evolves, machine learning plays an increasing role in helping IT teams discover significant anomalies and outliers in their data. Continue Reading
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News
13 Jan 2020
SecOps and IT ops merge revs IT monitoring platform rivalry
Enterprises want consolidated monitoring platforms for SecOps and IT ops data. Here's how Sumo Logic plans to compete in that market in 2020 with IP from its JASK acquisition. Continue Reading
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News
07 Jan 2020
Alaska Airlines plans to switch IT onto autopilot with AIOps
Alaska Airlines' e-commerce division will chart a course for hands-off IT ops and a sharper focus on strategic SRE duties through AIOps tools. Continue Reading