Topics Archive

The future of composable infrastructure and virtualization

Composable infrastructures -- frameworks of compute, storage and network resource services -- will still make use of virtualization to run applications. Continue Reading

Create and configure a shielded VM in Hyper-V

In just a few easy steps, including installing a Host Guardian Service server and creating certificates, you can shield a Hyper-V VM to protect it against access or tampering. Continue Reading

Rev up IT with continuous delivery and DevOps

IT operations is on the software team with continuous delivery, continuous deployment and DevOps. Done right, the collaboration in tools and culture produces better software faster than previous methodologies. Continue Reading

Atlassian shops size up OpsGenie buy, Jira for incident management

Atlassian snapped up OpsGenie and rolled out Jira Ops as part of a shift in focus to IT incident management. Users will follow the strategy cautiously. Continue Reading

Build a secure Docker host environment on Linux systems

In the cutting-edge technology world of containers, don't lose sight of the fundamental security best practices that protect workloads and minimize attack surfaces. Continue Reading

Third-party Kubernetes tools hone performance for database containerization

Kubernetes tools look to carve out a market niche in database containerization with performance monitoring and quality-of-service management features. Continue Reading

Kubernetes community takes over massive Google test bed

Google will donate $9 million in GCP resources and undergo a three-year handoff process to put a massive Kubernetes test bed under CNCF control. Users wonder, what happens next. Continue Reading

Application performance metrics and tools fit for modern architectures

Distributed applications and cloud hosting have led to new application interactions and KPI categories -- and different performance concerns need different metrics. Continue Reading

Get into DevOps with cross-functional skills and culture

There's no well-traveled path to a DevOps career. But it's not rocket science. Learn how to explain DevOps and master skills, such as CI/CD, and you'll be on your way. Continue Reading

Open source hypervisor technical support, update considerations

Even though open source software itself is completely free to obtain and use, effective hypervisor technical support options for production environments might cost money. Continue Reading

Build an IT maintenance plan around infrastructure needs

Don't delay maintenance reboots. It's easy to forget to reboot hosts, tools and drivers, so use a reboot schedule to ensure your infrastructure remains functional. Continue Reading

Free Kubernetes security tools broaden enterprise choices

Kubernetes security tools give enterprise IT shops strategic approaches to container security that go beyond shoring up individual container instances. Continue Reading

VMware vSphere update tweaks HTML5 client, bundles AppDefense

Hoping to keep its broad base of vSphere users engaged, VMware debuted an updated version of the virtualization offering and a version bundled with AppDefense. Continue Reading

Is the XenServer hypervisor worth the cost?

There is a free, easy-to-obtain version of Citrix XenServer, but additional features and commercial support from Citrix -- which some shops might need -- require a license. Continue Reading

Continuous delivery pipeline tools build IT efficiency

The range of CD tools available is as varied as the organizations that need them. Choose between three primary tool set constructions to suit your organization's structure. Continue Reading

The DevOps hiring process should be audition-based

How do we ensure competence? Certification is now a big business, but the way we test a 6 year old should differ from the way we test a doctoral candidate or DevOps engineer. Continue Reading

Evaluate Oracle VM Server as a potential hypervisor

Oracle VM provides useful features such as high availability and live migration, but it's important for admins to size the server for the workloads it's intended to host. Continue Reading

Red Hat Virtualization hypervisor adoption considerations

IT admins considering Red Hat Virtualization might inadvertently overlook certain system requirements or forget to consider whether they need support. Continue Reading

Most jobs in the IT industry pay well, but skills matter

A survey of tech professionals identified which IT skills are most in demand. Find out how salaries compare from region to region, and how expertise affects compensation. Continue Reading

Emotional intelligence in the workplace makes a difference

Technologists need to know people as well as they know their craft. Applying emotional intelligence in the workplace helps convey ideas and change organizations. Continue Reading

Big data processing could be the way all data is processed

Some organizations take their time with new technologies to let first adopters suffer the growing pains. But there's no treading water in the big data stream; the current won't wait. Continue Reading

Benefits of infrastructure as code range from speed to scaling

Provisioning large numbers of servers takes time. One of infrastructure as code's benefits is that once you declare a desired state, code maintains that environment with ease. Continue Reading

Big data processing could be the way all data is processed

 Continue Reading

Benefits of infrastructure as code range from speed to scaling

 Continue Reading

Most jobs in the IT industry pay well, but skills matter

 Continue Reading

Emotional intelligence in the workplace makes a difference

 Continue Reading

Microservices challenges fluster even the sharpest IT shops

Freed from the needs of a large and traditionally structured application, a development team working in the microservices architecture builds apps via services that can be more easily isolated, manipulated, updated and fixed. Still, developers and IT professionals should expect to encounter some microservices challenges as they make the switch.

One of the reasons IT organizations turn to the microservices architecture is to free themselves of the many unavoidable burdens inherent in monolithic applications. When done well, building in modules can greatly ease those burdens.

Among the biggest microservices challenges is the need to resist those habits formed when working in more traditional architectures. Those bygone ideas simply won't mix with the requirements of microservices. Mistakes and those old ways of thinking will get in the way of results and possibly even sink a microservices project.

Dependencies and configurations are too easily mishandled -- especially if development teams approach them with traditional and outdated IT mindsets. Some organizations will stumble in their microservices efforts by creating a microservice that's simply too small for the task at hand; others will encounter trouble by building them too large.

There is plenty that can go wrong when you are getting started in microservices. Bad things will result not necessarily from technical failings, but from a failure of imagination and plain old inertia. Applying the wrong thinking to microservices is, in effect, how an organization inadvertently sabotages an initiative.

TechTarget's Jan Stafford delves into these microservices challenges with her feature story in this issue of Modern Stack. She talks with experts about where these projects go wrong and how the missteps can be avoided.

Also in the new Modern Stack are features and columns that explore the role emotional intelligence plays in organizational change, how geography and specialty affect a tech worker's salary, why infrastructure as code deserves a closer look, how advances in big data may punish those who wait too long to get started, and why the pace of cloud innovation may begin to slow as hyperscale providers focus more on keeping their enterprise customers happy.

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How a domain-specific language affects configuration management

Learn a domain-specific language -- it's easier than French! A DSL's programming style enables administrators to operate with more precision and flexibility, but don't write off YAML yet. Continue Reading

SCVMM PowerShell commands for server health checks

Perform regular SCVMM health checks -- such as monitoring clustered shared volume utilization and host participation in SCVMM placement -- using simple PowerShell commands and scripts. Continue Reading

Identify mutable and immutable infrastructures in action

Change is constant in app code, server configuration and VM security policies alike. IT orgs enforce consistency while embracing change with immutable infrastructure. So what does it look like? Continue Reading

Let's develop best practices for security in DevOps

We've turned to DevOps and microservices because they've made it faster and easier to release and update applications. It's past time we developed security practices for them. Continue Reading

IT incident management best practices -- and myths that scare you away

When IT activity inevitably goes awry, admins need to know the best course of action to take to ensure accountability, efficiency and accuracy -- and not get lost in myths. Continue Reading

XCP-ng offers new hypervisor option for cost-conscious shops

A new open source fork of Citrix XenServer includes many features proprietary hypervisors offer, but it's not likely to displace market leaders any time soon. Continue Reading

Network capacity planning in the age of unpredictable workloads

When you manage network spaces carefully and make informed choices, the flexible, easily scaled workloads of distributed public and hybrid cloud applications become manageable. Continue Reading

Manage VMM library servers with PowerShell

Using PowerShell commands can save you time when searching for all the shares on a VMM library server, exporting and importing VMM library resources, and checking for VMM templates. Continue Reading

Troubleshoot common VM live migration errors

VM live migration errors in Hyper-V include connection issues, virtual switch mismatches and incompatible hardware. Learn more about these common errors and how to resolve them. Continue Reading

AIOps platforms delve deeper into root cause analysis

AIOps tools offer fresh insights into the root cause of IT incidents, triangulating between application outages, code changes and infrastructure issues. Continue Reading

Adopt these continuous delivery principles organization-wide

Follow these principles to advocate for, adopt and adapt continuous delivery. The work won't always be easy, but well-conceived continuous delivery pays off for everyone involved. Continue Reading

Should you virtualize an edge computing server?

The need to pack a lot of compute power into a small package leaves many wondering whether containers and serverless frameworks could replace virtualization at the edge. Continue Reading

Application performance tuning tips and tricks

Tune hardware, resource allocations and prioritizations to make applications perform their best. Just don't do it without tracking the results. Continue Reading

Write cloud-config automation scripts into the configuration file

Bypass the need for excess infrastructure, and put off the automation languages seminar -- you need to configure the cloud now. Fortunately, you can still do that. Continue Reading

Enterprise IT struggles with DevOps for mainframe

Mainframe automation tools are nascent, and many mainframe experts are reluctant to embrace DevOps. But large enterprises must address legacy platforms to realize app delivery goals. Continue Reading

SCVMM vs. Hyper-V Manager: Which tasks are best suited to each?

Although SCVMM offers capabilities far exceeding those of Hyper-V Manager, Hyper-V Manager has the advantage of being simpler to use and not requiring an additional license. Continue Reading

IT pros debate upstream vs. packaged Kubernetes implementations

As IT vendors race to package Kubernetes implementations, their fiercest competition is not from other vendors, but from pure upstream code and DIY container orchestration projects. Continue Reading

Support a guest security policy with endpoint hardening

Guest security relies not only on a series of tools and best practices, but also on a security mindset that starts with endpoint hardening and follows the deployment of every VM. Continue Reading

Can container communication cross over to noncontainerized apps?

Can an application have Python as a container, run SQL queries on an external Microsoft SQL database and publish the results on an Apache web server container? Continue Reading

Words to go: Incident management KPI categories

Because incident management is a vital task for IT operations departments, admins need a way to measure its success. This list of KPIs offers a good place to start. Continue Reading

Top continuous delivery benefits and how to get them

Continuous delivery doesn't come without challenges -- like getting every disparate IT team on board -- but its list of perks makes the entire process worthwhile. Continue Reading

Find the ideal incident management automation tool or tools

Unless the data center floods or a digger cuts a network cable, incident management takes place via software tools. The quality of these tools determines how quickly work can resume. Continue Reading

How do you decide to scale up or scale out a workload?

Scaling up or scaling out is not a decision to be made lightly. Use monitoring data to determine the strategy that fits your use case and to inform future decisions. Continue Reading

A DevOps mindset shouldn't overemphasize speed

DevOps isn't really about the fastest release process. Ultimately, DevOps should make the user's life better. Find a balance between velocity and utility. Continue Reading

How do you analyze the costs of virtualization scalability?

It's easy to allocate more resources to a VM, but scaling decisions require careful deliberation. Without retrospective analysis, scaling can quickly become costly. Continue Reading

How do you improve storage scalability?

Storage can limit virtualization scalability if IT administrators don't plan properly. Examine how storage scalability problems can arise and strategies for addressing it. Continue Reading

Three log analytics use cases set better ops in motion

The path to more resilient, bug-free and available IT deployments is hiding in plain sight, in log data. Parse short- and long-term data these three ways to improve operations. Continue Reading

Atlassian HipChat shutdown surprises enterprise IT pros

IT pros had been skeptical about Atlassian's Stride, but HipChat's disappearance leaves them with lingering questions about licensing and support. Continue Reading

Google Cloud Build puts GCP spin on cloud CI/CD

Enterprise DevOps shops have yet another cloud CI/CD choice, as well as additional options for managed Kubernetes, function as a service and service mesh. Continue Reading

Climb the five steps of a continuous delivery maturity model

The continuous delivery maturity model lays out the five increasingly intense -- and capable -- levels of the process. Know where to start and when to progress. Continue Reading

Insurer accelerates DevOps test data refreshes with Actifio

Data-intensive applications can hobble DevOps velocity, but one IT team makes fresh test data available to its developers with a tool that makes rapid copies of large data stores. Continue Reading

Workplace culture is about cultivating behaviors, not beanbags

To really do DevOps, organizations will have to address and cultivate more effective workflows. It's not as easy as bringing in beanbags and pingpong tables. Continue Reading

Fail at scale: Build failure into virtual infrastructure design

It's better to be over-prepared than surprised. Design virtual infrastructure around the possibility that it might fail and have a plan in mind for when it does. Continue Reading

Is the CTO the new standard for a DevOps leader?

For DevOps initiatives to work, they need support from the C-suite. With more companies focusing on products, not services, is the CTO the flagbearer of DevOps leadership? Continue Reading

Troubleshooting application performance: Issues and answers

Workflow congestion, sluggish switches, pointless parameter settings -- application flaws don't come from a single source, but they're easier to solve when you know where to look first. Continue Reading

Why is Docker's container approach so important?

The name has become synonymous with containers, but there are other container management tools available. Continue Reading

Create a shielded VM template in SCVMM in four easy steps

SCVMM templates simplify the process of deploying shielded VMs. Prepare the disk to use shielded VM technology before creating the template. Continue Reading

Manage all your Hyper-V snapshots with PowerShell

Using PowerShell commands to take and remove Hyper-V snapshots, and to restore VMs to a previous state is easy and efficient, especially when working with bulk VMs. Continue Reading

Follow a Kubernetes and Go tutorial in your home lab

Learn how to use the Kubernetes Go client, dep for dependency management and other capabilities for Kubernetes and Go in this home lab exercise on Minikube. Continue Reading

GCP Marketplace beats AWS, Azure to Kubernetes app store

Google is the first major public cloud provider to sell prepackaged apps for container orchestration clusters, but expect AWS and Azure to follow quickly with Kubernetes marketplaces of their own. Continue Reading

Container security emerges in IT products enterprises know and trust

Established IT security vendors add containers to their repertoire, and IT pros must decide between trusted platform integration and the latest features from startups. Continue Reading

Manage Hyper-V containers and VMs with these best practices

Containers and VMs should be treated as the separate instance types they are, but there are specific management strategies that work for both that admins should incorporate. Continue Reading

Heuristic automation prevents unmitigated IT disasters

IT automation isn't about doing everything faster -- although that's how it started. Heuristics make automation smarter and responsive to changes in the IT environment. Continue Reading

Log analytics tools gain application performance support skills

Log analytics tools are boosting real-time capabilities to monitor application performance, and users are in the market for tools that best slice, dice and store log data. Continue Reading

Perform this Octopus Deploy tutorial in under 60 minutes

Octopus Deploy extends a variety of agents called Tentacles that manage a wide swath of tasks. In just one hour, create an Octopus Deploy instance in a simple home lab. Continue Reading

Modern service management, DevOps streamline app administration

DevOps and service management are synonymous in modern IT, insofar as their guidelines match. Regardless of the term, ensure organizational practices are built for today's reqs. Continue Reading

Set up Hyper-V nested virtualization for production

There are several considerations for using nested virtualization in Hyper-V production environments, including system requirements, networking, storage and memory considerations. Continue Reading

How infrastructure as code benefits and eases provisioning

Being able to provision services with code means a simplification to sometimes complicated processes. Plus, you won't need to worry about the platform that service will run on. Continue Reading

Zabbix monitoring requires experience for best results

Not every IT tool is as easy to learn as it is potentially useful. Zabbix offers several views into an environment, but that flexibility comes at the price of admin experience. Continue Reading

Satisfy GDPR standards and identify issues early in the pipeline

GDPR requirements are here to stay. Get your developers involved early and shift security left to make your pipeline secure. Everyone is responsible for compliance now. Continue Reading

Istio service mesh tech boosts Kubernetes' work, with trade-offs

Why wouldn't IT teams use a tool that enables developers to focus on writing app code and operations to focus on IT resources? For all its benefits, Istio does require a study on pros and cons. Continue Reading

Build an IT infrastructure plan from the ground up

IT infrastructure improvements require careful planning that includes evaluating new technologies, such as converged and hyper-converged, and building for future flexibility. Continue Reading

Salary snapshot: Embrace an entry-level DevOps role

New DevOps engineers make much more than their software engineer counterparts. If you have DevOps skills, maybe it's time to rebrand. Continue Reading

IT pursues zero-touch automation for application support

The best and most efficient approach to IT automation features as little human intervention and interaction as possible. Continue Reading

Use HashiCorp's Terraform tool and companions for production IaC

Developers want isolated systems for prototyping. Testers want mimicry of production. And IT operations wants to configure this infrastructure for them without reinventing the wheel. Continue Reading

Database DevOps tools bring stateful apps up to modern speed

Database DevOps is no longer a contradiction in terms, as enterprises roll out database management and persistent storage software that makes stateful apps more flexible. Continue Reading

IT infrastructure management software learns analytics tricks

Not every enterprise IT shop is ready to take the AIOps plunge, but IT ops automation is increasingly data-driven -- even at mainstream companies. Continue Reading

Can virtual SAN performance create VM performance issues?

Monitor the performance of your VSAN and VMs to ensure one isn't affecting the other. Performance metrics and alerts can make it easy to spot VSAN issues before they affect VMs. Continue Reading

How can VSAN network requirements affect performance?

Virtual SAN network configuration problems can detract from performance and availability. Update your drivers and check that no security products are blocking connections. Continue Reading

Simplify the production deployment process with these tips

DevOps shops emphasize production-ready code, which doesn't cause a stir when it moves from dev to test to prod. Experts share how to deploy top-notch code swiftly and accurately. Continue Reading

Tackle DevOps compliance challenges with automation

The same DevOps principles that help address compliance issues should be the same principles that are applied to development in the first place. Continue Reading

How do VSAN compatibility issues affect performance?

Effective VSAN performance requires compatible hardware and software. Review compatibility guides and use diagnostic tools to keep your system updated. Continue Reading

How the Nagios monitoring tool tracks IT environment details

Nagios users can monitor diverse components of an IT infrastructure, across Linux and Windows OSes, networks and servers, so long as they roll up their sleeves and dig into agents and plug-ins. Continue Reading

Consider Hyper-V live migration requirements before configuration

An effective live migration setup is key to a complete Hyper-V configuration. Consider these expert recommendations, such as limiting concurrent live migrations, to ensure success. Continue Reading

Will the Kubernetes sidecar deliver container happiness?

IT teams tasked with managing containerization -- or that might be imagining a future full of containers -- may want to take a look at Kubernetes sidecar software. This proxy technology built into the service mesh architecture could prove useful in the ongoing battle to solve network management troubles.

Proponents tout the technology's ability to sort out the complicated network relationships that result from the use of containers and microservices. The Kubernetes sidecar technology found in service mesh technology first proved useful in giant online operations where conventional networking configurations weren't up to the task of managing microservices. But is there that same type of usefulness for organizations not named Twitter and Google? Does an IT shop that's not on the leading edge of DevOps need to look at Kubernetes sidecar software?

That's the question TechTarget's Beth Pariseau takes up in this edition of Modern Stack. She explores how the service mesh architecture works and how realistically its benefits might be applied to real-world IT scenarios. Some will see these advanced capabilities as unnecessary, at least for their current configurations. Others may be intrigued by the enhancements to security and greater control of traffic afforded by Kubernetes sidecar software in the mesh architecture.

If service mesh isn't in your near-term plans, it might be something to work toward, especially if your business intends to do more with containers and microservices in the years to come.

Also in this issue are features and columns delving into the practicality of the serverless approach; how developers influence an organization's decisions about cloud platforms; where containers, cloud computing and other emerging strategies affect application componentization practices; what no-code/low-code trends mean for the pace of application development; and how managing cloud spending can easily become a source of frustration even for those organizations that consider themselves especially prudent planners.

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Service mesh architecture radicalizes container networking

Containerization is the IT industry's favorite superhero, so it's only fitting that containers have a powerful sidekick in service mesh. Together, they fight network management chaos. Continue Reading

These Go code examples showcase its main features

Google's golang uses many of the same functions as older code languages, such as key-value pairs and compiling, but is better fitted to modern systems development requirements. Continue Reading

Cloud applications demand a new IT operations strategy

Business and software development trends are putting more pressure on IT operations staff and changing the way teams deploy applications. Continue Reading

Prepare a Hyper-V configuration report with PowerShell

Generate a report with valuable Hyper-V configuration information, such as the virtual disk path, using a PowerShell script to ensure your server settings match the design documentation. Continue Reading

How the three phases of automation dictate human employment

Automation might end human employment as we know it. The final result is in question, but we can draw clues from the relationship between automation and employment. Continue Reading

Cloud applications demand a new IT operations strategy

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Service mesh architecture radicalizes container networking

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Three tools enable DevOps for Windows shops

DevOps isn't just the domain of open source Linux experts. These three tool options tailor DevOps to how Windows applications and systems operate. Continue Reading