IT Operations: Page

Improve application rollout planning with advanced options

Enterprise IT teams have several advanced options for deploying application updates. The right one depends on what makes the most sense for the business, available IT infrastructure and your confidence in the update.

By Stephen Bigelow • Sept. 13, 2016

What Chef configuration management can do for your IT systems

Chef configuration management tools possess a huge community of users. Learn more about product versions, capabilities, user resources and what Chef can offer an enterprise.

By Clive Longbottom • Sept. 9, 2016

Select the best configuration management tools for your company

What characterizes the best configuration management tools for your company? Read about the different tools available and which ones would address your company needs the best.

By Clive Longbottom • Sept. 1, 2016

Script management technology adds safety to scripting’s power

Script management is a necessity to maintain an IT deployment. The canny organization will choose the right tools that give power to the sys admin, while protecting against accidents.

By Clive Longbottom • Aug. 29, 2016

Decision criteria for choosing configuration management software

Selecting the right configuration management software is vital for your company to function well in this modern age. Learn what you need to know in order to select the best tool.

By Clive Longbottom • Aug. 29, 2016

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.

By Stephen Bigelow • Aug. 23, 2016

Patch servers the right way without wasting time

Apply these server patching best practices to save time, reduce complexity, and build an optimal schedule and toolkit.

By Paul Korzeniowski • Aug. 17, 2016

Pick up infrastructure as code tools and techniques

Walk through an infrastructure as code template, using AWS CloudFormation as an example, to better understand defining and connecting resources.

By Mike Pfeiffer • Aug. 9, 2016

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?

By Chris Moyer • Aug. 5, 2016

How do I size capacity for VMware oversubscription?

What best practices and tools can I use to allocate the right resources in an oversubscribed virtualization deployment?

By Matt Sprague • Aug. 1, 2016

Set Office 365 data loss prevention policies with PowerShell

Exchange administrators can use PowerShell to manage Office 365 compliance, e-discovery and data loss prevention.

By Adam Bertram • July 22, 2016

The real future of IT infrastructure lies in abstraction

Future IT infrastructure will be so abstracted from the applications using it that, while always a misnomer, serverless computing will be a reality.

By Keith Townsend • July 19, 2016

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.

By Clive Longbottom • July 19, 2016

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.

By Kurt Marko • July 5, 2016

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.

By Austin Allen, Meredith Courtemanche, Michelle Boisvert, Austin Allen, Meredith Courtemanche and Michelle Boisvert • July 1, 2016

DevOps automation boosts Rosetta Stone’s app delivery

The language learning company uses multiple tools to make its DevOps environment run smoothly, but Docker has been the key to streamlining application releases.

By Beth Pariseau • July 1, 2016

Test and confirm functions with PowerShell parameters

Windows PowerShell functions support parameters that can prevent scripts from being run accidentally and simulate the outcome of the function.

By Adam Bertram • June 28, 2016

Create a cloud development environment for on-premises apps

With built-in tools from many of the mature public cloud services and a well-planned deployment strategy, IT teams can -- and should -- move test/dev to public cloud.

By Mike Pfeiffer • June 3, 2016

Crunching the costs of Microsoft Exchange on-premises vs. cloud services

Security concerns are less of an issue for most organizations, but do the costs of using Exchange on premises vs. the Office 365 mail service stack up?

By Paul Korzeniowski • May 11, 2016

Start using the PowerShell pipeline with this example

An administrator can create functions to support the PowerShell pipeline, which improves upon text-based shells by allowing the scripter to pass objects across the pipe.

By Adam Bertram • May 5, 2016

How to upgrade to PowerShell 5

PowerShell version 5 is the most recent iteration of the scripting language and offers new features from previous versions. Admins can upgrade to the new version in a few steps.

By Adam Bertram • March 28, 2016

PowerShell script examples and reference guide for admins

Microsoft unveiled PowerShell in 2006, but many Windows administrators are still unaware of the tremendous amount of resources available to help automate numerous tasks.

By Ed Tittel • March 24, 2016

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.

By Sander van Vugt • March 24, 2016

Use the admin center for some Office 365 administration

Administrators can choose the admin center or PowerShell for Office 365 management -- the best option depends on the circumstances.

By Adam Bertram • March 16, 2016

Microsoft Hyper-V Shielded VM

A Microsoft Hyper-V Shielded VM is a security feature of Windows Server 2016 that protects a Hyper-V second-generation virtual machine (VM) from access or tampering by using a combination of Secure Boot, BitLocker encryption, virtual Trusted Platform Module (TPM) and the Host Guardian Service.

By Tom Walat • Feb. 29, 2016