Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

A brownout is an intentional but temporary disruption of service. Why would a company purposely cause a brownout and when does it make sense? In this post I will explain the what and why of brownouts, and provide some recent examples.

When building an incident response process, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the moving parts. Less is more: focus first on building solid foundations that you can develop over time. Here are three things we think form a key part of a strong process. I’d recommend taking these one at a time, introducing incident response throughout your organisation. Just being honest: we’re a startup selling incident management software.

Kubernetes is a rich ecosystem, and the native YAML or JSON manifest files remain a popular way to deploy applications. YAML’s support for multi-document files makes it often possible to describe complex applications with a single file. The Kubernetes CLI also allows for many individual YAML or JSON files to be applied at once by referencing their parent directory, reducing most Kubernetes deployments to a single kubectl call.

A well-maintained, accurate configuration management database (CMDB) is the cornerstone of successful IT operations, offering clarity about what’s in your environment and how it all works in tandem. Yet, statistics indicate that only 25% of organizations are actually receiving meaningful value from their CMDB investments. This is due in large part to ever-changing IT assets and the increasing complexity of infrastructure and applications.

2021 marked the fifth consecutive year of record-breaking security attacks. Zero-Day attacks skyrocketed, with 66 exploits found to be in use, more than any other year on record and almost double 2020’s figure. Meanwhile, a staggering 66% of organizations have suffered at least one ransomware attack in the last year, with the average ransom payment soaring by 63% to $1.79 million (USD).

We now deliver Ubuntu Frame, a display server for embedded devices that makes it easy for developers to deploy their graphics applications on Linux. Ubuntu Frame simplifies the development of embedded displays such as digital signage solutions, kiosks, IoT devices, robots, and more. In this blog, we will discuss the migration from mir-kiosk to Ubuntu Frame.

Want to land one of the 20,000 jobs calling for Puppet experience? Or perhaps you already know Puppet but want to advance your skills in order to scale your infrastructure even more quickly and securely? Starting this May, we’re making it easier than ever for you to learn Puppet with an all-new instructor-led curriculum and the opportunity to take all of our Fundamental Core instructor-led training for free.

A month and a half ago we released ValidKube, our first OS project that fused the capabilities of three other popular OS tools (kubeval, kubectl-neat and trivy) in a single easy-to-use microsite. Using the microsite, any user could ensure the security and hygiene of their K8s YAML, with just a few clicks of the button, pretty much on the fly. ValidKube was born out of a straightforward concept and we were happy to see its user-friendly approach resonate almost immediately.

One of the most challenging things when writing about DevOps and ITIL is finding the perfect phrases to define both of them. They not only mean different things to different people and organizations but are also implemented & used very differently. Let’s glance through their definitions first.