Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

In the digital era, where data flows like a ceaseless river, real-time monitoring stands as a pivotal technology, allowing organizations to not only keep pace but also to deeply understand the intricate dance of their operational ecosystems. This technology is not just about keeping tabs; it’s about gaining a profound, almost intuitive sense of the micro-worlds within which systems, containers, services, and applications pulse and thrive.

Manchester has come a long way - from pioneering the world’s first stored program digital computer, to becoming the top tech city in the UK outside of London. The MCC 2021-2026 Digital Strategy now guides a £5bn digital economy, with more than 10,000 businesses employing over 96,000 people. It has seen the development of five unicorns and is still home to three, billion-pound businesses. So, the city of bees is buzzing.

If you care about operational excellence when it comes to your IT infrastructure, the role of monitoring systems is pivotal. As we navigate through the myriad of available monitoring tools, it becomes essential to understand the distinct architectures, styles, and focal points of various monitoring solutions, as well as the time-to-value they offer.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is investigating the state of the UK cloud market, and for good reason. While the submissions and commentary already submitted to the CMA point to various concerning practices, one issue stands out as the single biggest threat to a healthy, competitive landscape: excessive free cloud credits. This tactic, employed by the dominant hyperscalers (AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform), is akin to a drug dealer offering free samples.

In the software development landscape, mastering test automation has become crucial for ensuring efficient quality assurance (QA) processes. Test automation not only accelerates testing cycles but also enhances test coverage and accuracy, leading to higher-quality software releases. This blog explores key strategies for mastering test automation and achieving efficient QA outcomes.

The emergence of Ephemeral Environments poses a compelling question: What can organizations expect from adopting this transformative approach? What are the hurdles they may face along the way? And what results can they anticipate? These are the questions I will address in this article as we explore why Ephemeral Environments are garnering attention and what makes them so pivotal for engineering teams today. Let's go!

We're rolling out Playbooks, our latest in fully automating the incident response process. Imagine every action you (incident responders), had to manually take are now fully automated with Playbooks. Steps like initiating a war room (video conference), logging incidents, sending out alerts, and running diagnostic scripts are now executed with precision, every single time, are all now effortlessly automated without you lifting a finger.

It’s a scenario many developers know all too well: a configuration works flawlessly for one team member but doesn’t work for you. Starting a new job brings with it the excitement of fresh challenges and opportunities. However, it also entails the often painful task of setting up your development environment—a process that can be both time-consuming and complex. This setup phase involves installing dependencies, configuring projects, and troubleshooting issues that might arise.