Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

Data loss can come from any number of sources, whether it’s a hurricane that causes major flooding in a server room or a bad actor threatening the safety of critical data by demanding a ransom for its safe return. If an organization only has a single copy of data on that waterlogged hard drive or in the hands of a cybercriminal, the odds of recovery are slim to none.

As your startup grows, infrastructure and deployment get more complex, raising a key question: “Do we need a DevOps engineer?” While automation tools can handle many tasks early on, there comes a point when manual intervention becomes necessary to scale efficiently and securely. This guide will help you assess when it’s time to hire your first DevOps engineer, the key responsibilities they bring, and alternatives that can delay the need for a full-time hire.

Things can get complicated when it comes to keeping up with Google’s revolving door of ranking factors. First, there’s the matter of determining what actually impacts SEO—like high-quality content—and what’s just speculation—like domain age. Unfortunately, Google has never released an official list of the 200 suspected SEO ranking factors, but there is empirical evidence to guide us.

A recent question in an SRE forum triggered this train of thought. I've paraphrased the question to reflect its essence. There is plenty to unravel here. My first reaction to this question was that the SRE who posted this is in a difficult place with systemic issues.