Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

The first time I was tasked with maintaining a production server, I relied on a checklist my predecessor had left for me. The checklist contained all the maintenance steps along with their corresponding commands. In those early days, I religiously copied each command, double- and triple-checking each character before pressing the Enter key. Slowly but surely, the commands got committed to memory until one day I realized I did not need the checklist.

As the demands placed on technology have grown, so has the size and complexity of our applications. Today’s developers often face the difficult task of managing huge applications. Further complicating matters is the underlying infrastructure, which can often be as expansive, diverse, and complicated as its applications. The complexity of modern applications introduces many challenges.

Application developers have a choice between two main categories of database: SQL (Structured Query Language) and NoSQL (Not Only SQL). SQL databases, also known as relational databases, have been in use for over 40 years. Despite their age, SQL databases remain extremely popular with developers. Of the top 10 results on DB-Engines’ list of most popular database management systems in September 2021, six were relational, or SQL-based.

Development teams provisioning software services face a constant trade-off between speed and accuracy. New features should be made available in the least possible time with a high amount of accuracy, meaning no downtime. Unforeseen downtime due to human error is common for any manual integration processes your team uses to manage codebases. This kind of unexpected interruption can be one of the key drivers for a team to take on the challenge of automating their integration process.

The cloud is gaining widespread adoption. For many organizations, cloud computing has become an indispensable tool for communication and collaboration across distributed teams. Whether you are on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, or Azure. the cloud can reduce costs, increase flexibility, and optimize resources. If you have spent your career in buzzing server rooms full of cable nests, you may be wondering what all the fuss is about.