Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

If you’ve ever worked with SQL Server databases, you know how vital string manipulation is to day-to-day workflows. Whether extracting specific details, reformatting text, or cleaning up inconsistent data, having the right tools isn’t just helpful—it’s essential. That’s where the SUBSTRING() function comes in. It’s one of the foundational tools for handling text in SQL Server, allowing you to isolate specific parts of a string with precision and ease.

SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) has long been the default for SQL Server development, but is it still enough? As modern databases become more diverse, SSDT’s rigid focus on SQL Server, lack of advanced performance tools, and limited cross-platform support leave many teams struggling. If your database needs are growing beyond SQL Server—or you want more automation, performance optimization, and flexibility—you’ll need an upgrade. So, what’s replacing SSDT?

Ruby and Rails are great tools that allow you to create complex web applications quickly. Well, some kinds of complex web applications. While they excel at traditional, monolithic, server-rendered applications, they fail to excel at delivering real-time or distributed services. This is why it's so handy for Rubyists to learn a programming language like Go. Go is designed to write lightweight services that handle lots of inbound connections.

Keeping your servers online is always important for the health of your business and keeping users happy. Essentially, if you are keeping an eye on your servers, you can proactively fix problems before they blow up rather than fighting them as they arise. Setting all this up can be a breeze or a bit of a headache, depending on your servers, what metrics you're tracking, and your expertise. Either way, MetricFire’s got your back!

Andrew Dedesko is a backend software engineer with 13 years of experience. He became very interested in metrics and alerting after being woken up countless nights while on call. Outside of work, Andrew likes cycling, camping, making s’mores, and pancakes. Adriano Mariani is a software engineer with three years of experience specializing in backend software development. Currently, Adriano is working at Kijiji on SEO-related initiatives.

Did you know? According to cybersecurity statistics, a cyber threat occurs every 39 seconds. So, are you looking for ways to improve the security of your digital ecosystem? Boost your enterprise immunity against dreadful cybersecurity attacks to mitigate security risks and prevent financial losses. Read through this blog to understand the significance and different types of cybersecurity and the steps you can take to secure your organization from cyberattacks.‍

Hyperautomation is a holistic business-driven approach to automation that allows organizations to identify, examine, and automate almost all business processes. It involves the orchestration of disparate systems across various departments and delivers efficiency. Hyperautomation helps businesses leverage automation and enable a faster, more efficient, and effortless functioning of organizations.

Cyber threats, since 2020, have become a silent epidemic for enterprises and customers alike. Sounds dramatic? Think again: In 2023, cyberattacks hit enterprises every 39 seconds and burnt through $4.99 million per hit, making security not just an IT checklist but a critical enterprise-wide priority. Fast forward to 2025, and the message is clear: adapt or lose out to your competitors.

Whether you’re a startup looking for simplicity or an enterprise needing high-performance scalability, this guide breaks down the key differences between DigitalOcean vs. AWS — pricing, features, use cases, and more. We’ll start with a quick overview of each provider. And, right away, you’ll notice their different focus areas, target customers, and what makes each platform unique.

If you are part of an engineering team, monitoring the performance of your CI/CD pipelines is a high priority. With the SquaredUp GitHub plugin you can view key metrics for your GitHub repos and workflows all within a single pane of glass. We also have plugins for Jira, Circle CI, Azure DevOps and more. So even if you are using many different tools you can still get an end to end view of your processes.