Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

A network switch is a fundamental piece of any network, so it’s critical that you as an IT professional understand the role of a switch in a properly functioning network. And to best understand the difference between Layer 2 switches and Layer 3 switches, you also need to know the difference between Layer 2 and Layer 3 in the OSI networking model.

It’s only mid-February and there’s already been a surge of websites that have gone down, and big ones too. I don’t need to tell you how damaging website downtime can be, especially since we’re spending the majority of our time online due to the Covid-19 pandemic. We are working online, studying online, banking, shopping, exercising online, the list is endless, and this extra online activity has put added pressure on the websites that help us to perform these tasks.

Enterprise Alert® is the leading enterprise-class software for automated, targeted, and traceable alerting. But what does “escalation” mean in this case? In the course of my work, be it with new customers, existing customers or even prospects, I repeatedly find that the term escalation is often defined very differently. Therefore, I would like to clarify in the context of this blog what we mean by escalation.

A simple command-line interface (CLI) ping will give you details about your target IP address. However, you may have to input the ipconfig command, and then the arp-a command to fully discover the status of an IP, and this is just for one IP address. Now imagine doing this for an IP block of 300 IPs, or even 50 IPs, or doing the same task periodically to manage your IP pool of thousands of addresses and their metrics. Seems like an Herculean task for any network admin!

Whether you’re a national business with sites across the country, a global enterprise with operations in multiple markets, or a SaaS provider looking to roll out in new geographies, interconnection is essential for connecting to customers and partners.

If your company has multiple servers or services that create log files, reviewing them to find the causes of troubles or to find security breaches, takes up too much time. Log monitoring and event logging software is a powerful tool for solving the problem of reviewing logs and helping you with log analytics, business intelligence, and log management. It allows professionals to track the activities of users, detect changes to applications, hardware, and network connectivity, and more.

Over the past few years, Microsoft Azure has seen tremendous growth, and many new enhancements have improved user productivity. To keep users well informed about their resource status and availability, Microsoft has also been actively working on various monitoring capabilities.

The planning of an IT automation project is crucial to success, this article takes a deep dive into areas which should be considered and addressed before embarking on an automation journey. Securing executive sponsorship and establishing governance Having the support and guidance from a senior leader within your organisation will undoubtedly benefit the delivery of your project. Implementing automation is change, and as with any change; has the potential for resistance.

Application performance monitoring (APM) is an important monitoring practice used in tech organizations today, but it hasn’t always been this way. Until somewhat recently, the concept was seen by many as an expensive luxury. No longer, APM is an absolute requirement to keep today’s applications healthy and performant. “APM tool” was a phrase likely to raise many an eyebrow.

Container technology is catching on big-time in the federal government as agencies such as the USDA and the National Institutes of Health look to containers to simplify software development and reduce costs. Containers offer enormous advantages over traditional “waterfall” application development processes. A containerized approach makes it easier for developers to create and deploy software faster and with fewer errors.