Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

If you are involved in software development you will probably be aware of the ever-growing menace of supply chain attacks. These are attempts by attackers to insert malicious code into code libraries which might be downloaded or referenced by developers. Many modern frameworks can install hundreds or even thousands of dependencies, so the potential attack surface can be huge. As well as code libraries, attackers can also attempt to conceal malware in sources such as Docker images or CDNs.

The dreaded 500 internal server error is a common challenge for web administrators, often signaling a disruption in server operations. Diagnosing the root cause requires in-depth visibility into both web server and application behavior. In this blog, we’ll explore how log management tools simplify the diagnosis and resolution of 500 errors by leveraging insights from both Apache and Tomcat logs.

The retail industry has evolved into a mix of physical stores, e-commerce, digital payments, and omnichannel interactions. Now, GenAI has been added to this mix, which changes how people shop, how retailers operate, and how employees work. While this shift creates opportunities for retailers of all sizes, it also presents serious challenges in maintaining network performance and staying compliant with industry regulations.

Apache ActiveMQ is a widely used message broker that enables seamless communication between distributed applications. However, as the volume of messages increases, performance bottlenecks can arise, leading to slow message processing, high latency, broker crashes, and out of memory (OOM) errors. One of the most critical issues affecting ActiveMQ is OOM errors, which occur when the broker exceeds its allocated heap memory. This can result in service failures, message loss, and prolonged downtime.

Alerts and notifications are the backbone of any Application Performance Monitoring (APM) tool, ensuring your team is immediately aware of critical issues. At AppSignal, we’re always improving our toolkit to help you stay ahead of problems before they impact performance or reliability. We've made huge improvements to how you can manage your app notifications and alerts with AppSignal.

The fundamentals of Icinga 2 are check plugins. They are being executed and their return value is mapped to either Host or Service objects. Everything else follows on top. These check plugins can be either from the Monitoring Plugins or custom. While their origin does not matter, they are the building blocks of an Icinga monitoring stack. If a plugin goes CRITICAL, Icinga 2 alerts the sysadmin.

Did you hear about the failed video conferencing project? During a global stakeholder meeting, an IT team deployed new video conferencing software without testing a default echo feature. Every participant heard their voice echoing back, disrupting the meeting until someone identified and fixed the setting. While relatively minor, this incident demonstrates how overlooked technical details can compromise professional operations. Consider the failed ERP rollout by a food distributor.

One of the main pieces of advice about Service Level Objectives (SLOs) is that they should focus on the user experience. Invariably, this leads to people further down the stack asking, “But how do I make my work fit the users?”—to which the answer is to redefine what we mean by “user.” In the end, a user is anyone who uses whatever it is you’re measuring.

Developers aren't lazy – but sometimes cloud service defaults can be. Here’s what to look out for, and how Azure is changing the game. Let’s face it: Developers can sometimes be labeled as “laissez faire” when it comes to security. But is that really fair? In reality, it’s not about being lax or lazy; it’s about the default configurations of many cloud services setting the security bar too low on initial deployment.

Machine-generated data has exceeded human scalability, straining L1 Ops and Service Desk team resources. Fragmented data across tools, teams, and silos hinders situational awareness, delaying each action – from detection to remediation, making prevention increasingly unattainable. The latest BigPanda updates enhance ITOps and ITSM team efficiency throughout the incident lifecycle.