Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

Some memory leaks are straightforward to detect. A process allocates memory, forgets to free it, and grows until something breaks. This was not that kind of leak. This is the story of how Canonical Support helped a global retail organization trace the cause for an unusual memory leak originating in PID 1, the very first process started by the kernel during the system boot sequence. The memory footprint was 10 times higher than expected.

Modern infrastructure teams are expected to deliver cloud-like speed, consistency, and reliability, even when their workloads run on physical servers. Bare metal remains essential for many environments: private clouds, Kubernetes clusters, AI infrastructure, edge sites, regulated platforms, and large Ubuntu estates. But operating physical infrastructure at scale is difficult when provisioning, patching, monitoring, and lifecycle management are handled by disconnected tools and manual processes.

A platform is an environment that allows software to run smoothly across the infrastructure, runtime, and application layers. The key word there is “smoothly”: a good platform connects those layers so well that you don’t notice it. That’s what Ubuntu Server has become: the essential layer between bare metal and the apps running on top, continuously optimized across resource management, networking, and security. Ubuntu 26.04 LTS represents over 12 years of that work coming together.

In the traditional automotive world, teams often work in silos: the cybersecurity experts lock down the ports, the quality assurance teams hunt for bugs, and the functional safety engineers track the ISO 26262 compliance. At Canonical, we believe this fragmented workflow causes friction rather than collaboration. You cannot have a safe vehicle that isn’t secure, and you cannot have a secure vehicle running on poor quality code. This friction results in a slow and rigid development process.

Canonical is pleased to share its latest research report, “The open source chain of trust.” Based on a survey of 500 DevOps professionals, the report highlights how organizations approach their open source software supply chains. While many companies are moving toward verifiable provenance and automated security workflows, internal misalignment and disjointed approaches remain serious challenges for most teams. Read the report.

Open source software (OSS) is a cornerstone of modern technology. According to the Linux Foundation, it powers up to 90% of software tools used today. Unlike proprietary software, OSS is developed collaboratively, meaning its code is available for anyone to use, change, and distribute. Because OSS projects have historically been driven by developers, they tend to be highly flexible and functional, but they can lack critical usability considerations.

Canonical Livepatch now officially supports Arm64, further expanding its security patching automation capabilities. For the first time, Ubuntu on an Arm64 machine can apply critical kernel updates, without service interruption or rebooting. Starting with Ubuntu Core 26 for Arm64, and for Ubuntu Core 20 and onwards for AMD64 machines, a wider range of devices and cloud virtual machines can achieve timely vulnerability remediation through Canonical Livepatch.

Your Ubuntu Core fleet is running beautifully. OTA updates roll out in minutes. Every device is strictly confined, cryptographically attested, and carrying a 10 to 15 year long term support (LTS) commitment. The operational team sleeps soundly. Then the product roadmap meeting happens. The industrial floor needs vibration sensors on every motor. The smart building needs temperature nodes in every room. The cold chain system requires dozens of low-power Bluetooth tags. And someone just said the words.

In an increasingly volatile job market, standing out from the competition is vital. For many in the open source community, formal recognition for self-taught skills is a significant challenge. These skills are often built through hands-on hobbies, side projects, and deep community contributions. While the market is flooded with certificates and certifications, most fail to reliably measure practical execution, or fall behind the rapid pace of industry changes.

Canonical’s security philosophy has always been built on the premise that vulnerabilities exist and will be discovered. Our response relies on defense-in-depth architecture, rapid patch deployment, and strict adherence to Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure (CVD). AI changes vulnerability discovery volume and speed. We have a robust vulnerability management process that is backed by rigorous compliance certifications.