Traditional database and application monitoring used to mean talking about a single server, in a single data center, in a single location. Many monitoring tools were—and still are—built around this single data center, single node idea. And while we’ve progressed to cloud-native applications, our tools haven’t quite caught on.

For many organizations, the circumstances of 2020 led to a review of on-premises infrastructure and opportunities to take a leap to the cloud. These decisions are not one-size-fits-all, and there are slew of challenges to keep in mind. Tackling those migration challenges has led organizations to hybrid IT—an environment of technology infrastructure that lives partially on-premises and partially in the cloud.

One of the biggest challenges organizations face in the current age of digital transformation is the issue of complexity. As the technology landscape continues to expand, organizations are increasingly moving away from centralized management to a more decentralized model. For many enterprises, monitoring, managing, and securing traditional and cloud-based infrastructures is becoming more difficult.

We’re happy to announce SolarWinds is partnering with DigitalOcean, a cloud infrastructure provider offering cloud services to help deploy modern apps, to offer application level monitoring to applications running in droplets with SolarWinds® application performance management (APM) solutions.

Although our Head Geek Leon Adato may have attempted to predict 2020 last year, no one could’ve prepared us for what was to come. Today as we work from various remote spaces including our living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, or any room where we can find a good Wi-Fi signal, it’s hard to think of what our situation will look like in 2021.

Raise your hand if you’re in IT and you’ve at some point in your career worked on the help desk. That’s what we thought. As the front lines of support for technology-related issues in the company, the help desk plays a critical role in keeping employees and the business up and running. Laptop keeps freezing? Bluetooth keyboard won’t connect? Dreaded BSOD? When employees run into these issues, they need help fast.

Of all the different sets of hacks IT pros pick up, monitoring may be the most wide-ranging area and therefore the hardest to nail down in a single blog. After all, how many network hack techniques are equally valid here? And therein lies the actual secret—the IT life hacks collected by monitoring experts have little to do with a specific technology or silo and much more to do with the philosophy and discipline of monitoring itself.

For educators, students, and parents, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on learning has been profound. Thousands of schools across the U.S. closed their doors this spring and made the shift to distance learning. It’s a model many weren’t prepared for. And with schools in full swing and the pandemic continuing, educators, administrators, school staff, and school district boards struggle with the right path forward.

While application performance monitoring can provide us with metrics on software use and delays, SolarWinds® Database Performance Monitor (DPM) was built to tell us stories as to why user behavior is the way it is in the database. Database performance monitoring for developers in the distributed cloud industry is an important practice for maintaining the best environment for your users.

Thanksgiving is just a couple days away for folks celebrating in the US, so what better time than now to share what we’re thankful for? Many of us are giving thanks for loved ones, health, a roof over our heads, and full bellies. We’re also paying homage to the unsung IT heroes and service providers in our organization who make our jobs easier—especially amid the unanticipated shift to remote work this year.