When DNS Says: Talk to the Hand! What? This started with a post on social media, which created a discussion among us industry professionals. The following conversation happened when I got to talk to my coworkers about some interesting things regarding DNS responses. Putting us gearheads in a room always results in an interesting comment or two!

Kafka is a beast when it comes to handling data streams at scale. But when your Kafka setup grows into a massive cluster, keeping it running smooth? Yeah, that can feel like trying to tame a tornado. Imagine hundreds, maybe thousands, of brokers, topics, and partitions—all moving data at lightning speed. The moment one thing slows down, you’re staring at bottlenecks that could trip up your whole system. It’s not pretty.

Most engineers will tell you this: Troubleshooting today feels like trying to find your way out of a wild jungle, in the middle of a storm, at night, while a countdown clock is running. In other words, it’s ambiguous, nerve-racking, and plain difficult. But should this be the norm?

Just as every organization should have a business plan, every organization should also have an IT strategy that supports that business plan. This article offers an overview of what an IT strategy is, what it does for an organization, and the key components that should go into an IT strategy.

Chaos Monkey is an open-source tool. Its primary use is to check system reliability against random instance failures. Chaos Monkey follows the testing concept of chaos engineering, which prepares networked systems for resilience against random and unpredictable chaotic conditions. Let’s take a deeper look.

tldr: This post discusses how to measure CDN request locality without indexing a single log. The function of a CDN is to bring cacheable data, like pictures & videos, physically closer to your customers. This reduces latencies, and load on your backend servers. When measuring CDNs, there are some very common metrics.

Consistency is key in today’s ultra-competitive retail environment. Whether a customer walks into a store in New York City, London, or Tokyo, or shops online, they expect the same seamless and personalized shopping experience, regardless of where they are. These consistent experiences are what creates customer loyalty and keep them coming back From an IT perspective, delivering these experiences across multiple distributed locations presents unique challenges.

Big data has the potential to transform how organizations manage and apply knowledge in their projects, helping teams make better decisions, improve project outcomes, and foster continuous learning. But how exactly do these two concepts—big data and knowledge management—come together in a meaningful way? And what role does project learning play in connecting the dots?

The cloud has become an essential tool for businesses looking to scale, innovate, and remain competitive. But migrating to the cloud is not as simple as flipping a switch. The process requires careful planning, robust strategies, and a deep understanding of the potential risks and rewards. That’s why having a well-defined cloud migration strategy is crucial.

Ralph Marsten once said, “Don't lower your expectations to meet your performance. Raise your level of performance to meet your expectations.” Many organizations today seem to follow the opposite. If everything looks green on a dashboard, they assume all is well. But is it?