Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

The Loki squad is excited to announce Grafana Loki 2.9 is here! For this release, we’ve developed additional TSDB endpoints to help you better understand your log volume; introduced query language optimizations to make parsing more performant; and restructured our documentation so it is easier to use. This coincides with the release of Grafana Enterprise Logs (GEL) 1.8, so all the features discussed here are available in both Loki 2.9 and GEL 1.8.

Every so often, somebody in the tech industry proposes a new way to quantify software engineers’ productivity. Most recently, a leading consulting firm published a report that has reignited a recurring debate—is it even possible to effectively measure developer productivity, and if so, how? Whereas functions like sales and support have had rigorous metrics for years, software engineering has long been the exception.

Even as the global economy shows signs of a rebound, today’s observability customers are more focused than ever on driving utmost value from their investments. This isn’t simply because economics have forced organizations to closely review overhead and drive out unnecessary costs; the reality is that observability has become one of the leading budget items for every cloud software organization, full stop.

If you ever watched Stargate, then you have some understanding of how application programming interfaces (APIs) work. While APIs don’t give you the ability to traverse the galaxy using an alien wormhole, they do act as digital portals that allow data to travel between applications. However, as sensitive data moves from one application to another, each API becomes a potential access point that threat actors can exploit.

As cyber threats get more sophisticated, cybersecurity becomes a top concern for organizations. In this context, MSPs face an unenviable task: they manage the IT infrastructure and services of multiple customers—often small and medium businesses, which tend to be cybercriminals’ preferred targets. This job is being made even more challenging due to the increased use of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies in modern workplaces.

In today's fast-paced digital world, businesses rely heavily on IT infrastructure monitoring tools to ensure optimal performance and reliability. LogicMonitor has carved a niche in the market as a comprehensive monitoring solution for complex IT environments. However, the recent security mishap has pushed us to look for other alternatives as well. Fairly recently, LogicMonitor was in hot waters for its weak default passwords, ultimately leaving them vulnerable to ransomware attacks.

Alan Carson writes about his experience and journey with Cloudsmith, as new CEO Glenn Weinstein steps in as leadership. I heard something recently, that resonated, about success. In a simple (but not easy) three-step plan; success happens when the following three things align: A great example is, of course, Steve Jobs and Apple. The contrarian idea was that every single human would need a personal computer. He was proven right. And he executed expertly (with a few ups and downs obviously!)

Today, I’ll cover Shift Left Monitoring: A Pathway to Optimized Cloud Applications and how left-shifted troubleshooting of Spring Boot code issues using observability tooling can avoid production issues, unnecessary costs and improve product quality. Shift-left is an approach to software development and operations that emphasizes testing, monitoring, and automation earlier in the software development lifecycle.