A couple of years ago, I wrote about why you don’t need a blockchain. Blockchain is one long transaction log that always gets written to and is never backed up. It’s a ledger, more or less, with some math. And while distributed ledgers can be useful for some scenarios, I’m here today to say you still don’t need a blockchain. What turns a distributed ledger into a blockchain is cryptography for creating a digital signature to reduce the risk of data tampering.

A lot happened last quarter, so you might have missed a few of the shiny new features now included with SolarWinds® AppOptics™. Don’t worry, we rounded up the recent updates here so you can get the most out of your application performance monitoring (APM) with AppOptics. Simplified Application Root Cause and Service- and Trace-Level Root Cause Summary Views The new service- and trace-level views expand the types of IT professionals who can use AppOptics.

Class is almost in session, and this year will look very different than it did in years past. Depending on the state and district, school officials have decided to continue virtual learning or put safety plans in place for in-person learning. In any case, technology will be the backbone for successful learning in 2020. Schools’ IT departments will be integral in ensuring students and teachers have reliable devices and easy access to software applications to start and finish the year strong.

Modern application development requires more work to ensure the development path and the data it produces are fully in sync, secure, optimized, and error-free. This responsibility has increasingly fallen upon application developers. They’re being asked to double as database administrators to maintain fluidity in the process and support an agency’s rapid release cycle.

With one of the largest threats to a company’s security and privacy being its own employees, having employees work remotely only adds to the risk. While this year’s Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report chalks it up to internal errors rather than intentional malice, the threat remains. Many corporations have sent employees to work from the confines of their homes, creating a greater need for protection against data and security breaches.

I’m not going to even try to pretend SysAdmin Day arrives this year under conditions anyone would call “business as usual.” I’m going to avoid the cliched and empty platitudes of “the new normal,” “unprecedented times,” and “focusing on what matters.” I’m also going to avoid needlessly reminding you how much your company, coworkers, family, and friends rely on you because of your technical knowledge and expertise.

There’s no debating the value of digital transformation when it comes to optimal business performance, but for many IT leaders, some digital initiatives are pushed to the backburner due to other priorities. Over the last few months, COVID-19 has forced a number of those initiatives to the top of the list. From businesses transitioning to remote work, to schools closing, to travel plans being canceled, no one was fully prepared for what the world would face this year.

One of the business consequences from the pandemic—increased remote working—is causing technology challenges across most industries, including the public sector. Most employees who are now working from home have probably never had to do so before, while those still attending their place of work are mostly people in central government trying to keep the country running, or other critical roles.

While the concept of zero-trust security has many IT organizations thinking in terms of identity, access, and cloud services, zero trust must run on a solid foundation. We should start by talking about the goals of zero-trust security. Zero trust involves creating an environment where each access request is first scrutinized to determine whether it should be allowed.