Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

April 2023

Cloud Capacity Planning Is a Hit-or-Miss Exercise That Mostly Misses

The goal of capacity planning is to match resources with demand. There are essentially three outcomes from this analysis. You can underestimate the resources you need (underprovision), which can hurt performance. You can overestimate (overprovision), which adds unnecessary costs. Or you can get it just right (rightsized). And, of course, you want to be rightsized at the lowest possible cost. Because many factors go into cloud capacity planning, it can feel like more of an art than a science.

Five worthy reads: Multi-cloud strategy in the digital era

Five worthy reads is a regular column on five noteworthy items we have discovered while researching trending and timeless topics. This week we are exploring the multi-cloud strategy and why its the next biggest thing in cloud computing. In an age where digital innovations happen at breakneck speed, the cloud has become crucial to every enterprise.

The 25+ Best AWS Cost Optimization Tools (Organized By Category)

While AWS offers significant benefits compared to traditional on-premise infrastructure, its inherent elasticity and scalability tend to give rise to uncontrolled costs. AWS costs can be opaque and difficult to analyze — and without some system of identifying the source of costs and how to manage them — they can quickly undermine your profit margins. However, a number of tools have emerged over the past few years to help organizations manage and optimize their costs.

Whisper Data Migration to the Cloud

In the modern business landscape, the recent surge in cloud computing has become a game-changer, fundamentally altering how organizations manage their IT infrastructure. As businesses increasingly embrace digital transformation, migrating services and applications to the cloud has emerged as a crucial factor in guaranteeing scalability, flexibility, and cost efficiency.

Hyper-V vs VMware: A Comprehensive Comparison

Virtualization has become an essential aspect of modern computing. By creating a virtual version of a computing resource, such as hardware, storage, or an entire operating system, virtualization allows businesses to optimize resource utilization, streamline management, and reduce costs. Two of the most popular virtualization platforms in the market are Microsoft’s Hyper-V and VMware’s vSphere.

iCloud vs Google Drive: Which Big-Name Cloud Service Reigns Supreme?

The need for reliable and secure storage solutions is real. With the takeover of cloud storage, we no longer have to stress about losing important files or running out of storage space on our devices. Everyone uses cloud storage in some way or another, but only some give their choice of provider much thinking. We now barely give backing up files a second thought, but we should.

Platform.sh as a SaaS development and management platform

The Software as a Service (SaaS) model operates by treating each customer as a tenant of the application. To use the SaaS application, each tenant is usually required to pay a subscription. There are three main tenancy models for a SaaS application: In this article we'll focus on specific challenges brought about by the single-tenant model, including developing, deploying, and keeping up-to-date several instances of the SaaS application.

Upgrade your existing Ubuntu LTS instances to Ubuntu Pro in AWS

In April 2023, Amazon Web Services (AWS) released a new functionality that allows users running Ubuntu LTS to upgrade their instances to Ubuntu Pro with just a few clicks. This upgrade provides additional security features, including patching for universe packages, extended security management for an additional five years, live kernel patching, and access to FedRamp and FIPS modules.

Static credential management for platform engineers

Cloud CI/CD is a force multiplier for development teams, especially those working remotely. Automated CI/CD takes load off of developers, allowing them to focus on building better products. Hosted CI/CD adds further benefit to this, ensuring that this newfound capacity isn’t spent managing the testing and deployment infrastructure, and that remote team members have easy access to CI/CD tools.

Release features faster and track their impact with Flagsmith's integration and Datadog Marketplace offering

The pressure to release application features faster to meet the demands of customers presents a number of challenges, including unforeseen deployment delays, custom feature sets, and complex rollbacks when errors occur. To overcome these challenges, developers can use Flagsmith, an open source feature flagging and remote configuration service that allows developers to easily roll out and test new features for a specific subset of users.

Why Enterprise Observability Is a Better Approach to Unified Monitoring

To say modern enterprises are built on the cloud is an understatement. According to Gartner, enterprise spending on cloud applications surged to 57.7% in 2022, and investments into public cloud services hit a respectable 41%. These numbers are only predicted to grow further in 2025 as enterprises accelerate cloud rollouts and move into a cloud microservices architecture to realize greater agility, productivity, and competitiveness.

Make Azure Management Seamless with Serverless360

Serverless360 enables advanced Azure management to monitor resources distributed across multiple subscriptions, get end-to-end tracking, perform remediation, optimize costs, and enhance security. There were nearly 80+ new features, and enhancements rolled out in the last 14 months, and to keep up with the momentum, we have come up with exciting new feature upgrades even this time. We have introduced escalation policies to resolve failures on time. On top of that, a lot is being introduced to advanced Azure Management and end-to-end tracking.

Engineering tomorrow, today: hybrid cloud at the edge

The direction of travel for business technology is one-way. The momentum towards strategies around decentralised, hybrid technologies is unstoppable. Examples abound, from the composable software stacks of e-commerce to the ongoing death of monolithic ERP. Modern, digitally-driven business is based on a dynamic alignment of resources, data and technology at the granular level, which is then coordinated precisely.

Azure VM Types

Microsoft Azure, one of the leading cloud computing platforms, provides various services that enable businesses to run and manage applications efficiently. Among these services are virtual machines (VMs), which offer scalable computing resources to accommodate the diverse requirements of modern applications. In this article, we will delve into the different Azure VM types available and guide you on how to select the most suitable option for your specific needs.

ChatGPT uncertain about the future of cloud computing

ChatGPT has been the talk of the town for more than four months now. As the first ever artificial intelligence (AI) -powered chatbot, it has quickly gained immense popularity, helping students, engineers and even executives generate content, write and debug code and run market analyses. But could ChatGPT be used for anything other than natural language processing (NPL)? Could it, for example, assist businesses with strategic decision-making? I decided to try it out.

Stateful workloads: How to guarantee savings and continuity

Stateful workloads require consistent access to specific network and disk artifacts. Yet with little tolerance for interruptions, it’s no surprise that these workloads can be costly to run. As a result, organizations face a challenging trade-off between consistency and cost-efficiency as their cloud estates scale and cost concerns grow. However, running stateful workloads doesn’t necessitate overprovisioned, expensive, and unpredictable compute costs.

How to Perform AWS Monitoring: Tools and Best Practices

As more and more businesses adopt microservices and leverage cloud infrastructures, keeping track of services and resources becomes increasingly important. Comprehensive monitoring is needed to ensure optimal performance, avoid downtime and ensure all have a great user experience. But leaving monitoring to the cloud provider may not give you the insights you need.

From Manual to Digital: The Impact of Technology on Business Operation

A little over a decade ago, businesses relied heavily on manual processes to carry out their day-to-day operations. Unfortunately, manual completion of business tasks was often time-consuming and prone to costly errors, leading to lower productivity and decreased profitability. Fast forward to 2023, businesses all around the world are turning to technology to streamline their operations, making them more efficient and productive.

Creating AWS email templates with Handlebars.js and MJML

In the next two posts (maybe more) I'll share how we have developed elmah.io's email templates currently sent out using Amazon Web Services (AWS). This first post will introduce template development using MJML and Handlebars.js. In the next post, I'll explain the process of building them on Azure DevOps and deploying them to AWS.

Azure Cost Analysis

Serverless360 is a Cloud management platform engineered for Microsoft Azure that brings enterprise-grade monitoring, tracing, remediation & governance under one roof. Everything you need to empower your Azure operations teams with more meaningful features and deliver effortless support. Achieve end-to-end tracking on business process flow across Azure resources and hybrid integrations. Get visibility on the integration solution that the functional operations teams need. Improve operational efficiency with a unified view of business transactions.

Cloud Earnings Season - The Great Cloud Scaledown Of 2023

It’s cloud earnings week this week for AWS, GCP, and Azure, and I have already heard the pundits warming up the hot takes. Some are even asking if this could be the end of the cloud. My advice to you: Don’t be that person unless you enjoy being horribly wrong. No, I'm not saying that when AWS, Azure, and GCP report their growth that it's going to be anything different than what we expect.

How to throw custom exceptions inside Logic Apps: Using default capabilities - Extract failure information (Part II)

Welcome to the second part of this series of blog posts on How to throw custom exceptions inside Logic Apps. In this series of five blogs, I will cover throwing custom exceptions in Logic Apps. I will cover the following topics: In this second approach, we are going to do a small fine-tuning of the previous approach by adding the capability to define custom error messages for each condition and, of course, get that information inside the Catch Scope.

Multi-cloud trends in transport and logistics

The transport, logistics, and supply chain sectors are laser focused on efficiency. The aim is to get the right thing to the right place at the right time, making best use of the available infrastructure, while a multitude of global and local factors attempt to eat into margins. In the last 36 months, a litany of events have caused consistent supply chain issues, from Covid to grounded cargo ships, to industrial action to escalating fuel prices.

Monitor your Linux web apps on Azure App Service with Datadog

Azure App Service is a fully managed platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solution for deploying web applications, event-driven functions, RESTful APIs, and more. Azure App Service enables developers to quickly build and release services that scale dynamically—without worrying about provisioning and maintaining infrastructure. Last year, we released the Datadog extension for Azure App Service for deep visibility into your Windows.NET applications.

Spot Connect: Building blocks for CloudOps

Everybody loves building blocks. The simplicity of creating models, the flexibility in changing design and purpose as the play evolves, and the endless possibilities. This is one of the reasons applications that are aimed at educating kids about programming are using the concept of no-code/low-code building blocks. My kids, for example, just love Scratch, Tynker, MakeCode Micro:bit, and of course Minecraft Education.

Kubecon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2023 Recap

KubeCon Amsterdam was an incredible gathering of like-minded professionals, bringing together devops, software engineers, vendors, and cloud technology enthusiasts from around the world. This year’s event was the biggest KubeCon + CloudNativeCon ever, with a sold-out attendee list of 10,000 strong. The sheer scale of the event was a testament to the growing popularity of cloud native technology and the vibrant community that supports it.

Cloud Monitoring Console's Health Dashboard: Maximize Your Monitoring Efficiency

Are you a Splunk Cloud admin tired of sifting through various tools and dashboards to monitor the health of your Splunk Cloud deployment? Do you often find yourself wondering what actions you can take to keep your Splunk Cloud deployment running smoothly? Are you looking for ways to be alerted before something impacts your deployment performance? Look no further than the Cloud Monitoring Console's Health Dashboard!

Is Your Cloud Spend Problem a Cloud Cost Tracking and Accountability Problem?

Most companies overspend on cloud services. Many factors contribute to this problem, and while organizations know that their cloud budgets are bloated, they still struggle to reel in those costs. Are they implementing the tools and processes to track their cloud costs effectively? And are they adopting controls to instill discipline and accountability in their cloud spending habits? We explored these questions in our latest State of Multi-Cloud Management research report.

Understanding the Different Types of Server Solutions for Your Business Needs

When it comes to running a successful business, there are certain decisions that have to be made in order for things to run smoothly. One of those important decisions you must consider is which type of server solution will best meet your needs. Whether you're just getting started or already have an existing infrastructure, understanding the different types of servers available and how they work can help ensure you choose the one that will give you maximum performance and efficiency.

The Sun's Setting on Cisco Prime Infrastructure, Rising on SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability

Cisco recently announced its plan to End of Life (EOL) Cisco Prime Infrastructure. While they’re offering an alternative solution with this announcement, Cisco DNA Center, support for multi-vendor environments appears to be decreasing.

Cloud First Disaster Recovery Could Save the Day-Here's Why

Disaster recovery (DR) plans are not one-size-fits-all. There’s no silver bullet, and without a clear understanding and some level of customization, a DR plan done wrong will have detrimental effects on an organization’s operations and business. And let’s not forget the wrecking ball a bad DR plan delivers to the VAR or MSP who designed and executed it. Loss of business aside, there’s guilt, reputation damage, and potential lawsuits. It’s not a good day.

How To Use Our AWS Integration

AWS is a cloud platform that is popular and widely used in many industries. They have many services such as EC2, S3, Lambda, and many more. Since AWS is so popular, being able to easily use it along with your other tools is a priority. We have an AWS integration set up with our tool so that our users have an optimal experience.

The Simple Guide To The History Of The Cloud

The first person to coin the term “Artificial Intelligence” predicted that someday people would buy software as a utility. The year was 1961 and that person was Professor John McCarthy, a computer scientist at Stanford University. After Salesforce began selling software programs this way in the late-1990s, the good professor witnessed his prophecy come true for over 12 years before his passing in 2011. Yet this is only one aspect of computing in the cloud as we know it today.

Azure AD authentication comes to Ubuntu Desktop 23.04

Ubuntu Desktop 23.04 is the first and only Linux distribution to enable native user authentication with Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). The adoption of cloud-based identity providers in the enterprise is skyrocketing and this has been one of the most requested features. With Ubuntu Desktop 23.04 we decided to act on the feedback and offer a way to natively let enterprise users authenticate Ubuntu Desktops with the same credentials they use for Microsoft 365 or their Windows clients.

Spot Security is now multi-cloud with Azure support

While many organizations may start their cloud journey with a single cloud platform, they often veer off their path to adopt a multi-cloud infrastructure. But they’re not alone. According to Gartner, 81% of organizations report working with two or more public cloud providers. Although a multi-cloud strategy reaps benefits such as regional availability, cost savings, risk reduction, and reliability, it also comes with its challenges. These can include.

How an Observability Pipeline Can Help With Cloud Migration

Do you want to confidently move workloads to the cloud without dropping or losing data? Of course, everyone does. But easier said than done. Cloud migration is tricky. There’s so much to think through and so much to worry about — how can you reconfigure architectures and data flows to ensure parity and visibility? How do you know the data in transit is safe and secure? How can you get your job done without getting in trouble with procurement?

How to Protect Your Storage Account Against Blob-Hunting

Blob storage is a cloud-based service offered by various cloud providers, designed to store vast amounts of unstructured data such as images, videos, documents, and other types of files. It is highly scalable, cost-effective, and durable, making it an ideal choice for organizations that need to store and manage large data sets for applications like websites, mobile apps, and data analytics.

Dropbox vs OneDrive: Which Cloud Is Better?

As more and more people rely on cloud storage to store and share their files, it becomes important to choose the right cloud storage service that suits your needs. The two most popular cloud storage services are Dropbox and OneDrive. In this comprehensive comparison guide, we will dive deep into the features, pricing, security, and customer support of both Dropbox and OneDrive to help you make an informed decision.

Azure AD Authentication for Ubuntu

Ubuntu Desktop 23.04 is the first and only Linux distribution to provide native user authentication with Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) enabling users on Microsoft 365 (M365) Enterprise plans to authenticate Ubuntu Desktops with the same credentials they use for M365 or Azure. This is possible thanks to aad-auth, our new cloud authentication client which makes use of Microsoft MSAL library.

2bcloud Architects Housetable's Secure AWS Environment, Providing Compliance & ML Functionality

Housetable helps homeowners get the most out of their home equity by using artificial intelligence (AI) and data science to predict the value of their homes after renovation. This information helps homeowners secure financing that reflects the true worth of their property.

What Are Append Blobs

Azure Blob Storage is a highly scalable, reliable, and secure cloud storage service offered by Microsoft Azure. It allows you to store a vast amount of unstructured data, such as text or binary data, in the form of objects or blobs. There are three types of blobs: Block Blobs, Page Blobs, and Append Blobs. In this article, we will focus on Append Blobs, their use cases, management, security, performance, and pricing. Let’s dive in!

The No BS Guide To Understanding Azure Storage Costs

If you have trouble understanding Microsoft Azure Storage pricing, you’re not alone. Azure Storage options can feel like a multi-layered maze of storage account types, tiers, pricing pages, specs — and then some. Yet, understanding your cloud cost drivers begins with looking at where your money goes. Only then can you tell if you are getting value for your money.

Continuous verification key concepts: Ocean CD metric and custom verifications

Ocean CD is an advanced deployment controller for Kubernetes applications. It provides gradual deployment capabilities, continuous verification, and auto-rollbacks that prevent incidents following code changes. Ocean CD can be installed in minutes to help DevOps teams ensure safer code releases and allow developers to deliver applications faster and with greater confidence.

Why is hybrid cloud the "next generation of cloud"

It is a rare pleasure to both have ones cake and eat it. But that is precisely what next generation, hybrid cloud, offers organisations looking to reduce the cost whilst increasing control of the technology that underpins modern, digital business. Hybrid cloud refers to mixed computing, storage, and services environments that blend on-premises infrastructure, private cloud services, and a public cloud.

Unleashing the Power of ManageEngine CloudDNS: Get Ready for the latest updates this April!

Are you ready to take your DNS management to the next level? If so, we’ve got some exciting news for you! ManageEngine CloudDNS has just released a set of updates that are set to revolutionize the way you manage your DNS infrastructure. From enhanced branding and protection features to improved scalability and DevOps-induced productivity, these updates are designed to simplify your DNS management and ensure that your web applications are always available to users.

What are Page Blobs?

Azure Blob storage is a versatile and scalable cloud-based storage solution that allows you to store and manage large amounts of unstructured data. It offers three types of Blobs – Block Blobs, Page Blobs, and Append Blobs – each designed for specific use cases. In this article, we will provide an in-depth exploration of Page Blobs, their features, advantages, use cases, and how you can manage them effectively using Cloud Storage Manager.

Grafana Cloud is now available in AWS Marketplace

Grafana Labs is excited to announce that Grafana Cloud is now available in AWS Marketplace. With this new offering, existing AWS customers can procure, deploy, and scale the fully managed Grafana LGTM observability stack (Loki for logs, Grafana for visualization, Tempo for traces, Mimir for Prometheus metrics) with just a few clicks.

How to get Azure Data Factory Pipeline Failure Notification?

Azure Data Factory is a cloud-based data integration tool focusing on data extraction, transformation, and loading. A pipeline in Azure Data Factory is a collection of processes that move data to a shared repository, such as a data warehouse. Why it is important to monitor Azure Data Factory pipeline failures?

Understanding and Using Azure Blob Storage Change Feed

In today’s data-driven world, the ability to monitor and track changes to data is essential for organizations across all industries. Azure Blob Storage Change Feed is a powerful feature that helps you keep tabs on your data by providing a log of all changes made to the blobs within your storage account. This article will guide you through understanding and using Azure Blob Storage Change Feed to effectively manage your data.

What are Block Blobs?

Azure Block Blobs are an essential part of the Microsoft Azure cloud storage platform. They provide a scalable, secure, and cost-effective solution for storing large amounts of unstructured data, such as images, videos, and text files. In this article, we’ll explore the features, benefits, and use cases of Azure Block Blobs, and how our software, Cloud Storage Manager, can help you manage and optimize your Azure Storage consumption.

Allan Vermeulen On S3, Jeff Bezos, The Beatles, And Much More

As we were planning “Cloud Atlas,” our primary goal was to talk with someone who was “in the room” during the genesis of the cloud. Allan Vermeulen, who worked for Amazon from 1999-2021, and who proposed Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), became that source. Allan is a born engineer. He has always enjoyed building things — whether “out of bits and software or boards and lumber,” Allan takes pleasure in creating useful things.

Now you can forward logs to external endpoints from within the Console!

Our aim, like always, is to help users thrive. We want them to receive real value from all that we deliver through our various features. And it’s equally important to offer flexibility by providing all different ways to use those features. This way, you’re free to use the feature in the way that's most convenient. Driving this vision of ours, well, forward, we have now extended our Logs Forwarding experience from CLI to within the Console.

Debugging Containerized React Apps

In your lifetime as a frontend developer that works with React, you must have come across several issues with debugging a containerized React application. I bet you can relate, you’re certainly not alone. Containerization has become an integral part of best practices for software development teams that want to create, test and deploy applications quickly and efficiently. However, despite its advantages, it also comes with new challenges for debugging and troubleshooting applications.

The Magic Behind the Lumigo Kubernetes Operator

Kubernetes is the container orchestration platform of choice for many teams. In our ongoing efforts to bring the magic experience of Lumigo’s serverless capabilities to the world of containerized applications, we are delighted to share with you the Lumigo Kubernetes operator, a best-in-class operator to automatically trace your applications running on Kubernetes.

Lumigo Product Training: Actionable Alerts

Get hands-on training from Lumigo's Director of Product during this live webinar on alerts and how to use them to reduce response time. Recorded on April 13, 2023. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on any new livestreams and observability content! With one-click distributed tracing, Lumigo lets developers effortlessly find and fix issues in serverless and containerized environments.

Best Cloud Monitoring Tools For Every Use

Nowadays, almost half of traditional small businesses (and nearly 2/3rds of small tech companies in particular) employ cloud infrastructure or hosting services, and for good reasons. Cloud computing can potentially save money, help with scalability and flexibility and make it easier to test new products and design fresh applications faster.

Azure Disk Storage Best Practices

Azure Disk Storage is a robust and versatile cloud storage solution provided by Microsoft Azure. It offers high-performance, durable, and scalable storage options for various workloads, such as virtual machines, databases, and business-critical applications. Understanding the key factors impacting costs, best practices, and how to optimize Azure Disk Storage can help users save money and make the most of their cloud storage investment.

Mi Cloud: Is Xiaomi Cloud Storage Service Worth Your Investment?

As our digital lives continue to grow, so does the need for storage. It's no secret that cloud storage has become a popular solution for many people looking to store their data remotely. Xiaomi, a popular Chinese electronics company, has its own cloud storage service called Mi Cloud. In this article, we will discuss the different pricing plans Xiaomi Cloud offers and whether they are worth your investment.

AWS Cost Explorer Vs. Cost And Usage Report (Is There A Better Option?)

A major problem led Amazon to introduce Cost Explorer and Cost and Usage Reports. Many Amazon Web Services (AWS) users were overspending on services they couldn't quite identify. Before the two cloud financial management tools, the AWS public cloud was like a buffet menu without prices. Engineers could use as many cloud resources as they could get away with (and then some), only to be hit with surprise bills at the end of the month or billing cycle.

Azure Data Box: Simplifying Data Transfer to Azure

Microsoft’s Azure Data Box is a data transfer solution designed to simplify and streamline the process of moving large amounts of data to Azure cloud storage. With the continuous growth of data volumes, businesses are seeking efficient and cost-effective ways to transfer and store data in the cloud. This comprehensive article provides an in-depth analysis of the key factors impacting costs, best practices, and a step-by-step guide to using Azure Data Box.

Ofcom interim cloud report: 5 key takeaways & where we go next

Ever since UK regulator Ofcom announced its market study into the cloud industry in 2022, there has been cautious optimism about whether this could be a genuine moment of truth for the hyperscalers. On 5 April 2023, we got our answer. In its interim report, Ofcom did not hold back in its criticism of the dominance that the hyperscalers, especially AWS and Microsoft, hold over the industry and the limits and even “harm” this creates for customers.

Securely Connecting an Amazon S3 Destination to Cribl.Cloud and Hybrid Workers

There are several reasons you may want to route to Amazon S3 destinations, including routing to object storage for archival, routing to S3 buckets to utilize Cribl.Cloud’s Search feature, and archiving data that can be replayed later. When setting up Amazon S3 destinations in Cribl, there are three authentication methods: Auto, Manual, and Secret. Using the Auto authentication method paired with Assume Role is the most secure way to connect Amazon S3 to Cribl.

Control your cloud costs: Inside the Amalgam Insights Vendor Highlight

With the looming threat of recession and the continued strain on businesses resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations facing budget crises need to get their cloud costs under control. The Amalgam Insights Vendor Highlight report, underwritten by Spot by NetApp, dives into the reasons organizations need to control their cloud costs and how they can use the right technology to do so.

Migrating a Web App to AWS Lambda with Lambda Web Adapter

As developers, we all seek to build web applications that can scale seamlessly, adapt to changing needs and do so without incurring excessive costs. One way to achieve this is by migrating web applications to AWS Lambda, which can provide scalability, flexibility, and cost savings. To make this process even easier, AWS provides the Lambda web adapter, a simple and efficient tool that enables you to migrate your web apps quickly.

The Top 10 Products From AWS Summit Paris 2023

The AWS Summit Paris 2023 brought together some of the world's top companies and tech experts to showcase the latest innovations and products in the tech industry. With so many impressive companies in attendance, it can be difficult to narrow down the top products on display but after careful consideration, we've compiled a list of the top 10 products from the event.

Mastering Azure Resource Groups: A Comprehensive Guide to Best Practices

In today’s fast-paced and technology-driven world, cloud computing has become an essential component of modern business operations. Microsoft Azure, a leading cloud platform, offers a wide range of services and tools to help organizations manage their infrastructure efficiently. One crucial aspect of managing Azure resources is the Azure Resource Group, a logical container for resources deployed within an Azure subscription.

Charmed Kubeflow is now available on AWS Marketplace

Canonical is proud to announce that Charmed Kubeflow is now available as a software appliance on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) marketplace. With the appliance, users can now launch and manage their machine learning workloads hassle-free using Charmed Kubeflow on AWS. This reduces deployment time and eases operations, providing an easy-to-install MLOps toolkit on the public cloud.

The Truth About Your Online Posts: Are They Really Out There Forever?

The internet is a vast space that has given us the freedom to express ourselves in ways that were not possible before. What we say might as well be written in stone – or is there more to the story? With the rise of social media platforms, posting content online has become easier than ever. Unfortunately, with this freedom comes a responsibility to be mindful of the impact of our online activity.

How do you migrate your application to the cloud for the first time?

You don’t have to be an expert to deploy your application to the cloud - 24% of Cloud 66 customers used a PaaS like Heroku in the past and cut their bills by up to 60% after moving to the cloud. Additionally, they gained more control over their own infrastructure and more flexibility in their deployments.

The Dummie's Guide: What Is The Cloud?

YouTube. Netflix. Uber. Spotify. TikTok. You name it. You sign up and get your own account. Once you set it up however you want, you can access it from any internet-enabled device, including smartphones and smartwatches. In case your device breaks, is lost, or you switch to a new one, you can still access the account, as well as the settings and information it contained, from another device without having to recreate everything from scratch.

Enhancing cloud native application observability on AWS with business transaction insights

With business transaction insights in AppDynamics Cloud, you can turn cloud native chaos into business context. Here’s how. In any organization, technology plays a vital role in nearly every aspect of the business — from marketing to operations to human resources. But increasingly, its role in revenue generation is taking center stage. Profitability and growth are now in the hands of CTOs and CIOs.

Distributed Tracing for AWS CDK Applications

The AWS CDK lets users build as Infrastructure as Code (IaC) reliable, scalable, and cost-effective applications in their cloud environments. With the AWS CDK, developers can use various supported programming languages to create constructs (reusable cloud components) and compose them together into stacks and applications.

4 Rising Trends in Enterprises: Cloud, Automation, Experience, and Compliance

When you’re running a business, you have a bunch of different tools and processes that you need to manage in order to keep everything running smoothly. It’s kind of like having a bunch of different puzzle pieces that you need to fit together just right in order to create a complete picture. Now, let’s say you want to take your business to the next level – maybe you want to expand your customer base, improve your productivity, or streamline your operations.

How to setup Azure Key Vault

Microsoft Azure Key Vault is a cloud-based service designed to help organizations securely store and manage sensitive information such as encryption keys, secrets, and certificates. As more organizations migrate to cloud services, ensuring the security of sensitive data and applications is crucial. In this comprehensive guide, we will discuss Azure Key Vault with a focus on securing Blob Storage, providing how-to guides and best practices.

6 Reasons Why Manual Infrastructure Optimization Doesn't Work

IT spend on big data systems in 2023 is forecasted to be $222 billion (Statista.com: Information spending on data center systems worldwide from 2012 to 2023). Actual monetary cost is just one parameter: infrastructure resources, personnel, and the overall time taken to retrieve big data insights push spending even further.

Migrating Graphite to the Cloud

Are you ready to take your monitoring and analysis game to the next level? As businesses increasingly shift to the cloud, migrating Graphite metrics to the cloud has become critical to unlocking the full potential of real-time performance monitoring. In this article, we'll guide you through migrating Graphite to the cloud and show you how to make the transition as smooth as possible. So grab a cup of coffee, and let's dive in!

Keeping Your Cloud Connections Clear: A Deep Dive into Azure Network Monitoring

Welcome to the exciting world of cloud computing, where everything is digital and the skies are always clear...or are they? With so many connections in the cloud, it's easy to get lost in a digital haze. That's where Azure Network Monitoring comes in! By keeping a watchful eye on your cloud connections, you can ensure that your data travels smoothly and your cloud experience remains crystal clear.

Greater organization insights through weekly activity reports emails

Keeping track of your project-related activities can be an overwhelming task. With so many projects, tickets, users, and deployments happening simultaneously, having a clear and simple high-level overview of your entire organization is a very welcome addition to any team. That’s why we’ve created our Weekly Organization Activity Reports which will help to keep you on top of changes across various Projects within your organization.

Top Reasons to Embrace a Hybrid Multi-Cloud Strategy

It is not always possible or necessary for an organization to rely solely on cloud resources. For example, requirements might call for on-premises infrastructure for privacy reasons. Alternatively, some organizations might use both on-premises infrastructure and public cloud services provided by companies like AWS, Azure, or Google.

How To Spot Cost Inefficiencies In Your Cloud

It’s almost impossible to create an optimized cloud system out of the gate and keep it running at a perfect balance over the long term. There’s almost always something that could benefit from some tweaks and adjustments. Cloud costs have a way of creeping up slowly while you’re not paying attention. And if you’re not careful, they can spiral out of control before you realize anything is happening.

The Complex Reality of Multi-Cloud Environments

Most companies today have multiple cloud instances with multiple cloud service providers (CSPs) as well as an on-premises environment. It’s complex, but that doesn’t make it inherently wrong—there are usually good business reasons behind the decisions. It does, however, create management challenges.

Deploy a Dockerized Go application to Azure

As a software engineer, one of your goals is to ensure that your product can be accessed globally by your customers. It’s not enough that an app is bug-free and works flawlessly if it only works on localhost. Docker was introduced to solve the “it works on my machine” problem. For example, the particular version of a programming language a developer is using on Windows or MacOS may not be working on the hosting server.

SaaS PR: All that you need to know in 2023 and more!

As the world becomes more digitally connected, businesses are becoming increasingly competitive. To sway the ideal customers towards loyalty, there can be several steps taken in digital marketing. However, the need for effective public relations (PR) for SaaS companies is one of the most crucial strategies today. With so many SaaS companies vying for attention from their customers and prospective shareholders, it's critical to establish a solid PR strategy that can assist you in standing apart from the crowd.

Announcing support for monitoring AWS Lambda Function URLs with Datadog

AWS Lambda Function URLs make it even easier to create AWS Lambda functions that can be accessed and triggered by using HTTP/S requests, which is key for building serverless applications that are connected to and invoked from the web. Now you can generate a URL in one click that points to a specified Lambda function. Then, any HTTP/S request that a Function URL receives will trigger the Lambda function it’s assigned to.

Scrape Azure metrics and monitor AKS using Grafana Agent

As more organizations adopt cloud-based services like Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), it becomes increasingly important to monitor and manage the performance and reliability of these services. If you’re using AKS today, then Grafana Cloud provides the flexibility, performance, and visualizations you need to monitor your distributed applications.

Return large objects with AWS Lambda's new Streaming Response

Lambda has a size limit of 6MB on request and response payloads for synchronous invocations. This affects API functions and how much data you are able to send and receive from a Lambda-backed API endpoint. I have previously written about several workarounds on the request payload limit. But sometimes you also need to return a payload bigger than 6MB. For example, PDF or image files.

8 reasons customers choose CloudSpend over native cloud billing tools

CloudSpend-Cloud cost management FinOps professionals often find it difficult to gain full visibility of cost overruns resulting from cloud wastage. MangageEngine CloudSpend is a cloud cost management tool that helps you reduce cloud wastage and save costs. If you are a sysadmin or a FinOps professional and are wondering what CloudSpend does that native cloud billing tools don’t, this article is for you.

Sysdig Validated as AWS CloudOps Competency Launch Partner

This week AWS unveiled its new Cloud Operations Competency–aka the CloudOps Competency–designed to recognize qualified partners who help cloud customers build and manage hybrid cloud environments securely and efficiently. Sysdig is a launch partner and is now validated for the AWS CloudOps Competency in Compliance and Auditing, as well as Monitoring and Observability categories.

Securing Azure Blob Storage

Azure Blob Storage is a versatile, scalable, and cost-effective cloud storage service provided by Microsoft. It is designed to store a wide range of data types, including unstructured data such as images, videos, audio files, and documents. As businesses increasingly rely on cloud storage for critical data, ensuring the security of Azure Blob Storage becomes a top priority.

Troubleshoot faster and modernize your apps with AWS Monitoring and Observability

As a company born in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud, we understand that operating at cloud scale requires balancing security, compliance, and operational safety with your commitment to innovation, speed, and agility. From cost optimization at scale to operational resiliency to application modernization, we know you’re facing various challenges and need reliable solutions.

Spot by NetApp's CloudCheckr achieves Cloud Financial Management and Compliance and Auditing Distinctions in AWS Cloud Operations Competency

We’re proud to announce that CloudCheckr, part of the Spot by NetApp portfolio for CloudOps, has achieved the AWS Cloud Operations Competency in the categories of Cloud Financial Management and Compliance and Auditing. With this achievement, the Spot by NetApp portfolio solidifies its position as the industry’s broadest and deepest cloud operations portfolio for customers from enterprises to startups to managed service providers.

10 Best Practices for Optimizing Kubernetes on AWS

As more businesses adopt Kubernetes to manage containerized applications, optimizing Kubernetes on AWS has become a crucial aspect of managing and deploying applications in the cloud. Kubernetes on AWS provides many benefits, including scalability, high availability, and flexibility, but it also poses several challenges that require careful consideration and planning. Today, we will discuss the top 10 best practices for optimizing Kubernetes on AWS, along with the common challenges that come with it.

Logic App Best Practices, Tips, and Tricks: #27 How to embed HTML images into emails

Today I will speak about another useful Best practice, Tips, and Tricks that you must consider while designing your business processes (Logic Apps): How to embed HTML images into your email using Logic App Designer.

Azure Unmanaged Disks Soon Deprecated

Microsoft announced in September 2022 that they will be deprecating Azure Unmanaged Disks on September 30, 2025. This means that customers will no longer be able to create or use unmanaged disks after this date. Unmanaged disks are a type of storage that is not managed by Microsoft. This means that customers are responsible for managing all aspects of the disk, including provisioning, backups, and security. Managed disks, on the other hand, are a type of storage that is managed by Microsoft.

Spot Security: Detect, prioritize, and take action against threats

While many cloud security professionals spend their time remediating vulnerabilities as they appear, analyzing risks early and often can help them more efficiently strengthen their organization’s security posture. Yet doing so requires the right tools in place to detect, prioritize, and respond to current and potential threats to the cloud environment.

Practical Steps for Enhancing Reliability in Cloud Networks - Part I

Delivering on network reliability causes an enterprise’s data to become more distributed, introducing advanced challenges like complexity and data gravity for network engineers and operators. Learn concrete steps on how to implement cloud reliability and the trade-offs that come with it.

Citrix Cloud Troubleshooting: How to Resolve Experience Issues for End-Users

Citrix Cloud is a popular cloud-based solution that provides businesses with the ability to deliver secure and reliable access to applications and desktops to end-users from anywhere and any device. However, like any other cloud-based solution, there may be instances where end-users may experience issues while using Citrix Cloud. In this blog post, we will discuss how to troubleshoot and resolve experience issues for end-users on Citrix Cloud using a step-by-step troubleshooting workflow.

CloudDNS' geo-load balancing and redundancy ensure high availability and reliability

Cloud computing makes it easier for businesses to build and deploy applications that are accessible from anyplace in the world. But cloud computing also introduces new challenges, such as ensuring applications remain available even if there are network outages or unexpected spikes in traffic. ManageEngine CloudDNS provides a powerful geo-load balancing and redundancy feature that makes it easy to manage and distribute traffic across multiple servers and locations.

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Airlines aiming to transform need modern Observability

The last decade has been nothing but a roller coaster ride for the airline industry. The pandemic has transformed it forever and now it needs to reevaluate its digital transformation priorities on how to manage traveler expectations. Taking it a step further, travelers buying behavior is changing farther as now they will want to book tickets while chatting with an AI interface. The transformation was already underway. In 2020, Google Cloud and Sabre announced a partnership to modernize Sabre. Recently, American Airlines announced their modern rebooking app launched in partnership with IBM. Lufthansa announced industry's first continuous pricing tailored to suit individual customer attributes.

Managed vs. Unmanaged Disks in Azure

Microsoft Azure is a leading cloud computing platform offering a wide range of services to cater to the needs of businesses across various domains. One of the popular services is Azure Storage, which allows organizations to store, access, and manage their data in a secure and scalable manner. When it comes to deploying virtual machines (VMs) in Azure, organizations need to make a critical decision between Managed and Unmanaged Disks.

Troubleshooting Intermittent Failure in Amazon ECS apps

A distributed system is a system whose components are located on different networked computers, which communicate and coordinate their actions by passing messages to one another. The components interact in a decentralized manner and work together to achieve a common goal. Working with distributed systems is challenging, because failure often spreads between components and debugging across multiple components is difficult and time-consuming.

De-risk Your Data Center Consolidation or Cloud Migration Plan

Consolidating or exiting your data center is a complex and high-stakes initiative. Despite the many benefits of moving to the cloud, lifting and shifting workloads without a clear understanding of dependencies between workloads or without addressing underlying technical debt or security vulnerabilities can result in bigger, more expensive problems in the long term.

Cloud Atlas, Episode 1: The Cloud Gathers

Just about everything you interact with digitally is enabled by the cloud. Whether you’re doom-scrolling on Instagram, binge-watching on Netflix, ride-hailing on Uber, or downloading super-cool cloud podcasts (hint, hint) on Spotify, you’re using the cloud. But most people don’t have any idea what the cloud is, where it came from, or what we, as a species, spend on it.

Cloud Atlas, Episode 3: The Big Bang

An easy way to understand what the early cloud did is to think of it like a public utility. The same way buildings depend on a common set of utilities — gas, electricity, and water — software projects depend on a common set of services: compute, storage, and database. “Compute” refers to the power it takes to run the software.

Introduction to Azure Storage Service Encryption

Microsoft Azure is a leading cloud service provider that offers a wide range of storage solutions. One of its essential features is the Azure Storage Service Encryption (SSE) which helps organizations protect their data at rest. This article will dive deep into the world of Azure Storage Service Encryption, discussing various encryption types, their applications, and best practices for implementing encryption in your Azure storage accounts.

5 Essential Things Every FinOps Team Needs

Every time your company onboards a new client or releases a new product, your cloud bill will grow. In fact, it doesn’t take a large event at all to see a spike. Whenever your company changes direction even slightly, it can affect the bottom line. Add to that factors such as economic inflation and increased demand for high-speed, high-power cloud services, and it may seem like each month’s cloud bill is higher than it was before. If that’s the case for you, you’re not alone.

Harnessing the Power of AZCopy with Azure Storage

In today’s data-driven world, the ability to efficiently and effectively manage vast amounts of data is crucial. As businesses increasingly rely on cloud services to store and manage their data, tools that can streamline data transfer processes become indispensable. AZCopy is one such powerful tool that, when combined with Azure Storage, can greatly simplify data management tasks while maintaining optimal performance.

Azure Resource Monitoring: The key method for Holistic Monitoring

When your organization has started to adopt Azure, the continuously increasing number of Azure resources throughout all your Development, Test, and Production subscriptions make it hard to keep on top of the health of all those resources. So, it is important to have proactive Azure resource monitoring to know when something unexpected happens.

Spying on Your Network with AWS Network Monitoring

Are you tired of feeling like you're in the dark when it comes to your network? Do you want to know what your data is up to when you're not looking? Well, put on your spy gear, because we're about to show you how to spy on your network with AWS Network Monitoring! Forget about traditional monitoring methods that leave you feeling overwhelmed and under-informed.

Quantum Entangled Observability

As the world of technology continues to evolve, the demand for cutting-edge solutions to monitor and optimize system performance has never been higher. Today, we’re excited to introduce a revolutionary new concept in observability: Quantum Entangled Observability (QEO). This ground-breaking method leverages the peculiar properties of quantum mechanics to provide unparalleled insights into your systems’ inner workings.