Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

April 2024

Data Lake Architecture: An Intro Guide To Using Data Lakes

Big data empowers enterprises to uncover valuable insights and make sound business decisions. The rigid schemas of traditional databases are increasingly unable to meet the demands of today’s data-hungry businesses. Enter data lakes — a modern approach to data management that harnesses the power of big data to unlock actionable intelligence. Here are insights you need to know right now.

NEW FEATURE: Functions - Batch Processing + Event-Driven Orchestration

Whether you're building the next massive AI platform, encoding thousands of images, or a hundreds of other use cases, the ability to quickly create ephemeral tasks can be a game changer for engineers solving complex tasks. With Cycle, you're now able to run Functions across multiple cloud providers all from one platform. And even better, these functions will exist on the same encrypted networks as your other containers.

Transforming Cybersecurity with AWS Graviton

Meet a cutting-edge SaaS platform revolutionizing cybersecurity operations with advanced AI and automation. With the expert support of 2bcloud, recognized under the AWS Graviton Service Delivery Program, the company has enhanced security infrastructures by optimizing MITRE ATT&CK coverage and revealing hidden detection gaps.

Navigating the Complexities of Hybrid and Multi-cloud Environments

Today’s evolving digital landscape requires both hybrid cloud and multi-cloud strategies to drive efficiency, innovation, and scalability. But this means more complexity and a unique set of challenges for network and cloud engineers, particularly when it comes to managing and gaining visibility across these environments.

Scaling new frontiers with Pimcore PaaS l Platform.sh

Scaling New Frontiers with Pimcore PaaS: A Webinar for the Future-Ready Enterprise Embark on a transformative journey into the future of digital infrastructure with Pimcore's Platform as a Service (PaaS). Join us for an exclusive webinar that promises to redefine the way you think about building, running, and scaling your websites and applications.

CloudZero Helped This Business Spark A Culture Shift Around Cloud Costs

Erik Peterson, founder and CTO at CloudZero, recently interviewed John-Cade “JC” Griffin to discuss how the CloudZero platform has influenced aspects of cloud financial management — such as engineering-led optimization — within his company. Some fascinating nuggets of wisdom emerged from the conversation — everything from how to answer those tricky cost questions every SaaS company struggles with to how to encourage engineers to start building with cost efficiency in mind.

What's New in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS for Microsoft/Azure Users

Canonical recently announced the release of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, codenamed “Noble Numbat”. This update underscores Ubuntu’s ongoing commitment to enhancing performance and security, focusing on optimizing developer productivity. The latest version features an optimized Linux kernel 6.8 and significant system management upgrades as detailed in the release notes.

From the Edge to the Cloud - How HPE and OpsRamp Can Help Power & Manage Your Hybrid IT Estate

You may have heard the phrase “from the edge to the cloud” but what does it really mean, how can your organization take advantage of it, and how can HPE and OpsRamp, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, help? Edge to cloud refers to the fact that enterprise data is no longer confined to the traditional data center. It is being generated and processed at the edge in ever-increasing amounts, then stored in the cloud, and used by an increasingly distributed global workforce.

Confident Cloud Migrations How a Top 5 Bank Ensured Reliability With AWS and Gremlin

In today's competitive landscape, migrating to the cloud brings substantial benefits, but the cloud’s new architectures and tools also bring new reliability risks and considerations. The challenge: Enterprises have to figure out how to capitalize on the benefits of the cloud while ensuring a seamless, reliable transition. This webinar offers a look at how to provide application reliability before, during, and after migrations with AWS and Gremlin.

Densify Talks, Avoiding Sticker Shock with Gokul Naidu of SAP's SuccessFactors

On this episode of Densify Talks, we welcome Gokul Naidu, Senior Manager, Cloud Operations for SAP’s SuccessFactors Product Suite. Andrew and Gokul discuss an array of topics in the episode. The general theme of the discussion focuses on cost management and the importance of being prepared, aware, and executing the right planning in order to avoid sticker shock.

Building Resilience in the Cloud With the AWS Well Architected Framework and Gremlin

Reliability and resilience in the cloud requires a different approach. Thankfully, the AWS Well-Architected Framework is a proven blueprint for cloud architects and engineering leaders seeking to design and operate resilient systems on AWS.

Challenges in Cloud Cost Optimization and how to overcome them

The cloud today offers many exciting benefits to enterprises - flexible infrastructure capacity, rapid capacity deployment, faster time to market, etc., that have reshaped the way businesses operate and innovate. Enterprises can now optimize their cloud resource consumption as per their needs, and this offers them greater value economics by converting their underutilized resources into value-generating operation expenditures.

5 Cloud Cost Savings Myths - Facts vs Fiction

Cloud computing has fundamentally transformed how businesses operate, offering unparalleled scalability, efficiency, and flexibility. These benefits empower businesses to innovate faster, adapt to changing markets with ease, lead to significant cloud cost savings and ultimately achieve greater success. As the cloud has become an important part of businesses and has transformed how they function, with the many benefits of moving on to the cloud, there are a few misconceptions about cloud computing.

10 Benefits of a Multicloud Environment

Multicloud is defined as using cloud computing services from at least two different providers. Instead of a single-cloud stack, the user will plan out a combination of services. They can choose the features that suit their needs from a wide range of service providers. Many businesses use multi-cloud environments. A company can reduce expenses by using several cloud service providers and mixing their offerings. This approach helps them make the most of their resources and gain flexibility.

What's New in Turbo360: Network diagrams, Rightsizing recommendations that restrict to the same SKU.

The latest updates in Turbo360 bring several notable features and enhancements. Access policies for Service Principals now enable users to define scopes. Network Diagrams in Azure Documenter provide visual representations of network architecture. Cost Analyzer introduces Idle Disks in Rightsizing recommendations for cost optimization. Furthermore, Rightsizing recommendations now offer the ability to restrict to the same SKU family.

Ep. 18: A CIOs Take on Cloud Evolution

Welcome backl! In this episode, we have a captivating discussion with Tim Crawford, a trusted advisor to C-Suite Technical leaders in various industries, ranging from startups to enterprises and higher education. Join us as we delve into the realm of Hybrid Cloud, exploring its significance and the evolving role of open source in business computing. We'll also shed light on the far-reaching implications of high-profile acquisitions and mergers within the tech industry. Get ready to gain valuable insights into the world of hybrid cloud and open source that will empower your business endeavors.

Availability Zones: The Complete Guide for 2024

During the early periods of cloud computing, most organizations used single-location data centers. These single-location data centers often faced higher risks of downtime and service disruption due to localized disasters or hardware failures. As a solution to these problems, cloud services like AWS introduced the concept of availability zones. This introduction was an important milestone in the evolution of cloud computing, as it facilitated high availability through geographic distribution.

How to Run Kubernetes on AWS?

In the last years, Kubernetes has grown tremendously and is considered by most companies to be the best platform to run applications today. In simple words, Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestration platform that allows you to run and manage containerized applications at scale. In this article, I will explain how you can run Kubernetes on AWS in 3 different ways. But before getting down the road, let me explain why it does make sense to run Kubernetes on AWS.

Resource Availability Monitoring with Turbo360

In the ever-evolving landscape of cloud computing, Azure stands out as a powerhouse for businesses seeking scalable, reliable, and efficient solutions. One of the fundamental aspects of Azure’s appeal is its vast array of resources catering to diverse needs. Azure offers a rich ecosystem of resources, ranging from virtual machines (VMs) and storage accounts to databases, networking components, and beyond.

Understanding AWS NAT Gateway: Key Features & Cost Optimization

Network Address Translation Gateway or NAT Gateway is a managed service provided by Amazon Web Services(AWS) that allows instances in a private Subnet within a Virtual Private Cloud(VPC) to connect services outside the VPC. NAT ensures that even though your instances can connect to the outside world, outside services can’t establish a direct connection with them. It’s a tool that secures the instances, simplifies network architecture, and reduces administrative overhead.

An In-Depth Overview of the Cloud Computing Stack

Cloud computing, which is the delivery of computing services such as servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, intelligence, and more over the internet, has completely transformed the technology landscape in what seems like a heartbeat. Cloud computing provides an alternative to the traditional data center.

How to create Azure Network Diagram | Network Visualization

In this video Azure MVP - Mike introduces a new feature within Turbo360 aimed at simplifying network visualization. The focus lies within the Azure Documenter Module, where users can generate network diagrams effortlessly. By selecting a Service Principal and specifying filters like resource groups and locations, users can configure & customize diagrams, store them internally or externally, and further modify them using draw.io.

Enhancing Cloud Center Cost Efficiency through Network Monitoring

Today, almost 90% of organizations use cloud computing services to reduce their operating expenses and scale with changing business requirements. With the adoption of cloud computing technology, businesses are able to operate better and more efficiently. However, the whole process of cloud computing demands access to a wide range of data center resources for processing, storing, and providing services. This requirement can indirectly affect our cloud computing expenses.

How Tech Startups Can Secure Sensitive Data with Cutting-Edge Security Solutions

Data security for tech startups in today's digital environment is of utmost importance, given the frequency and sophistication of cyber threats. Protecting sensitive information has become more of an imperative than ever, particularly as startups handle valuable intellectual property, customer details, and financial details whose consequences if compromised can be disastrous - this is where advanced security solutions like digital cabinet locks come into play.

The Top 10 CloudHealth Alternatives Compared In 2024

As a cloud cost intelligence solution, we often get asked where we fit in the cloud cost universe — and whether or not we’re an alternative to CloudHealth. The short answer is: it depends. The landscape of cloud cost tools is busy, with lots of different solutions that take different approaches to helping companies optimize their cloud costs. To help answer this question, we thought we’d lay out the cloud cost landscape as we see it.

Shift Left with FinOps

Shift FinOps Left In this FinOps on Azure episode, Mike (A FinOps certified practitioner) joins Michiel (Azure Cost Optimization Specialist) to discuss the concept of Shift left with FinOps - moving cloud financial operations & cost optimization earlier into the app development lifecycle. Michiel explains why most companies struggle with lack of cloud cost awareness and how to get started shifting FinOps left. He covers selecting a proof of concept team, providing FinOps training, tooling for visibility into costs/budgets, anomaly detection, and optimization techniques.

My 5 Favourite Things About Cloud Commander

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles…OK, OK, OK, for any of you that read My Five Favourite Things to Automate blog know where I’m going with this, so I’ll save you the rest. Instead, let’s get stuck into what brings us here today: Cloud Commander. Prior to its launch I worked with partners previewing the product, and seeing first-hand how it can have a significant impact on anyone responsible for managing Microsoft 365, Azure, and Intune environments.

Datadog Pricing Explained: A 2024 Guide

In today’s fast-paced cloud environment, understanding the pricing model of some of the best cloud monitoring tools like Datadog is essential in optimizing costs. With several features and adaptable pricing, clarifying Datadog costs and aligning them with your organization’s operational needs is vital for fully harnessing this robust monitoring tool. This guide simplifies Datadog pricing, offering a clear overview of its cost structure.

How to automatically find unattached Azure VM disks to reduce cost

Many articles that you may find on the web discuss the importance of reducing Azure costs by identifying and removing unused resources. Still, they often fall short of providing practical methods to achieve this. However, Turbo360 has introduced a new feature that simplifies identifying idle or unattached Azure VM disks, eliminating the need for complex queries or PowerShell scripts.

How To Master Cost Efficiency In Serverless Computing

Serverless architectures have revolutionized how businesses deploy applications, offering scalability and cost efficiency by abstracting infrastructure management. This model, charging only for resources consumed, poses unique budgeting and cost optimization challenges due to its variable pricing structure. Navigating cloud costs in a serverless environment requires a nuanced understanding of leveraging this technology’s benefit while effectively managing expenses.

Significance of SQL Query Consumption Analysis

In the digital era, where data reigns supreme, the ability to extract meaningful insights from vast datasets has become indispensable. Though we have many data sources and data processing languages, SQL (Structured Query Language) stands as a cornerstone in this realm, empowering analysts, and data scientists to navigate through intricate databases with ease.

Access Datadog privately and monitor your Google Cloud Private Service Connect usage

Private Service Connect (PSC) is a Google Cloud networking product that enables you to access Google Cloud services, third-party partner services, and company-owned applications directly from your Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). PSC helps your network traffic remain secure by keeping it entirely within the Google Cloud network, allowing you to avoid public data transfer and save on egress costs. With PSC, producers can host services in their own VPCs and offer a private connection to their customers.

Spike in Azure storage costs: troubleshooting and solutions

How to reduce Azure Storage costs? Discover effective strategies for managing sudden spikes in Azure storage costs. This video delves into troubleshooting techniques using Turbo360's Cost Analyzer, highlighting insights on routing preferences and cache purges. Gain valuable lessons and solutions for optimizing costs in your Azure environment. It provides valuable lessons and recommendations for others managing similar Azure environments.

The Cloudification of the Telecom Industry

Join Phil Gervasi and Nina Bargisen from Kentik as they delve into the transformation of the telecom industry through cloudification. This LinkedIn Live replay explores the significant shifts in both the technical and business landscapes of telecommunications, highlighting the movement of network functions to the cloud. Discover how these changes are reshaping the industry and what it means for the future of telcos.

Early development programmes have a strong part to play in the current data centre skills shortage

In today's fast-paced digital landscape, the demand for skilled professionals in the data centre industry has never been higher. And it's not just in our sector, sourcing technical talent and strategies to attract and retain them continues to be an issue in most sectors as a recent Deloitte article highlighted.

Azure Cost Management - Generating Cost Scopes

In this video, Michael Stephenson demonstrates how to generate Cost Scopes in Azure Cost Management to democratize the management of cost data. With this feature, engineers and operations teams can manage the costs they incur through the applications they develop. He also shows how to create a Cost Scope manually and generate a tree view based on a deployment-focused view. Learn how to view cost from different dimensions using Cost in Context and generate a tree view based on a tag.

What Is Container Orchestration? A Newbie-Friendly Guide

A recent Kubernetes Adoption Report showed that 68% of surveyed IT professionals adopted containers more during the pandemic. Among their goals were accelerating deployment cycles, increasing automation, reducing IT costs, and developing and testing artificial intelligence (AI) applications. But, what role does container technology play in this? This guide shares what containers are, how container orchestration works, and more.

Optimizing cloud resource costs with Elastic Observability and Tines

In today's cloud-centric landscape, managing and optimizing cloud resources efficiently is paramount for cloud engineers striving to balance performance and cost-effectiveness. By leveraging solutions like Tines and Elastic, cloud engineering teams can streamline operations and drive significant cost savings while maintaining optimal performance.

Understanding SharePoint Online Storage

SharePoint Online is a robust cloud-based service offered by Microsoft as part of the Office 365 suite. It enables organizations to create websites for information sharing, document management, and collaboration at scale, serving everything from small projects to enterprise-level deployments. As organizations increasingly shift to remote work environments, the ability to securely manage and collaborate on content has become crucial.

Spot Ocean: The easy button for Kubernetes version and patch management

As a recovering practitioner, one of the things I was always less than thrilled to do was patching. I dreaded having to run updates, ensure everything was configured correctly, and finding windows of time to reboot without knocking an application offline. Just like your cloud workloads — everything changes when it has to be done at scale. Kubernetes has always been built around the DevOps concepts of rapid development, delivery, and iteration.

Meeting Jonny Harris: WordPress performance optimization with Blackfire

Jonny Harris is a WordPress core contributor and committer based in the UK and a member of the WordPress Performance Initiative. This group teams up with Google and Blackfire to optimize the performance of the PHP framework that powers an estimated 43% of the world’s applications. Jonny has been coding with WordPress since 2006 when, at the age of 16, he wanted to start blogging. He gave WordPress a try as it was then and still is today, the leading open-source blogging framework.

Managed Cloud Services: when outsourcing your operations is the most cost-effective choice

Clouds, be they private or public, surprisingly remain one of the most DIY-favouring markets. Perhaps due to the nebulous and increasingly powerful technologies, a series of myths, or even unnecessary egos, the majority of non-tech-centric enterprises (meaning, companies whose primary business scope rests outside the realm of IT software and hardware) still try to build and nurture in-house cloud management teams, without considering outsourcing even part of their workload.

Cloud Agnostic Backups on Cycle.io

At Cycle.io, we see many unique situations involving data requirements, retention, and security. As a multi/hybrid cloud and LowOps platform, we've had to come up with some pretty interesting solutions for backups and data protection. Dive in with Cycle's co-founder and head of engineering, Alexander Mattoni, as he is easily able to deploy a postgres instance, with automated backups to offsite storage in the span of minutes.

CloudSpend's Zia framework: Top 5 ways to detect cloud cost anomalies

Cloud cost management- Anomaly detection CloudSpend’s Zia framework, powered by AI, is designed to detect any unexpected spikes or irregularities in your cloud expenses. The Zia Anomaly Report aids in optimizing your cloud bills and protecting your cloud infrastructure from unforeseen issues. You have the option to share anomalies with your team through CSV, PDF, or email formats.

Spark Performance Tuning Tips and Solutions for Optimization

Apache Spark is an open-source, distributed application framework designed to run big data workloads at a much faster rate than Hadoop and with fewer resources. Spark leverages in-memory and local disk caching, along with Apache Spark is an open-source, distributed application framework designed to run big data workloads at a much faster rate than Hadoop and with fewer resources.

Navigating Azure Data Transfer Costs: A Comprehensive Guide

As businesses increasingly migrate to the cloud, understanding the intersections of data transfer expenses is very important. In this article, we’ll break down what Azure Data Transfer Costs entail, explore various types of data transfers, explore Azure Bandwidth pricing, identify the possible factors influencing data transfer costs, and some strategies for optimizing expenses.

SharePoint Document Retention

Document retention is a critical component of modern data governance, requiring meticulous strategy and precise execution. In today’s digital age, businesses are inundated with vast quantities of data, making effective document management not just advisable but essential. This is particularly true when considering the legal and compliance obligations that organizations must navigate.

RDS Cost Optimization: A Deep Dive Into Reducing Costs

AWS’ Relational Database Service (RDS) is a pivotal component for businesses leveraging cloud technology for their database management needs. RDS simplifies a relational database’s setup, operation, and scaling, offering cost-efficiency while automating time-consuming administration tasks like hardware provisioning, database setup, patching, and backups. However, despite its benefits, navigating the cost structure of RDS to ensure efficient spending can be a complex task.

Comparing ways to privately connect devices to the cloud

The biggest driver behind the Internet of Things (IoT) is the value that can be unlocked through data analytics. When you have hundreds, thousands, or millions of devices capable of reporting on an almost unlimited number of attributes, statuses, or environmental factors, the opportunity for businesses to create optimisations or brand new revenue streams is huge.

Cisco Full-Stack Observability named a Leader in GigaOm Radar for Cloud Observability

The results are in! Learn why Cisco Full-Stack Observability was recognized as a Leader in GigaOm Radar for Cloud Observability in 2024. I’m pleased to announce that Cisco Full-Stack Observability was recently recognized as a Leader in the 2024 GigaOm Radar for Cloud Observability.

Maximize Kubernetes resource efficiency with Spot Ocean's Accelerated Scale Down

One significant challenge that every dynamic, fast-paced business in the cloud faces is efficiently managing their clusters’ workloads while minimizing unnecessary expenses. But it’s not just overages that these businesses must worry about. Especially common is the underutilization of resources, which can lead to unnecessary costs and inefficiencies.

Mattermost's cloud optimization journey: Pillars of success, future strategies & lessons learned

Mattermost has embarked on a transformative journey in cloud optimization. This journey is marked by strategic initiatives, innovative approaches, and valuable lessons, all aimed at enhancing efficiency and reducing costs. This blog post explores the successful strategies that have guided our cloud optimization efforts. It also highlights our future direction with an emphasis on ARM/Graviton workloads and shares insights from our experiences, particularly regarding spot instances.

FinOps Automation Tips And Best Practices - Part 3

After watching part one and part two of our FinOps Automation Series, hopefully you’re chomping at the bit to adopt your first automation solution. In part three below, our experts — Erik Peterson (CTO and Founder of CloudZero), Alan Hand (Founder and CEO of Xosphere), Steven O’Dwyer (Senior FinOps Specialist at ProsperOps), and Mike Fuller (CTO of the FinOps Foundation) — are going to walk you through what you need to know before you take any concrete steps.

Product Release Notes March 2024

Access to critical business data, such as cloud cost data, is both incredibly important for finance, engineering, and DevOps teams, but also a privilege that should be managed carefully. This month, our engineering teams put a major focus on developing industry-leading capabilities related to access control, while also making it easier for people who require certain kinds of data to get it where it needs to be.

Azure Storage Updates FY24

In today’s fast-evolving digital landscape, the importance of robust and scalable cloud storage solutions cannot be overstated. Enterprises across the globe are increasingly leveraging cloud technologies to drive innovation, streamline operations, and reduce costs. Microsoft Azure, as a leading provider of cloud services, continues to enhance its storage solutions to meet the diverse and growing needs of its users.

Azure FinOps: Optimizing Costs and Best Practices

Azure FinOps: Optimizing Costs and Best Practices In episode 4 of "FinOps on Azure," discover expert insights on Azure FinOps along with its best practices featuring Azure MVP - Gregor Suttie Dive deep into cost management best practices, from leveraging Azure Advisor to optimizing resource usage. Discover who to involve in cost reviews, how often to conduct them, and common pitfalls to avoid. Get top tips for Azure cost management and strategies for staying up to date. Whether you're a startup or a large enterprise, master Azure cost optimization for maximum value from your cloud investments.

Limit deployments to Platform.sh only with tags: part three

In parts one and two of this series, we covered how to limit deployments to Platform.sh when a tag is pushed or created. Focusing first on using GitHub and the GitHub Actions platform, and then progressing onto Gitlab and pipelines to accomplish this goal. But in the spirit of being a polyglot PaaS, let’s look at how we can accomplish the same goal—limiting deployment to Platform.sh only when adding a git tag—using Bitbucket and their CI/CD system.

Mastering CloudTrail Logs, Part 1

CloudTrail logs are a type of log generated by Amazon Web Services (AWS) as part of its CloudTrail service. AWS CloudTrail records API calls made within an AWS account, providing a history of activity including actions taken through the AWS Management Console, AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), and AWS SDKs. For example, CloudTrail events are generated for actions such as EC2 instances start/stop, S3 bucket read/write and IAM user creation/deletion.

SharePoint Document Library Issues

Document libraries are the backbone of document management within SharePoint Online. They provide a centralized location for storing, sharing, and collaborating on files. These libraries offer features like version control, access control, and easy searchability, making them a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes. However, even with their many benefits, users might encounter occasional issues with document libraries.

Google Cloud Welcomes Full-Stack Observability with StackState

When Google Cloud welcomed StackState to offer our full-stack observability solution to their network of customers, we were thrilled. Our excitement only grew when Google invited us to join other partners this week at Google Cloud Next ’24 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas.

Azure Mangement Platform - Turbo360

Turbo360 (Formerly Serverless360) is an advanced Cloud Management platform that empowers you with significant Azure Cost savings and Infra Monitoring for complex Azure Environments. This tool has helped customers experience annual savings of up to 30% through advanced cost monitoring, granular analysis, optimization insights, and reduced incident resolution time by 80% through holistic infra monitoring across multiple Azure resources with business context.

Get started with FHIR service - Azure Health Data Services

Get started with FHIR service - Azure Health Data Services Interoperability in healthcare is crucial, but it's often hindered by varying systems and data formats. Enter Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR), a modern standard revolutionizing data exchange. In this enlightening discussion, Azure MVPs Martin Abbott and Lex Hegt unravel the complexities of FHIR and its integration within the Azure ecosystem. Discover what FHIR is and how it facilitates seamless healthcare data sharing.

Episode 3 | Ryan Cooke on CSPM, DSPM and Data Security in the Cloud

In this episode, the hosts and guest discuss the importance of data security posture management (DSPM) and its role in protecting sensitive data. They explore the evolution of the cybersecurity and data security market over the years, highlighting the challenges and advancements in securing data in cloud environments. The conversation also touches on the vendor landscape, the complexity of selecting security tools, and the need for organizations to invest in data security. The key takeaways include the overwhelming number of security tools available, the importance of aligning security goals with business risks, and the impact of regulations on data security.

Cloud-based SaaS Solutions With User-Centric Design: How Do They Work?

Cloud-based SaaS has revolutionized the software as a service industry. It offers many benefits for both users and owners. However, some SaaS are missing out on the full benefits of it. Why? Because they are not adopting the user-centric approach in their product. As a result, it fails to ensure a seamless user experience. So, this discussion is all about its benefits and how you can make your cloud-based SaaS solution user-centric.

Observability Vs. Monitoring: The Complete Comparison

Many often wonder, “Is there a difference between observability and monitoring?” The thing is as IT environments have become more complex, monitoring alone has become increasingly less effective. That’s because while monitoring is crucial, it isn’t particularly suited to tracking unforeseen or unexpected turns of events. That’s what observability is meant for. This guide will clarify what observability and monitoring are – and how they differ.

The next buzz in the city of bees: digital infrastructure, AI, and Manchester

Manchester has come a long way - from pioneering the world’s first stored program digital computer, to becoming the top tech city in the UK outside of London. The MCC 2021-2026 Digital Strategy now guides a £5bn digital economy, with more than 10,000 businesses employing over 96,000 people. It has seen the development of five unicorns and is still home to three, billion-pound businesses. So, the city of bees is buzzing.

The broken cloud market: Why free credits are the kryptonite of competition

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is investigating the state of the UK cloud market, and for good reason. While the submissions and commentary already submitted to the CMA point to various concerning practices, one issue stands out as the single biggest threat to a healthy, competitive landscape: excessive free cloud credits. This tactic, employed by the dominant hyperscalers (AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform), is akin to a drug dealer offering free samples.

The Top Cloud Cost News From March 2024

If you’ve recently migrated your data from one major cloud provider to another, you may have already noticed one of our top stories from last month. If not, we’ve got good news, so keep reading! And there’s even better news if you’re the type to get excited over the chance to learn more about FinOps and hone your craft.

Grafana Cloud security: Three common cloud security myths debunked

Grafana Cloud offers organizations an end-to-end observability platform, without the overhead of building and maintaining their own observability stack. We’re constantly shipping new Grafana Cloud features to ensure users get the most out of the fully managed platform, which is powered by our open source Grafana LGTM Stack (Loki for logs, Grafana for visualization, Tempo for traces, and Mimir for metrics).

The clock is ticking: Azure VM RIs exchange opportunity ends July 1

Did you know that companies typically waste as much as 35% of their budgets on unused compute resources? And, oftentimes, these idle resources are commitment waste — reserved commitments purchased at a discount but with the financial lock-in of one or three years. Commitments, such as Azure Compute Reservations (VM RIs), offer significant savings when compared to on-demand.

Setting Up the Latest AWS Observability Solution

The tutorial demonstrates how easy it is to deploy the AWS Observability Solution using the CloudFormation template using the quick and new method. The CloudFormation template being used in this method sets up an automated collection of logs and metrics from AWS to the Sumo Logic service.

Maximizing Cloud SQL database availability

How does Cloud SQL achieve near-zero downtime? Join Debi Cabrera as she interviews Product Manager, Rahul Deshmukh. Rahul discusses the various capabilities of Cloud SQL and the best practices to maximize business continuity for applications. Watch along and hear firsthand from the session speaker about configuring and monitoring Cloud SQL for maximum availability.

Azure Cost Analysis at the Service Name and Meter level

Azure provides a wide array of services, each with its own pricing model. Conducting detailed cost analysis helps organizations understand where their money is being spent within Azure. It allows them to identify areas of overspending or underutilization and optimize their resources accordingly. By analysing costs, organizations can identify unused or underutilized resources and either scale them down or decommission them altogether.

Reliable Backups in a Multi-Cloud World

Proper backups are universally acknowledged as essential, yet they grow increasingly tedious and prone to error as DevOps complexity escalates. While some managed database services offer automated backup solutions, the scope of your backup requirements is likely to expand as the business and products scale. There's a considerable chance you'll find yourself hosting your own databases or stateful services, a task that can seem daunting in its demand for precision and reliability.

An Expert Guide On GCP Cost Monitoring

Research firm, IDC, published a study in early February 2024 predicting that Google Cloud Platform (GCP) customers break even after just 10 months. Moreover, the study, The Business Value of Google Cloud IaaS, reported that after migrating to GCP, the participants were on track to achieve a 318% ROI in five years. Here’s the thing. Achieving these milestones requires a robust GCP cost monitoring and optimization plan.

Ep. 17: The Code that Connects: Infrastructure, Innovation and How Community Impacts Them

In this episode, Shon sits down with Marino Wijay, a trailblazer in open-source community engineering. Marino, with his rich expertise in Kubernetes, Istio, EBPF, and more, delves into the evolution of networking, infrastructure automation, and the cloud-native landscape. Join us as we uncover the secrets of full-stack networking, CI/CD pipelines, and the principles of infrastructure as code, all while navigating the dynamic challenges and opportunities within the tech industry.

13 SaaS Optimization Tips for IT Leaders

Your business could be spending tens of thousands on SaaS applications—but are you really using them to your full advantage? Research says probably not. Today, the average business uses 130 SaaS apps for day-to-day operations, a number that has steadily climbed over the past decade. Of those, 65% fall under the veil of shadow IT, meaning the IT team is unaware they were ever adopted.

Azure Cost Monitoring: Anomaly Detection

In this video, Michael Stephenson demonstrates the anomaly detection feature in Turbo360, focusing on enhancements in cost monitoring. This feature allows users to easily identify deviations in Azure costs and receive alerts when anomalies occur. It simplifies configuration, enabling daily monitoring with alerts sent to specified channels. Anomalies can be detected at both high-level and granular levels, aiding in overall Azure cost management.

Can Wing Redefine Cloud Development? Exploring the New Open Source Language with Chris Rybicki

Dive into the future of cloud development with Wing, a pioneering open-source programming language, with Chris Rybicki, a seasoned engineer with deep roots in creating developer tools. This session at Navigate North America 24 will shed light on how Wing is poised to transform cloud programming by addressing the complexities and inefficiencies faced by developers today.

The "Big 5" of Azure Infrastructure Optimization

Developing a successful Azure cloud operations (CloudOps) practice is the key to unlocking the full benefits of Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. But Azure users often struggle to take full advantage of Azure’s benefits once they’ve made the move to the cloud. While it might be easy to build infrastructure inside of Azure and start spending money, ensuring your cloud infrastructure continues to support your organization’s business objectives as you scale is hard work.

FinOps Automation Tips And Best Practices - Part 2

The first installment of our FinOps Automation Tips and Best Practices series focused on what FinOps is and why automating it can be a game-changer for your business. Now we’re back for part two, which will guide you on how to choose your optimal outcome and select the best automation options to suit your needs. Enjoy the full video for an in-depth explanation, or see the brief summary below if you’re just here for the highlights.

Why Sysdig has been recognized as the Google Cloud Technology Partner of the Year 2024

Sysdig has been awarded Google Cloud’s 2024 Technology Partner of the Year for Security, excelling in the “Configuration, Vulnerability Management, and GRC (Governance, Risk and Compliance)” segment. This award acknowledges Sysdig’s innovation and commitment to customer success.

10 Best Cloud Backup Solutions

Much has changed in the digital space, but one thing will remain important for organizations—safeguarding their entire digital environment. While data is the lifeblood of companies and businesses, protecting a digital environment goes beyond that. From confidential records to operating systems, applications to databases, the potential compromise of these components is a threat.

Validating Cloud Connections for Enhanced Connected Experiences

The world relies on the cloud which means that organizations are fundamentally reliant on third-party networks to access these critical cloud resources. While cloud adoption decisions are largely made by executive teams, the responsibility of performance and availability falls squarely on the shoulders of network operations teams.

5 Best Cloud-Based Monitoring Tools

Rapid advancements in technology have welcomed the rise of cloud computing. This has changed how we access and manage IT resources, shifting the paradigm to more cloud-based management and monitoring. However, with so many moving parts, maintaining complete visibility and control can be a challenge. This is the hurdle that cloud-based monitoring tools are trying to overcome.

The Future of AI: Infra to Scale Your GenAI Apps to Success [Live Webinar]

Gain invaluable insights from industry experts on how to ensure performance, security, and cost-efficiency in your Generative AI application infrastructure. Enjoy this live webinar replay with Chiru Bhavansikar, Chief AI Officer of Arhasi, and Doron Grinstein, CEO of Control Plane. Their combined expertise provides a comprehensive guide to scaling GenAI to success. Highlights include: There's never been a better time to set up your AI infrastructure for success. Ready to get started?

Getting started with the Elastic AI Assistant for Observability and Microsoft Azure OpenAI

Recently, Elastic announced the AI Assistant for Observability is now generally available for all Elastic users. The AI Assistant enables a new tool for Elastic Observability providing large language model (LLM) connected chat and contextual insights to explain errors and suggest remediation.

Are you VM-wary? A fast exit route for service providers in 60 seconds - Civo.com

Are you a Cloud Service Provider (CSP) feeling stranded after the recent VMware contract terminations by Broadcom? You're not alone. In December 2023, a seismic shift occurred, leaving over 4,500 VCSP partners in a challenging position. A select few have transitioned to Pinnacle and Premier partnerships, but what about the rest? Over 4,000 partners find themselves as "registered partners" without direct support or contracts, facing uncertain futures and potential business risks.

Monitor SQS with Data Streams Monitoring

Datadog Data Streams Monitoring (DSM) provides detailed visibility into your event-driven applications and streaming data pipelines, letting you easily track and improve performance. We’ve covered DSM for Kafka and RabbitMQ users previously on our blog. In this post, we’ll guide you through using DSM to monitor applications built with Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS).

How to set up Azure budget alerts - A Step-by-Step Guide

Azure cost monitoring - Create and manage budgets When it comes to managing costs in the Azure cloud, it is essential to have a reliable system that can help you keep track of your spending and alert you when you are getting close to exceeding your budget. This is where Turbo360's Budgets monitoring feature comes in. The Azure Budgets monitoring feature in Turbo360 is designed specifically for Azure cost monitoring. It allows you to create budgets for your Azure resources, monitor your spending, and receive alerts when you are approaching or exceeding your budgeted amount.

2bcloud Achieves AWS Graviton Service Delivery Program Designation

In an exciting development for cloud optimization and service delivery, 2bcloud proudly announces its recent recognition as part of the esteemed AWS Graviton Service Delivery Program. This notable achievement distinguishes 2bcloud as a leading cloud Managed Service Provider (MSP) with proven expertise and success in leveraging AWS Graviton for delivering superior cloud solutions.

Elevating Azure Management Solutions Together - Turbo360 Joins Forces with TwoConnect

We are delighted to share with you an exciting development that underscores our ongoing commitment to providing exceptional Azure management solutions. Turbo360 and TwoConnect, trusted partners in the Microsoft Azure ecosystem, are joining forces to elevate your cloud journey to new heights. Our partnership with TwoConnect isn’t merely a recent collaboration; it’s a testament to the enduring bond forged over time.

What Is AWS Fargate? Here's What You Need To Know

Whether you are a developer, an IT professional, or a tech leader in your organization, AWS Fargate promises to make provisioning, configuring, and managing your containers’ servers easier. AWS Fargate is like that cool gadget you didn’t know you needed – it’s nifty, powerful, and a bit mysterious. In this post, we’re unraveling the mystery, including what Fargate is, its key features, and how it stacks up in terms of pricing and performance for serverless computing.

10 Best AWS Elastic Beanstalk Alternatives in 2024

AWS Elastic Beanstalk streamlines the deployment and management of applications in the cloud, offering developers an easy way to deploy services without worrying about the underlying infrastructure. However, while it simplifies many aspects of cloud deployment, it also presents challenges, including limited customization and potential vendor lock-in, which might not suit all project needs or scalability requirements.

SharePoint Document Sets

In the digital age, efficient document management is more than a convenience—it’s a necessity. SharePoint, a product of Microsoft, stands out as a premier tool for organizing, storing, and retrieving documents. But the real game-changer within SharePoint is the feature known as “Document Sets.” Document Sets in SharePoint serve as a method to group related documents together, allowing them to be managed as a single unit.

Empowering organizations with reliable continuous delivery for Kubernetes applications

Managing application updates in production and ensuring the reliability of software releases in Kubernetes environments can be challenging. Small changes can sometimes lead to unforeseen issues in production. These unexpected problems, combined with the lack of scalability and the high costs associated with managing complex solutions, can be daunting.

Which is Better for Monitoring: Datadog or AWS CloudWatch?

Observability is the process of understanding complex systems by analyzing their outcomes and enhancing those outcomes by monitoring events within the system. Today, observability is essential for IT services to achieve a better user experience and optimize software performance. With cloud platforms dominating the IT services landscape, organizations are inclined to deploy their software and hardware systems in the cloud to reduce operational costs and enhance flexibility.

Optimizing Kubernetes Infrastructure: Minimizing Idle Resources | DevOps Tutorial

Welcome to our comprehensive DevOps tutorial on optimizing Kubernetes infrastructure! In this video, we will delve into the challenges faced by DevOps professionals when managing complex and dynamic Kubernetes environments. Specifically, we'll focus on the issue of idle resources and provide you with four effective techniques to minimize them with Spot Ocean.

AI on Public Cloud with Open Source

AI is at the heart of a revolution in the technology space. Organisations from all industries are looking for ways to put AI to work. Once they have finalised use case assessment, their next question is typically related to the environment they will use to develop and deploy their AI initiatives. They often prefer the public clouds as an initial environment, because of the computing power and ability to scale as projects mature. In addition to the infrastructure, enterprises need software where they can develop and deploy the machine learning models.

Overcoming Azure Service Bus Monitoring Challenges

Monitoring Azure Service Bus (SB) comes with its own set of challenges, primarily due to the distributed nature of the service and the complexities involved in message processing and delivery. Some of the most common challenges associated with monitoring Azure SB include: Message Flow Monitoring: Tracking the flow of messages through various queues or topics, including understanding where bottlenecks might occur or where messages might be delayed.

Tailored Azure cost savings notification and alerts

When an organization attempts to reduce costs immediately, one of its go-to options is to look into the Azure advisor recommendations and take action on them. However, the biggest challenge for many customers is that they often do not know there are saving insights available to take advantage of and reduce thousands of dollars per year in Azure bills. This is because of a few reasons, as defined below;

Fresh from Paris: Platform engineering wisdom from KubeCon

Last week in Paris, at KubeCon EU 2024, platform engineering was the talk of the event. The topic had a full-day co-located event and also a dedicated track during KubeCon itself. Here’s what I’ve learned from sitting in keynote rooms and then standing at the Spot and NetApp booth till my knees hurt. (Spoiler: It was well worth it.)

Resiliency is different on AWS: Here's how to manage it

There’s a common misconception about running workloads in the cloud: the cloud provider is responsible for reliability. After all, they’re hosting the infrastructure, services, and APIs. That leaves little else for their customers to manage, other than the workloads themselves…right?

Empower engineers to take ownership of Google Cloud costs with Datadog

Google Cloud provides a wide range of services and tools to help engineering teams reduce the complexity of migrating and deploying applications in the cloud. As engineering teams work to improve the performance, reliability, and security of their applications, they also need to be conscious of cloud costs. But engineers often don’t have access to cost data, or they only see cost data in monthly reports.

The Evolution Of Cloud Cost Optimization Over The Last Decade

Over the past decade, the cloud computing landscape has transformed remarkably, evolving from a nascent technology into a fundamental component of modern digital infrastructure. As the technology has evolved, so too has the need to develop complex cost optimization strategies. A decade ago, businesses grappled with the complexities of brand-new cloud services, often facing challenges in managing costs due to opaque pricing models and a limited understanding of cloud economics.