Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

Microsoft Azure remains the second largest cloud service provider with 24% of the market share globally but boasts the most availability zones, spanning 60+ regions worldwide. Over the past 12 months, the platform has seen major advancements across AI and infrastructure, and we share some of the highlights in this blog.

The Mattermost Desktop Client for Windows is now available in the Windows Store, bringing secure, real-time collaboration to teams tackling the most critical challenges of our time. Whether you’re safeguarding national security, managing complex operations in critical infrastructure, or driving innovation in defense and government, your work matters. Mattermost is here to help you do — and protect — the work that matters most with tools that are adaptable, secure, and resilient.

Kubernetes has revolutionized how we manage containerized applications, bringing scalability, reliability, and flexibility to the forefront. Two fundamental components of Kubernetes are Pods and Nodes, and understanding their differences is crucial for anyone working with Kubernetes clusters. While most people are familiar with these terms, a deeper dive into the specifics can help you optimize your Kubernetes setup and avoid common pitfalls.

When it comes to monitoring and observability, two of the most discussed standards are OpenMetrics and OpenTelemetry. While both are designed to collect and transmit metrics, they have distinct goals, use cases, and communities driving their development. In this guide, we'll break down what each of these projects is, how they compare, and how they fit into your monitoring stack.

Remember using SSH to access servers? It was the go-to method for troubleshooting or making changes to a system. But in the world of containers, SSH doesn't quite fit. Kubernetes and containers work differently; they're dynamic and spun up and down frequently. That’s where kubectl exec comes in. It lets you run commands inside a pod directly, without needing to rely on SSH or worry about the pod being ephemeral. It’s simple and fits the nature of modern, containerized environments.

Recently we’ve explored the evolving role of Kubernetes as a full ecosystem, rather than just a platform, diving into the power and complexity of add-ons. These tools, as highlighted previously, are key to augmenting Kubernetes core capabilities, and adding-on (as their name implies) essential capabilities not supported directly by Kubernetes itself.

Artificial intelligence is no longer a futuristic concept—it is shaping how businesses operate, how researchers innovate, and how people interact with technology. Models like DeepSeek-R1 , a promising new entrant, alongside established players such as Llama 3 and GPT-4o, are at the forefront of this transformation. These tools are not just about technological advancement; they are about solving real-world problems and driving meaningful progress.

Imagine a world where your Network Operations Center (NOC) runs so smoothly that it practically disappears into the background—no manual ticket triaging, no frantic war rooms, no all-nighters spent chasing false alarms. That’s the dream of a Dark NOC—a fully autonomous operations center where automation takes the wheel, reducing human intervention to a bare minimum.

Looking for simple ways to connect an SQL Server Linked Server to different data sources, such as an external database, its table, or a particular object in MySQL Server? The Linked Server configuration allows you to query data and use DML functions to access these external sources directly within SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). With such a configuration, you are no longer required to move or duplicate data between different database systems to overcome OS barriers and complexities.