Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Different IT organizations have different needs. The one-man shop might find the best success with open-source software, while enterprises often need something a little more. But occasionally you’ll see an enterprise using open-source or something designed for a small to medium-sized business. This can be a good thing in certain instances, though it’s not without risks. So, why might you want to use SMB or open-source gear in an enterprise setting, and when might it be a good thing?

As all Papertrail fans know, sending logs to Papertrail using syslog is quick and easy. Generating and transmitting syslog packets usually involves just 2 – 4 lines of code, and you can see your logs flowing into Papertrail in minutes. There are times, however, when you just can’t use syslog or install a remote_syslog2 daemon. This is where the new support for sending logs via HTTP comes in. And the best news is, it’s just as quick and easy to set up.

It’s an exchange that happens almost every day in every business office: Employee peeks over the divider and asks her coworker, “Hey, how do I connect this to Bluetooth?” Maybe it’s a frozen laptop, or a glitch in the browser, or an issue connecting to VPN. And maybe it’s a drive-by at the coffee machine or Slack message to a “tech-savvy” coworker.