Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

As I navigate further into my career, I’m finding the scope of my role has shifted over the years. I thought I’d take some time to help relay the differences I’ve seen between traditional database administrators (DBAs), database reliability engineers (DBREs), and site reliability engineers (SREs). Before I start, I want to get a disclaimer out of the way: some of the comparisons here reflect only what I’ve seen and may not match what you’ve experienced.

One of my favorite consulting questions to ask when dealing with a scalability problem is, “If you could change the system design with the knowledge you have today, what would/wouldn’t you change and why?” Sometimes it’s best to ask this question on a one-on-one basis with different developers, DBAs, report writers, and architects to get honest answers that aren’t intimidated by the other people sitting in a meeting or to avoid potential debating and arguing over a solution.

The enterprise data warehouse (EDW) provides access to business data stored in a denormalized structure called a star schema, which makes it easy to analyze, visualize, and forecast essential business metrics. Business intelligence (BI) reporting makes use of the data warehouse for real-time self-service dashboards, custom visualizations, data marts, decision-making reports, and machine learning (ML).

The enterprise data warehouse (EDW) provides access to business data stored in a denormalized structure called a star schema, which makes it easy to analyze, visualize, and forecast essential business metrics. Business intelligence (BI) reporting makes use of the data warehouse for real-time self-service dashboards, custom visualizations, data marts, decision-making reports, and machine learning (ML).

With more than 300,000 customers, a thriving community of 185,000 THWACK® users, frequent SWUG™ events, and some 650,000 developers certified on SolarWinds® products, we have a unique ability to keep our fingers on the pulse of what our clients need to better manage, monitor, and understand their complex environments. We’re reminded every day how these customer interactions collectively serve as a crucial competitive advantage.

If you’re a developer or site reliability engineer, you might have noticed options to use webhooks in your cloud monitoring or automation settings. And if you have a great deal of experience developing APIs, you probably know what a webhook is. For the rest of the world, a webhook (also known as a web callback or an HTTP push API) is a way for an application to provide other applications with information in real time.

Schools and local municipalities have always been vulnerable to cyberattacks, but in recent years, especially since the pandemic's beginning, they have been increasingly more prone to threats. According to a statement by DHS, ransomware attacks " crippled state and local agencies in 2020," calling for a State and Local Cybersecurity Improvement Act to set a baseline for new changes with cybersecurity efforts at the state and local level.

As a long-time database consultant, I’ve fixed more blocking problems in database systems than I can count. Often this blocking has resulted from conflicts between processes needing to read rows while those rows are being modified.

The world of IT has gone through a significant amount of change in the last five to 10 years, and the rate of digital transformation can be challenging for organizations of all sizes. Keeping up with new and evolving capabilities alongside an increasingly distributed talent pool can be tough. That’s why it has always been my goal to keep up with the latest trends and provide the best tools for professionals working in the IT trenches. One of those emerging trends is observability.