Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

March 2024

Top 15 Linux Monitoring Tools Everyone Should Have!

Linux is a powerful and widely-used operating system used by individuals, businesses, and organizations around the world. With its open-source nature and customizable features, Linux has become a popular choice for those seeking a reliable and efficient system for their computing needs. However, with this power and flexibility also comes the need for proper monitoring and management.

Ways to Reduce IT Costs with Observability

Imagine you are driving a car with no dashboard. You can't see the speed, fuel level, or engine temperature. You are flying blind, hoping everything is okay until something goes wrong. This is what it's like to manage complex IT systems without observability. Observability is the key to understanding the internal state of a system. It is crucial for detecting and resolving issues efficiently, reducing downtime and costs.

MTTR Demystified: Mean Time to Recovery, Repair, or Respond?

You might have heard of MTTR or MTBF. They are all important factors that make up incident management. Incident management refers to all the managerial processes behind bringing a site back to its uptime when it suddenly encounters any unplanned fault. And that is precisely why managing them is important. We must keep our site up-to-date so that downtimes are reduced, and customers can access any information with the least wait time.

Diving into Observability Platform: OpenTelemetry vs Datadog

Imagine you're leading a team of engineers responsible for monitoring and optimizing the performance of a cloud-based application used by millions of users worldwide. As the application continues to scale, you recognize the pressing need for a robust observability solution to learn about its distributed architecture. In this scenario, you're faced with an essential decision: choosing between OpenTelemetry and Datadog for distributed tracing and observability.

Integrating OpenTelemetry Instrumentation with FastAPI

What do we gain when we integrate OpenTelemetry with FastAPI? Integrating OpenTelemetry with FastAPI offers many benefits that greatly improve the observability and monitoring capabilities of applications built on this high-performance web framework. By integrating OpenTelemetry's instrumentation capabilities into FastAPI projects, you can understand your applications' inner workings, enabling them to monitor, analyze, and optimize performance.

Server Health and Health Checks: A Beginner's Guide

Why do we go for server health checkups? Well, think of it like this: just as we schedule regular checkups for ourselves to make sure we're healthy and functioning optimally, our servers need the same level of care. After all, they're the backbone of our digital infrastructure, tirelessly handling requests, serving data, and keeping our applications running smoothly.

Part 3: Infrastructure Monitoring Tools

From networking and servers to databases and applications, the infrastructure is the backbone of an organization's operations. With the rise of digitalization, the need for reliable and efficient infrastructure has become more important than ever. Whether it be transportation systems, communication networks, or energy grids, infrastructure plays a vital role in keeping our society functioning smoothly.

OpenTelemetry Collector - A Beginner's Guide

In the fast-pace world of technology, keeping an eye on how well our applications are doing is crucial. Indeed, opentelemetry offers a comprehensive framework designed to capture the nuances of software applications. At the core of this framework lies the opentelemetry Collector, responsible for aggregating, processing, and exporting telemetry data. Why is this important?

What is MongoDB? Its Architecture and Monitoring

Ever wondered how popular websites manage millions of users and interactions without crashing? The answer lies in MongoDB, a NoSQL database, document-based model. This is particularly useful for applications like social media platforms, where users can have multiple posts, comments, and interactions. MongoDB is also highly scalable, able to handle large amounts of data and traffic by distributing the workload across multiple servers.

Prometheus vs. Elasticsearch

In the field of data management, Prometheus and Elasticsearch are popular names. They have proved to be quite effective when coming to monitoring applications and websites and providing reliable feedback. While Prometheus offers metrics monitoring at a good level, Elastic Stack is a comprehensive platform offering complete collection, storage, and analysis of data from start to finish. This and a few other minor differences sets these two monitoring solutions apart.

A Guide to Log4j for Logging in Java

Log4j is a logging framework for Java, facilitating the systematic recording of runtime information in software applications. Developed by the Apache Software Foundation, Log4j has become a standard tool in Java development since its inception in 1996. Its primary purpose is to generate log messages that provide insights into the application's execution, aiding developers in debugging, monitoring, and analysing software behaviour.

Docker Logging: Effective Strategies for Docker Log Management

Docker is a platform that makes creating, deploying, and running containerized applications easier. Containerization is a lightweight and portable application deployment technique involving packaging an application and its dependencies inside a container. A container is a standalone, executable software package that includes everything needed to run a piece of software, including the code, runtime, system tools, libraries, and settings.

A Beginner's Guide to Use journalctl Commands

journalctl is a command-line utility in Linux systems that allows users to query and view logs collected by systemd's logging service, known as the journal. This logging service captures a wide range of system events, including kernel messages, service status changes, user logins, and more, providing a complete view of system activity. Users can use journalctl to filter logs based on various standards such as time range, severity level, specific units (system services), or even custom fields.

Part 2: Infrastructure Monitoring Metrics

Infrastructure monitoring metrics ensure the smooth operation and optimal performance of modern-day systems and networks. In today's fast-paced and highly competitive business environment, organizations rely heavily on their IT infrastructure to support their operations and deliver quality customer services. As such, any downtime or performance issues can significantly impact their bottom line.

Extracting the Docker Host's IP Address within a Docker Container

Understanding how to execute this task is essential for developers and system administrators. This blog will explore various methods and commands to obtain the Docker host's IP address from within a Docker container. Docker has emerged as a cornerstone technology in modern software development and deployment. Revolutionizing the way applications are built.

Cron Jobs Explained

Have you ever wondered how your computer manages to do certain tasks all by itself, like sending you reminders or cleaning up temporary files? Let's take a simple example, suppose you want your computer to automatically delete temporary files every Sunday at midnight. How does it know when to do this, and how does it do it without you having to lift a finger? Well, let me explain. This is where something called a "cron job" comes into play.

Docker Monitoring with ELK Stack

Dockers are containerization platforms where you can store multitudes of data in a single package ( by dividing them into different containers). Since these are high-volume entities, managing and monitoring them should be a top priority. I’ll tell you why. Because when it grows out of our capabilities, we won't be able to control any errors popping up in it. So, as the saying goes, prevention is better than cure.