As the product manager for Grafana Cloud, I am constantly following the progress of all the new features that our engineering teams are working on, from early ideation to release. We’re always excited to share updates with the community, so you can all try them out and let us know what you think. So each month, I’ll be rounding up the latest Grafana Cloud features and improvements on the blog.

When I first started trying to figure out how to automate database deployments, over 15 years ago, I will freely admit, I was both skeptical and reluctant. I had to be dragged up to the notion that automating getting the database code out the door wasn’t just an excuse by the developers to find a way to bypass the DBA team. As per the traditional, biased, story, our favorite word was “No!”.

Server 3.x, which is now available to all CircleCI customers, was designed to meet the strictest security, compliance, and regulatory restraints. This self-hosted solution can scale under heavy workloads, all within your team’s Kubernetes cluster on your private network, but with the dynamically scaling cloud experience of CircleCI. Offering an exceptional on-premise service means keeping that service up-to-date with the latest releases.

Containers have revolutionized how we distribute applications by allowing replicated test environments, portability, resource efficiency, scalability and unmatched isolation capabilities. While containers help us package applications for easier deployment and updating, we need a set of specialized tools to manage them.

Most applications begin with a small to medium-sized user base. Even with migration projects, you would not immediately open your new application to the entire existing user base. Instead, you would first test with some internal users, then open up to early adopters. Nevertheless, if your application is successful, at some point you will face the need to scale it. Nevertheless, if your application is successful, at some point you will face the need to scale it.

The hype of 5G is ushering in the potential for drastic network change and is driving service providers to prepare for the future. Today’s networks provide ubiquitous all-purpose IP connectivity to support all services.

Allowing steps to skip downloading artifacts has been a highly requested feature from our customers. You can now disable artifact downloading on certain steps that do not require any artifacts, which will allow faster builds and can reduce your costs as a result. Disabling artifact downloads during a step is as easy as switching off a flag. Note that these steps can still produce artifacts to pass down to future steps.

Mobile communications is a tough market to compete in. Mobile network operators (MNOs) are always slashing prices, offering promotions and doing whatever it takes to gain market share. Third-party service providers are often caught in the middle. Just ask the team at Syniverse, a major provider of number porting services in the U.S.

The shared services model can transform business processes and smooth out the rough edges in your operational model. Have you been looking for ways to centralize your operations? We recommend that you consider the shared services model. Through the use of standardized technology, various units in an organization can access the same services. In this article, we are going to be providing everything you need to know about the shared services model.

Today we’re going to talk about logging with Kubernetes on AWS using CloudWatch and SolarWinds® Papertrail™. We’ll cover setting up Papertrail, installing and configuring the rKubeLog package, viewing the logs in the Papertrail event viewer, and cross-checking those logs with the ones we see with kubectl. From there, we’ll set up a few different alerts.