When network hardware vendors issue device recalls, field notices, or security alerts, the implication can be massive for MSPs. Take the 2017 clock signal issue, for example. That huge recall of Intel microchips was a large-scale vulnerability for tons of devices—and left MSPs scrambling to figure out which devices were affected on which client sites.

HAProxy 2.6 is now available! As always, the community behind HAProxy made it possible to bring the enhancements in this release. Whether developing new functionality, fixing issues, writing documentation, QA testing, hosting CI environments, or submitting bug reports, members of our community continue to drive the project forward. If you’d like to join the effort, you can find us on GitHub, Slack, Discourse, and the HAProxy mailing list.

Network configuration management is a function that comprises assortment, monitoring and storage of information about every component that forms a network. The true purpose of such a solution is to come alive in time of any eventuality; it could be the need to update, upgrade, recover or could even be disaster management. The solution will provide all pertinent information at the hands of the IT operations team, enabling them to decide the course of action going forward.

A multi-cloud strategy has become the status quo for many organisations. It provides access to the broadest range of cloud services and best-of-breed technologies, along with a reduced risk of vendor lock-in. As a result, most organisations will use a number of the most popular service options alongside more niche or localised offerings.

Paul Dippell is the co-founder and CEO of Service Leadership, Inc., a company that measures IT and managed service provider (MSP) performance across the industry and annually publishes the results as the Service Leadership Index®. In this interview, we ask about his work using operational maturity in benchmarking managed service providers.

Routing problems tend to emerge when you’re first setting up a new piece of network equipment, and when something has failed. Usually, routing problems are caused by some sort of configuration or design error. Troubleshooting routing problems is tricky because the usual tools like ping and traceroute don’t always tell you what you need to know.

Every IT administrator knows that users typically complain of two things: the network doesn’t work or it’s slow. When your network isn't working, it’s usually because something is down and we can rely on Network Fault Monitoring tools to notify us. But where do we start when users complain of poor performance? And what tools are available to help us? In these situations, Network Performance Monitoring tools might be just what you need.

The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a framework of best practices for providing various information technology (IT) services, including service and asset management. The main goal of ITIL is to improve the quality and efficiency of IT service management.