Every time the platform engineering team at San Francisco-based startup Mux deploys new software, there are two must-have components: proper access controls and observability. But until recently, their observability stack left the team frustrated, reactive, and largely in maintenance mode.

One of the great powers of Grafana is the open source community behind it — a community that provides a breadth of ready-to-use dashboards, plugins, exporters, and instructions that make a million tasks easier. The sheer scale of it all means whatever you need probably already exists somewhere. To illustrate this, I want to share an example of how to use these tools as a base for building a comprehensive database monitoring solution.

While they are untimely, stressful and likely to highlight communication breakdowns within an organization; incidents can be a powerful tool for learning and growth in organizations. When an incident occurs with a large impact, which it feels like we read about this happening in the news on a weekly basis, oftentimes the focus is on two things: stabilizing the situation, and controlling the narrative. Organizations often miss the opportunity incidents present: learning.

Imagine a world where packets go on unexpected detours, performing an electrifying dance routine that challenges the order we hold dear. Sounds intriguing, doesn't it? In the realm of data transmission, order is king. But every now and then, our trusty packets decide to take a detour, throwing caution to the wind and leaving us scratching our heads. Fear not! Today, we embark on an exhilarating exploration to demystify the phenomenon of out-of-order packets, also known as packet reordering.

Like any business, management service provider firms are always looking for ways to reduce MSP costs and improve profits. MSPs provide critical services to their clients, so finding ways to cut costs without cutting corners is essential. You’ve probably heard all the standard advice on cutting costs: review your pricing, renegotiate contracts, cut unnecessary expenses, and so on. But what about MSPs who are already doing all those things and are still looking for ways to save?

Cloud computing offers several undeniable benefits to businesses. Some of the biggest ones are agility, cost savings, data recovery, and developing new apps and services to meet changing customer needs. Despite these benefits, the cloud can be complex, demand specialized skills, and require companies to follow up-to-date cloud security best practices. Why is that a problem? A 2020 report shows that 68% of companies cited misconfiguration as their biggest cloud architecture challenge going into 2021.