Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

Observability is essential for maintaining and scaling modern applications. With.NET 8, Microsoft has enhanced support for observability using OpenTelemetry. In this post, we explore how to monitor.NET 8 applications logs with SigNoz, an open-source observability platform, using the OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP) exporter.

When looking at the broad landscape of IT automation tools, you’ll find dozens (if not hundreds) of tools that seem like viable solutions to your automation needs. Almost all of those tools can be broken down into two categories: Open source automation tools and commercial automation tools. (Open source automation tools with a commercial offering are still considered open source, even if the commercial edition has a price tag.)

Last night, over dinner in Canary Wharf, I found myself catching up with a former colleague who is now leading investments at one of the big banks.

Today’s digital businesses are more interconnected than ever. Industry research shows that 74% of organizations now take an “API-first” approach, and the average application is powered by between 26 and 50 APIs. While this accelerates innovation, it also introduces new risks: when an external provider fails, the impact can be immediate and far-reaching.

In today’s always-on, cloud-first world, it’s no surprise that enterprises are demanding greater reliability, stronger security, and faster performance from their network infrastructure. AWS meets these needs with AWS Direct Connect, offering a dedicated, private connection to AWS that bypasses the public internet.

About 15 years ago, I worked at a company building network security appliances (with ARM-based network processors) and was responsible for the development of custom Linux firmware. The product launch was successful; we shipped and managed a large fleet of devices in the field. After a few firmware releases, we received alerts from the device management system telling us that there were intermittent problems. Remoted into the appliances but could not reproduce the error.

It’s summertime and things are heating up — in a good way! Forgive us for being a little self-centered this month. Some exciting things are happening at CloudZero: Ditch your towel and flip-flops because it’s time to dive in.

Cloud computing promised speed, scale, and freedom. And it delivered. Engineers can deploy in seconds. Teams can scale globally overnight. But somewhere between all that freedom and speed, control got blurry. Resources piled up. Budgets ballooned. And suddenly, no one could answer the simple question: What are we paying for and why? Cloud resource management is how we reclaim that control, without slowing down.

On March 2, 2025, Firefly Aerospace made history. The company — a space services firm that offers safe, reliable, and economical access to space — completed the first fully successful lunar landing by a commercial provider with its Blue Ghost Mission 1. But behind the headlines and highlight reels was a team of dedicated engineers, years of preparation, and a mission control center outfitted with Grafana dashboards.

Log volume is exploding, costs are rising, and most teams are stuck duct-taping together short-term fixes. During our webinar, "Optimizing Log Management in Datadog: Cut Costs Without Losing Insights," we discuss how DevOps and engineering leaders are navigating the growing pains of observability, especially in environments where tools like Datadog are mission-critical but challenging to manage. Here’s a recap of the key takeaways.