Joe Miller02/16/12
4112 views
0 replies
Collectd is a powerful tool for gathering metrics using its wide range of plugins, such as cpu, disk, load, memory, etc. But there is a lack of good frontend tools for visualizing the data collectd produces. Graphite is an amazingly powerful tool from Orbitz for visualizing metrics, but there is a lack of tools for gathering host-level stats and sending into graphite. Wouldn't it be great if we could leverage the strengths of both tools?
Carlos Sanchez02/16/12
5139 views
0 replies
Using tools like Maven in the Java world or Bundle in Rubyland you can explicitly list all the dependencies and versions you need. But there are some critical dependencies that are never set. It is just too simple. However, from the point of view of the operations team the number of requirements is complex.
Mitch Pronschinske02/16/12
1968 views
0 replies
Moncli is a generic MONitoring and metrics collector CLIent which executes and processes requests on an external system in order to interact with the host's local information sources which are normally not available over the network. Get the full introduction to this decentralized, horizontally scalable monitoring framework from the creator and his documentation.
Tony Pitluga02/15/12
4057 views
0 replies
We have taken advantage of an under-appreciated feature of Puppet that allows us to manage our servers in a completely decentralized manner. It's called Master-less Puppet and supply_drop. In this tutorial you'll learn how and why you would use these features for Puppet.
Jim Bird02/15/12
10782 views
2 replies
According to one report, “applications carry on average $3.61 of technical debt per line of code”. The figure seems a bit arbitrary and absolute in a context where there can be so many variables. This review will give you a better idea of technical debt by looking at different kinds of technical debt, and how much they might cost you.
Matthew Turland02/14/12
4449 views
1 replies
I’m currently working on a project that involves running Drupal on Amazon EC2. To save time in setting up future new VM instances, I decided to take the opportunity to learn puppet. I’m using a single VM to run the full LAMP stack and running puppet without a server by copying my puppet manifest to the VM and using puppet’s apply command to apply it locally.
Mark Needham02/14/12
2630 views
0 replies
In my latest post I described an approach we’d been taking when analysing how to rewrite part of an existing system so that we could build the new version in an incremental way.
Mitch Pronschinske02/14/12
6350 views
0 replies
One blogger has made his opinion known about DevOps recently, calling it a power grab for devs and cloud vendors who envision a "NoOps" world. I have a few opinions about what he says, but let's hear what you think.
Mitch Pronschinske02/13/12
5557 views
0 replies
By now most developers and IT folks recognize the groundswell behind OpenStack and why it's so awesome to be able to build your own cross-platform cloud infrastructure. If you want some simple tools, scripts and guides to get you started with OpenStack without having to learn about every aspect of the technology.
JP Morgenthal02/13/12
2554 views
0 replies
This article suggests a common solution to the common problem of users trying to access information within a company using applications that have not been developed as part of a cohesive strategy. Morgenthal looks to DevOps to foster communication between engineering and operations.
Ayende Rahien02/13/12
6232 views
1 replies
Selling software is hard. Ayende Rahien knows because he has his own product that he sells. One of the big difficulties is how to keep improving the product so that there are continual 'major' new releases with new features that are enticing enough for people to buy the next version. Join in Ayende's discussion on the best ways to monetize our software with concepts like continuous deployment.
Kris Buytaert02/13/12
1815 views
0 replies
In giving his feedback from the LISA 2011 conference, Kris Buytaert provided his personal vision for the perfect DevOps conference.
Kief Morris02/13/12
4736 views
0 replies
I first used automated installation by PXE-booting physical rack servers in 2002, following the advice I found on the then-current infrastructures.org site, and in later years applied the same concepts with virtualized servers and then IaaS cloud instances.
Mitch Pronschinske02/12/12
6116 views
0 replies
William Hertling, a Science Fiction writer in his spare time, shared an wild experience on his blog about how in his day job (at HP) he was approached Monday afternoon and told he had to scale a web app up to handle about 10k simultaneous users by Thursday morning. Some great lessons for those of you who need to be prepared for this situation.
Aaron Nichols02/11/12
3203 views
0 replies
The problem with turning over rocks is that there’s usually ugly stuff hiding underneath. You retro every 2 weeks and you list out all the stuff that isn’t working. You diligently collect all the deltas and turn those into actions. You collect all the actions from your retro’s and your post-mortems and you track them in a tool where they sit… forever.
Kris Buytaert02/10/12
3766 views
0 replies
Earlier this week Inuits hosted a 2 day hackfest titled #MonitoringSucks. Kris Buytaert attended and shares his experiences looking at various monitoring tools. He was introduced to some really promising projects.
Joe Miller02/09/12
2269 views
0 replies
A key strength of the Sensu monitoring framework is the ability to re-use existing Nagios plugins. Nagios has been around for at least 1000 years according to most recent archaeological discoveries. In this article I’ll demonstrate creating a Sensu check with the check_http Nagios plugin.
Mitch Pronschinske02/09/12
6241 views
1 replies
Patrick Dubois, the Godfather of DevOps (and a DZone MVB), has created a few open source tools and one of them, VeeWee, is a tool for building boxes for a few of his favorite tools like Vagrant, KVM, and Virtual Box. In this video you will witness the magic of VeeWee as Dubois sets up a Windows 7 box with VeeWee from scratch.
Troy Hunt02/08/12
5806 views
1 replies
Database source control is no longer negotiable. Databases are an essential component of many of the applications we build and to deny them the value of VCS is just crazy talk. Learn how to make a repeatable continuous integration build for your DB.
Aaron Nichols02/08/12
3060 views
0 replies
You need to learn these strategies if you're looking to establish ownership in your Operations team. You'll learn about the roles and responsibilities matrix and then define cross-functional areas. This means that you'll be working with people outside operations (a la DevOps) and you'll have to learn some techniques for tracking and communicating work as well as rotating roles.
Mitch Pronschinske02/07/12
5956 views
0 replies
Amon is an open source tool that can run on the smallest VPS you have. If you don't trust similar cloud solutions (some of which are not free) and you want to be in full control of your logs and performance history, then Amon is probably worth a look, especially for you DevOps folks. It gives you logging, error tracking, and server monitoring all in one place.
Mitch Pronschinske02/07/12
3420 views
0 replies
It's a very cool time for developers, and it can be a great time for sysadmins too if they embrace the changes that are coming. Learn about why the sysadmin, in a traditional sense, is dead-man walking.
Mitch Pronschinske02/06/12
2833 views
0 replies
Is PaaS an inevitability for your organization? A recent infographic makes its case for 2013 being the year PaaS and "NoOps" goes mainstream (whatever that means). Although my own predictions see "NoOps" becoming a growing niche case, I'm interested to see where the community sees PaaS and "NoOps" in the next year at their organization and in the industry as a whole.
Aaron Nichols02/06/12
5828 views
4 replies
Rather thank trying to find a 'rock star' to come and be your savior, try moving from small groups to collaborative teams and processes, rather than people, that are 'rock star'.
Tom O'connor02/05/12
5356 views
0 replies
Recently, Oracle withdrew the ability for Linux distributions to repackage Java and distribute their own packages. This has been widely regarded as a bad idea, but I'll show you how to re-roll an old sun-java6 deb file.
