Top 10 Log Sources You Should Monitor

There are literally hundreds of possible types of log sources around your environment and choosing which bubble to the top of your IT consciousness can be difficult. In a job where everything seems to be a top priority, understanding all the log types and sources available for selection can be daunting. In your environment, some logs may be more valuable than others, but having general guidance about logging and what types of logs may be available to monitor can help make you a better technologist.

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Centralized Active Directory Management and Clean-Up

Do you regularly clean up your Active Directory® (AD)? Have you set a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly schedule, or do you wait until you receive a change request? If you neglect AD cleanup and maintenance, your environment will get cluttered and increasingly difficult to navigate. Accounts become inactive for a variety of reasons, such as … Read more Centralized Active Directory Management and Clean-Up

Is Syslog Useful?

  <Syslog_output> <server> 192.168.1.1</server> </syslog_output> Many people are familiar with the above commands, which are used for forwarding syslog to the syslog server (192.168.1.1). However, do you know how syslog can be helpful? Read on to find out how and see some different use cases for enabling syslog in your infrastructure. The primary use of … Read more Is Syslog Useful?

Maximizing Database Performance – MySQL Tuning Best Practices

With the added complexity of growing data volumes and ever changing workloads, database performance tuning is now necessary to maximize resource utilizations and system performance. However, performance tuning is often easier said than done. Let’s face it, tuning is difficult for a number of reasons. For one thing, it requires a significant amount of expertise … Read more Maximizing Database Performance – MySQL Tuning Best Practices

Must-know Tips and Tools for Oracle Virtualization

These days, even business-critical applications are being virtualized, and with the increasing costs and complexity of data environments, it’s not surprising. Some estimate that large organizations are as much as 70% virtualized already, with no plans to go back to physical servers. Virtualization, however, introduces new challenges for the Oracle DBA, including getting visibility to … Read more Must-know Tips and Tools for Oracle Virtualization

Choosing Metrics that Matter (Beyond CPU/Disk/Network)

Imagine for a moment that you have suddenly been promoted from regular old developer to senior architect, and tasked with overseeing the telemetry efforts for all of the engineering teams at your organization. I recently had a conversation at DevOps Days Toronto with someone who was living through exactly that experience. He’d just been put in … Read more Choosing Metrics that Matter (Beyond CPU/Disk/Network)