THWACKcamp 2017 - When DevOps Says "Monitor"

adatole over 6 years ago 1 minute read time

As companies race to the cloud and adopt DevOps culture as part of that process, it's becoming more apparent that the word "monitoring" has a significantly different meaning within the walls of a data center than it does in the DevOps huddle area. But what, if anything, is actually different? Or is it all just jargon and an attitude of not invented here (NIH).

In my panel discussion, 'When DevOps Says "Monitor,"' I will be joined by Nathen Harvey, VP of Community Development at Chef, Michael Cote, Director of Technical Marketing at Pivotal, and Clinton Wolfe, cloud architect and DevOps practice lead (and current "hero for hire" seeking his next adventure). In our conversation, we'll break down expectations, and yes, even bad (monitoring) habits in the DevOps world in a way that will make a traditional monitoring engineer feel right at home.

Because it was so successful last year, we are continuing our expanded-session, two-day, two-track format for THWACKcamp 2017. SolarWinds product managers and technical experts will guide attendees through how-to sessions designed to shed light on new challenges, while Head Geeks and IT thought leaders will discuss, debate, and provide context for a range of industry topics.

In our 100% free, virtual, multi-track IT learning event, thousands of attendees will have the opportunity to hear from industry experts and SolarWinds Head Geeks, such as myself, and technical staff. Registrants also get to interact with each other to discuss topics related to emerging IT challenges, including automation, hybrid IT, DevOps, and more.

Check out our promo video and register now for THWACKcamp 2017! And don't forget to catch my session!

Top Comments

byrona over 6 years ago

One thing I have found with DevOps guys is that hey tend to prefer the open source technologies for just about everything including monitoring; likely due to the increased flexibility. I have found this personally within my own environment and have also talked to others that have told me the same thing is true in their environment; though I am certain there are cases where this is not true. This is in comparison to traditional Operations that tends to prefer commercial solutions with support contracts and the such. This is a place where I have found both a significant difference and challenge. We have commercial solutions in place for monitoring (pretty much all SolarWinds products) and my DevOps guys hate working with them because they are not open source; or at least that is as best I can tell. I get a lot of complaints about the API's and then they always seem to try and implement their own open source solutions instead.
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tallyrich over 6 years ago

Care to highlight the ones you can't monitor - you might get some tips from the peanut gallery around here.
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ecklerwr1 over 6 years ago

There's a few that I can't find a way with Orion... also I don't have SRM module.
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rschroeder over 6 years ago

Wow! That's a great shopping list for monitoring needs. And nothing SW offers can do this? Or you just haven't bought the modules or licenses to do it all yet?
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ecklerwr1 over 6 years ago

Leon... we're doing some additional trade studies because we have additional monitoring requirements. Many can be filled by SolarWinds tools... many can't. Here's our current list:

Monitoring and troubleshoot workspace vm'sDeep dive of issues that users exerience with their workspaceAlerts on XenDesktop/XenApp servers that host GO Application/performanceHistorical monitoring - able to go back at a point in time and look at what was running on a given vm - processes/etc.Tracks users across a non-persistent environment. Does not care about state.Visibility into the underlying storage arrays for performance related data (user Profiles for GO),Login process performance monitoringVisibility into network latency across data centers/remote sitesUp/Down monitoringServices runningDisk space utilizationPerformance monitoring (CPU, Mem, Network, Disk)Capacity PlanningService DashboardsSending AlertsMonitoring of Software Defined Network (SDN)Visibility into firewall rulesMonitor Physical Network DevicesApplication Monitoring - Exchange(Mail Queues, etc)Application Monitoring - AD(Replication, etc)IAM Custom Tool - repalcing scripts, inactive accounts, password changesApplication Monitors(Oracle, SQL, JDE, Exchange, Remedy)Application Monitor - Web performanceApplication Monitoring - Lync(Metrics, QoE) - Cannot monitor live calls today. No alerting todayApplication Monitoring - Lync(Monitor Live Calls)Application Monitoring - Lync(Dashboard views)Application Monitoring - Lync(SBC Integration)Simulation CapabilitiesCorrelation EngineFiler Event LoggingReporting - (Aggregates,SVM,Volumes)LoggingBackups MonitoringBackups ReportingBackup AlertsPoint in time capture/exportHistorical playback of storageAbility to create baselinesAbility to control data rollup - granularity over timeAlerting on other infrastructure (Memory leaks , Desktop VDI's not registering, Brokers)Testing performance from remote sites a user sees it.Deep Insight into the Netscalars, Up/Down, Performance, LB. Netscalar Insight may be able to do this. Not using it much todayPhysical hardware component monitoring. Raid controllers, memory, disks, batteries… etc.End-to-End Mapping of systemsMonitoring Physical serversTracks changes to files for compliance. JDEPredictive analyticsOrchestration API'sAbility to determine from MAC address where a device is on the networkRight-Sizing vm reportingSnapshot reclamationWhat-if Analysis/Scenario Modeler
We're close but we're also considering adding some additional tools.
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