DevOps Weekly Newsletter, DevOpsLinks. Curated DevOps news, tutorials, tools and more! 

Join thousands of other readers, 100% free, unsubscribe anytime.

This blog post explains observability, a method to understand how a system works by examining its outputs. Observability is different from monitoring, which just collects data. The three pillars of observability are metrics (numerical indicators), logs (event records), and traces (request flow tracking). Popular observability tools include Prometheus, Grafana, Jaeger, ELK Stack, Honeycomb, Datadog, New Relic, Sysdig, and Zipkin. By understanding these pillars and using the right tools, you can gain valuable insights into your system's health and troubleshoot problems before they impact users.

This blog post compares two leading incident response tools: PagerDuty and Splunk On-Call (formerly VictorOps).

Choosing a VictorOps Alternative: PagerDuty is a robust alternative to Splunk On-Call, excelling in alerting, incident management, and automation.

Choosing a Splunk Alternative: If real-time alerting, collaboration, and swift response are your priorities, PagerDuty might be ideal. Splunk On-Call excels in data analysis and proactive problem identification.

Feature Breakdown:

Alerting & Escalation: PagerDuty offers real-time, multi-channel notifications with escalation policies, while Splunk On-Call focuses on data correlation and customization.

Incident Response: PagerDuty provides collaboration tools and centralized consoles, whereas Splunk On-Call centers on log analysis and root cause investigation.

Automation & AI: Both leverage automation and AI, with PagerDuty emphasizing alert grouping and workflows, and Splunk On-Call focusing on anomaly detection and predictive analytics.

Integrations: PagerDuty boasts seamless integrations with various tools, while Splunk On-Call prioritizes data source connections and custom app building.

Pricing: PagerDuty has tiered pricing starting at $25 per user per month, while Splunk On-Call's pricing is complex, ranging from a free tier to expensive enterprise plans.

Beyond the Giants:

The blog also introduces Squadcastas a contender, offering a blend of features from both PagerDuty and Splunk On-Call at an affordable price.

This blog post compares two incident alerting and response platforms: Opsgenie and Pagerduty. It helps readers choose between the two based on their needs and budget.

Here's a quick breakdown:

On-Call Scheduling: Opsgenie is easier to use, Pagerduty is more powerful but complex.

Alerting: Pagerduty offers more sophisticated alerting with AI-powered noise reduction. Opsgenie provides the basics but lacks advanced features without extra cost.

Incident Response: Pagerduty excels with features like automated actions and deep ITSM integrations. Opsgenie offers basic functionalities.

Integrations: Pagerduty offers more integrations (including Atlassian ecosystem) while Opsgenie has a respectable library of essential connections.

Pricing: Opsgenie starts at $11/month/user, Pagerduty starts at $25/month/user (with additional costs for advanced features).

Overall, Opsgenie is ideal for those who prioritize user-friendliness and affordability. Pagerduty is better suited for those who need advanced features, strong integrations, and robust incident response capabilities, but are willing to pay a premium.

This blog post provides an overview of observability tools for DevOps engineers and SREs. Observability is essential for understanding system behavior and troubleshooting problems in complex IT infrastructure. The blog explores different categories of observability tools including log aggregation, APM, distributed tracing, time-series databases, and metrics collection. Examples of popular tools in each category are provided along with a brief description of their features. Finally, the blog emphasizes the importance of choosing the right observability tools based on your specific needs and highlights the benefits of implementing a strong observability strategy.

This blog post talks about how to handle incidents effectively in an organization. It emphasizes the importance of having a well-defined plan that outlines steps to take when an incident occurs. The article also details several helpful tools and best practices to follow. Here are the key takeaways:

Why it's important: Minimizes downtime, revenue loss, and brand reputation damage.

Steps to take: Identify/classify incidents, communicate effectively, assign roles, and have standard procedures.

Essential tools: Monitoring/alerting tools, service catalog, log management, runbook automation, collaboration platforms, and incident management platforms.

Best practices: Regularly train staff, conduct simulations, review incidents, and continuously improve the plan.

This blog post explores alternatives to Pagerduty, a popular incident management tool. It emphasizes features to consider when choosing an alternative, including user-friendliness, scheduling, notifications, workflows, integrations, and cost.

The blog compares Pagerduty with ServiceNow, highlighting strengths and weaknesses of each. While Pagerduty is user-friendly with pre-built features, ServiceNow offers more powerful customization.

Finally, the blog introduces Squadcast as a well-rounded alternative that combines the strengths of both Pagerduty and ServiceNow, with a focus on user-friendliness, powerful workflows, and competitive pricing.

This blog post explores alternatives to Splunk On-Call (formerly VictorOps) because of potential drawbacks like cost, limited features, and hidden fees. It compares 9 VictorOps alternatives including Squadcast, Opsgenie, and Moogsoft. Key factors to consider when choosing an alternative are cost transparency, features, ease of use, and support. The blog highlights Squadcast as a strong replacement for Splunk On-Call due to its transparent pricing, all-in-one functionality, user-friendly interface, and excellent support.

IT Incident Management Tools: The Backbone of Business Continuity

In today's digital world, IT systems are critical for any organization's success. To maintain smooth operations, businesses need IT incident management tools for proactive problem prevention and swift incident resolution.

Traditional monitoring methods are slow and inefficient, leading to extended downtime. IT incident management tools provide a comprehensive solution by:

Offering early problem detection through real-time system health insights.

Improving incident response with automation and streamlined workflows.

Enhancing collaboration through central communication platforms.

Enabling data-driven decision making with valuable insights from incident data.

The benefits of using IT incident management tools include reduced downtime, improved team efficiency, better visibility into IT health, stronger collaboration, and informed decision-making.

When choosing IT incident management tools, consider features, scalability, ease of use, and integration capabilities with existing systems.

The future of IT incident management is driven by automation, AI, and machine learning, leading to faster resolution and a shift towards proactive prevention.

IT incident management tools are essential for businesses to ensure optimal IT health, minimize downtime, and achieve superior business continuity.

This blog post explores the pros and cons of building your own incident management system (IMS) versus buying a pre-built solution. It highlights that while building a custom IMS may seem appealing for its customizability, there are hidden costs in development, maintenance, and lost development opportunities for core products. Pre-built IT incident management software, on the other hand, offers lower overall cost, faster deployment, better usability with ongoing feature updates, and vendor support. The blog concludes that for most organizations, especially those with limited resources, a pre-built solution offers a better return on investment than building their own IMS.

This blog post discusses how to enhance incident management by integrating an incident management tool, like Squadcast, with ticketing systems and other project management tools.

The key takeaways are:

Ticketing systems are essential for managing incidents but can be even more effective when integrated with an incident management tool.

Squadcast automates ticket creation in ticketing systems, saving time and ensuring faster incident resolution.

Integrations between Squadcast and ticketing systems improve collaboration between teams working on resolving incidents.

Squadcast also integrates with project management tools like Asana, Trello, and ClickUp, creating a more comprehensive incident management solution.

Consider using incident monitoring tools alongside Squadcast for a proactive approach to incident management.

By integrating Squadcast with various tools, you can streamline workflows, automate tasks, and improve overall incident management efficiency.