Orca Blog

Configuration Management, Application Release Automation and DevOps News
ControlOrca BlogWhy Orca

Enforce (don’t just report) configuration compliance and policy

Monitoring is a good start. But it is not enough. Monitoring the applications, OS, and servers that make up your environment is a no-brainer. How many times have you had a customer be the first to inform you there was a problem? Those early alerts about performance problems, outages and security breaches are essential to running a tight IT ship. But they are not enough. Imagine going to a dentist and being…
Scott Turner
February 8, 2016
Ecosystem VisibilityHow Orca WorksOrca Blog

Ecosystem Modeling for Visibility & Compliance Enforcement

Modeling Your Application Ecosystem Ecosystem Modeling for Visibility & Compliance Enforcement Modeling your application ecosystem (including related applications, databases, middleware and servers in mixed Linux-Windows environments) is a powerful way to create intuitive birds-eye views of your environment as well as granular views of the full stack configurations that tie your infrastructure together - physical, virtual and cloud. Due to limited choices many IT organizations resort…
Scott Turner
February 1, 2016
AutomationOrca BlogWhy Orca

Automating Configurations in Windows Environments without Scripting

Configuration Automation for Windows without Scripting  Automating configuration compliance or bulk-deployment in a Windows (or  mixed Windows & Linux) environments has never been easy. Windows Server, IIS, MS SQL Server, MS MQ and SharePoint by their very nature are more complex than many of their non-Windows counterparts. Managing them is hard, so the desire to automate is strong. But frankly most new automation solutions cater…
Scott Turner
January 23, 2016
Orca BlogRisk / ROIWhy Orca

Less than Free: Puppet, Chef & other Open Source

Free isn't Free It is easy to understand the appeal of Open Source tools. After all, immediate gratification, community and a “free” price are certainly attention-getting for many developers. But IT Ops teams and their managers need to be careful to consider all of the costs when choosing free software such as open source versions of Puppet or Chef (especially if they are operating in…
Scott Turner
January 8, 2016
Orca BlogWhy Orca

Wishing You a Boring New Year. Drama-Free IT

Wishing you a Boring New Year We wish you a boring new year! We really do. At least at the office. After all there is nothing too exciting about Stability, Support and Security – but we want that for you. The Goal: Drama-Free IT You probably prefer excitement in your favorite sporting and entertainment events and drama at the movies. And if you are like most…
Scott Turner
December 30, 2015
ControlOrca BlogWhy Orca

It’s Enterprise “Cold and Flu” Season. Treat the DevOps Disease, Not the Symptoms.

Treat the DevOps Disease, Not Just the Symptoms. The Symptoms You recognize the symptoms a mile away. The early stages of a sore throat. That cough that seems to have come from nowhere. Darn. Why didn’t I get a flu shot this year!? Is the health of your business critical applications really all that different? Here the symptoms are web application performance glitches, security vulnerabilities and even…
Scott Turner
December 20, 2015
Orca BlogVisibilityWhy Orca

Rugged DevOps: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

(Note: an earlier version of this article was first published on DevOps.com devops.com/2015/12/22/rugged-devops-good-bad-ugly/) The Good: DevOps has been a success for Dev. With higher expectations, better processes, more management focus and new tools like advanced PaaS and containers, developers are churning out more and more software faster than ever. Success! Or is it? The Bad: DevOps has been a success…for Dev. For Dev teams, this may…
Scott Turner
December 16, 2015