April 2018 Summaries

Evernote is a cross-platform software-as-a-service application that enables users to organize, personalize, and share information from any device, with a focus on providing unique search capabilities across various formats like notes, images, PDFs, and voice recordings. With a user base exceeding 220 million people globally, Evernote's Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) team plays a critical role in maintaining user satisfaction by ensuring minimal downtime and quickly resolving any service issues. The team utilizes PagerDuty for alerts, notifications, and on-call scheduling, which has become increasingly important since Evernote's migration to Google Cloud Platform in 2016. This migration enhanced agility in service development but also introduced new challenges in tracking key performance indicators that affect service-level objectives (SLOs). PagerDuty aids the team in prioritizing alerts based on customer impact, providing a comprehensive view of production issues through advanced analytics, and supporting the automation of incident response processes. As Evernote continues to expand, they plan to further integrate PagerDuty's features, such as postmortem templates and incident response plays, to enhance their incident management practices.

Richard, a software engineering intern at PagerDuty, shares a guide on creating a Twitter Trend Alert System using PagerDuty, which can be set up in under 40 minutes with minimal coding skills. The project aims to help companies manage brand reputation by tracking Twitter trends in real-time and alerting users through email, SMS, or phone when there is a spike in activity. The system involves configuring a Twitter application, downloading project code from GitHub, setting up a PagerDuty account with escalation policies and services, and integrating with Datadog for trend analysis. The guide highlights the ease of extending PagerDuty's capabilities beyond its traditional use for managing disruptions, providing a competitive edge in monitoring social media trends and responding promptly to public relations incidents.

PagerDuty's participation in the AWS Summit London on May 9-10, 2018, at ExCeL London highlights its commitment to enhancing developer productivity, network security, and application performance through various events and demonstrations. Attendees can visit Booth S19 to explore how PagerDuty's platform integrates with technologies such as AWS CloudWatch, AppDynamics, and Datadog to manage machine data from hybrid environments effectively. The company emphasizes its role in minimizing risks associated with cloud migration by fostering a DevOps culture and showcasing innovations in machine learning and response automation. Visitors have the opportunity to engage with the PagerDuty team, schedule onsite meetings to discuss organizational benefits, and receive exclusive merchandise while learning about best practices for accelerating digital projects through cloud migration.

Sebastian Kolosa shares his experiences as a software engineering intern on PagerDuty's Mobile team, highlighting the unique opportunities for making a significant impact within a small team tasked with substantial responsibilities. Despite common perceptions that interns may not contribute significantly, the Mobile team at PagerDuty, having grown rapidly and responsible for the company's iOS and Android applications, allowed Kolosa to make meaningful contributions from the onset. He worked on enhancing user experiences, such as improving the login interface and ensuring feature parity between mobile and web platforms based on user feedback. The team's small size fosters a close-knit, collaborative environment, offering mentorship and personal development opportunities, and allowing interns to engage deeply with the product and its users. Kolosa emphasizes that the supportive and transparent culture at PagerDuty's Mobile team provides a rare chance for both personal and professional growth, reinforcing the notion that impactful work is achievable even as an intern.

PagerDuty's presence at ServiceNow’s Knowledge18 event highlights the integration between the two platforms, designed to enhance real-time digital operations management across enterprises. The integration aims to improve service delivery, mitigate security risks, and optimize operational efficiency by enabling swift incident response through ServiceNow's Change Management and Security Incident Response modules. The event will feature various sessions, including discussions on automation in incident response and case studies like Oportun's significant reduction in incident recovery time and Gap Inc.'s digital transformation journey. Attendees can also visit PagerDuty's booth for demonstrations, exclusive merchandise, and networking opportunities to explore the enhanced capabilities of the PagerDuty and ServiceNow partnership.

PagerDuty has announced its entry into the blockchain arena with the launch of PagerCoin, an innovative token tailored for incident responders. Designed for global use by both experts and non-experts involved in outages, PagerCoin aims to revolutionize on-call shift swapping by decentralizing incentives and eliminating traditional fiat constraints. Unlike other digital currencies, PagerCoin introduces a novel proof-of-ack algorithm, combining elements of proof-of-work and proof-of-stake, with future tokens mined through manual acknowledgment of incidents. Initially, only accredited investors can engage with incidents, and the token boasts an impressive market cap, purportedly reaching 5.7 trillion dollars. Backed by various fiat goods, such as promotional merchandise and novelty items, PagerCoin is hailed as a significant advancement in operational efficiency for organizations, with endorsements from key figures like PagerDuty CTO Alex Solomon.