February 2016 Summaries

Docker Datacenter, recently launched as a production-grade enterprise container ecosystem, is an integrated platform designed for agile application development and management, incorporating Docker Universal Control Plane (UCP), Docker Trusted Registry, and support for Docker Engine. Sysdig has announced its integration with Docker Datacenter, offering a comprehensive monitoring solution for Docker environments through its Sysdig Cloud platform. This integration allows for enhanced visibility, troubleshooting, and performance analytics of containerized applications without requiring additional instrumentation of containers or application code. Sysdig utilizes Docker labels to organize and map the topology of Docker environments, enabling adaptive alerting and service-oriented performance management. The platform provides pre-built dashboard templates for monitoring, which automatically adapt to environmental changes, thereby facilitating easier and more effective monitoring and alerting of Dockerized applications in production settings.

Sysdig Cloud has introduced number panels to enhance container monitoring by providing a straightforward, visual means of assessing system performance through dashboards and views. These panels complement existing time series, bar, and table panels and serve as an effective "source of truth" in office settings, allowing users to quickly grasp the state of their container environments. Creating a number panel is simple; users can select the "Number" option from the panel settings, enabling real-time data aggregation over a chosen timeframe. The panels also feature color coding based on thresholds, aiding quick monitoring during activities such as passing by a wallboard. Number panels work seamlessly with Sysdig Cloud's grouping feature, allowing users to monitor applications, services, or data centers efficiently. Sysdig Cloud offers a free trial, encouraging users to explore this new feature and improve their data monitoring capabilities.

ShareThis, a service that enhances website engagement through social network sharing, has documented its transition to using Kubernetes in production, highlighting a significant evolution from initial skepticism to achieving substantial operational efficiency. The company now manages 800 million requests per day with aspirations to increase this to 2 billion, a testament to the scalability Kubernetes offers. Within a month, the organization expanded its DevOps capabilities to all engineers, and after four months, it was deploying 40 applications weekly, with only 30% of its apps migrated, yet experiencing remarkable benefits. The blog post by Juan Valencia on kubernetes.io serves as a case study illustrating the tangible business value of adopting a cloud-native architecture, which could inspire other organizations contemplating similar shifts. Furthermore, ShareThis' collaboration with Sysdig Cloud underscores its commitment to leveraging advanced infrastructure solutions.

Sysdig has announced the availability of native monitoring and troubleshooting solutions for the container runtime, rkt, which was designed as an alternative to Docker with a focus on security and composability. By leveraging Sysdig's open-source projects, sysdig and csysdig, users can achieve deep visibility into rkt containers, allowing for advanced troubleshooting capabilities without requiring additional instrumentation inside the containers. Sysdig Cloud extends this functionality across distributed systems, providing centralized monitoring, real-time alerting, and detailed insights into containerized applications, infrastructure, and systems. This platform enables users to inspect application activity, analyze process execution, and map container environment topologies, enhancing the ability to manage dynamic infrastructures effectively. With Sysdig Cloud, users can monitor resource utilization, application performance, and network activity in real-time and historically, ensuring comprehensive oversight of their container environments.