If you’re looking to keep up with trends and the like in software, then our authors can help you out. Learn more in their posts below.

How Free APM Tools Can Help You With Testing and Troubleshooting

APM (application performance management) services are essential tools in every developer’s/SRE’s toolbox, together with centralized logging services. APM tools provide visibility into the application’s code and performance, and they allow easy, quick testing and debugging. This post explains how free APM tools can help you with testing and troubleshooting your application. Find out more from Alexander Fridman on TEK-Tools’ blog.

Digital Twin: What It Is and How It’s Driving the Future of IT

Developers used to bring products and services to market, analyze performance, and then make changes to improve outcomes. This process was inefficient and expensive. It also resulted in lengthy outages and delays, angry end users, and lost profits all too often. Digital twins are changing this process. This is because digital twins give developers the ability to understand how systems will operate using advanced computer models. In this light, digital twins are far more effective for product and service development than the traditional approach.  Learn more about digital twins from Justin Reynolds on Plutora’s blog. 

Agile Project Management: The Battle-Tested Field Guide

agile project management is a relatively new approach. Although the roots of the ideas behind agile project management can be traced back to the 1970s, the approach itself became popular and widespread (and, we might add, even dominant in the marketplace) less than 15 years ago. The conventional way of managing software projects before that was the waterfall model. Find out more about agile project management in software projects from Alexander Fridman on Plutora’s blog. 

The database is one of the most critical components of software infrastructure. Usually, that’s where you store all your important data. Properly managing databases is not an easy task—especially nowadays, when microservices architecture is popular. In such an environment, you’ll probably find more than one database. Moreover, it’s not uncommon in microservices environments to use different databases (MySQL, PostreSQL, MondoDB, etc) in one application. This creates even more maintenance work needed. That’s why the database-as-a-service model, or DBaaS, has become so popular. In fact, DBaaS is one of the fastest-growing among all SaaS offerings. In this post, you’ll learn what exactly DBaaS is and what benefits it brings. Learn more from Dawid Ziolkowski on Scalyr’s blog.

We also updated a post this week on Log4net configuration. What is log4net and why would you use it? Log4net is a logging utility for .NET applications. It’s based on log4j, which is for Java applications. Like log4j, log4net is an Apache project. You would use either log4j or log4net to log application events; this includes anything from debugging messages to critical crashes in your applications. This guide will walk you through the log4net configuration options. Find out more on Scalyr’s blog.