Catch up with our authors in our weekly digest. See what they’re covering and writing about here.

Testing in Production: Why It’s Part of Any Modern QA Strategy

Testing in production used to have a terrible reputation. And some (or most?) of it was probably deserved. But everything changes and the software industry is probably the fastest-changing “thing” ever. Nowadays, testing in production is not only tolerated but actively encouraged in many situations. However, a bad reputation isn’t an easy thing to shake off. Many people are still—understandably—skeptical about the whole thing. Are you one of those? Then this post is for you. Find out more from Carlos Schults on Testim’s blog.

There’s always lots of data whenever you check your logs. For every action that you process on your machine, the system keeps a record of it. For instance, when you run some codes on your system, your browser’s console creates logs. This doesn’t end with you running codes alone, as there are countless places where logs are necessary. Find out more about log indexing from Ukpai Ugochi on Scalyr’s blog. 

Page Speed vs. SEO: Does a Slow Website Affect Rankings?

If you have a website, you should know about search engine optimization (SEO) and page speed. You may even have wondered about balancing page speed vs. SEO. From a user perspective, page speed matters to you personally because you get frustrated when you click a link and nothing appears to happen or when it takes ages before any information appears. But does it matter when it comes to SEO? Good question. Let’s dig into how page speed affects the SEO performance of a webpage, how you can find out page speed, and what you can do to speed it up. Find out more from Marjan Venema on Solarwinds’ blog. 

Java Log4j 2 Configuration and Log Management

Log4j 2 is one of the most widely used logging libraries for Java. It offers developers impressive performance and unparalleled flexibility, and it integrates with almost all logging platforms. This article discusses Log4j 2 configuration and how to use this logging library to manage log files. Check it out in this post on Solarwinds’ blog.

Cloud-First Strategy and Its Benefits for Business

A cloud-first strategy can feel like a big jump from traditional setups. One of the benefits of a hybrid or on-premises strategy is you feel like you’re in control. You and your team know where your critical servers live. You can touch them. Your team understands your security processes, and you can easily verify security personnel follow them. Those are all significant benefits. However, a growing number of software teams are choosing to move to cloud-first strategies. Cloud-first strategies carry several business benefits, and many benefits for Operations teams. Should your team adopt a cloud-first strategy? Let’s examine the benefits and find out if it’s right for you. Learn more from Eric Boersma on Solarwinds’ blog. 

How to Get Started With Kubernetes Cluster-Level Logging

Logs are crucial for solving issues. In a microservices environment, logging is even more important. More moving parts mean more dependencies. It’s also less obvious where to start debugging when issues occur. In a Kubernetes environment, where typical systems consist of dozens or even hundreds of containers, solid logging architecture is crucial. Find out more from Dawid Ziolkowski on Solarwinds’ blog.

Understanding Kubernetes Performance: Top Tips From Experts

The most important thing you need to know about Kubernetes is it follows “hub-spoke” architecture. We have a control-plane component, which includes an API and runs on master nodes, and we have nodes constantly communicating to the API. But that’s not all. Learn more from Dawid Ziolkowski on Solarwinds’ blog.

SQL Server Performance Monitoring: Top Metrics to Look At

Application performance monitoring (APM) is one of the main monitoring techniques used in tech organizations. Performance is an essential attribute of applications and shouldn’t be overlooked. Our topic for this post can be considered both a subset and a complement of APM: SQL Server performance monitoring. Learn all about it from Carlos Schults on Solarwinds’ blog.

Best Tips to Boost Your E-Commerce Website’s User Experience

As we enter 2021, we’re seeing a renewed focus on user experience (UX). Whereas user experience was first limited to a UX designer, it encompasses so much more nowadays.This article explores different tips to boost your e-commerce website’s user experience. Find out more about UX from Michiel Mulders on Solarwinds’ blog.

We also updated a post this week on AWS Lambda. AWS Lambda is a way to run code without thinking about servers. But even though you may not have to think about servers, you do have to think about how you program for AWS Lambda. You see, AWS Lambda—not to be confused with Java lambdas—is a stateless runtime environment. In this post, you’ll find out how to create AWS Lambda functions with Java. Learn more on Scalyr’s blog.