July 17, 2025
Why Do We Need Centralized Logging? Making Sense of Log Chaos
We’ve already discussed the importance of metrics monitoring for understanding the health of your IT infrastructure. But metrics are only part of the picture. To truly understand what’s happening inside your systems and applications, you need logs.
Logs are records of events generated by operating systems, applications, network devices, and nearly any software component. They capture what, when, where, and why something happened. Think of them as the “black box” of your infrastructure — an invaluable source of information for debugging, auditing, and incident investigation.
July 16, 2025
In our series on monitoring systems, we’ve reviewed Munin, Prometheus with Grafana, and Zabbix. Now it’s time to talk about a solution that addresses one of the main pain points of Prometheus users — long-term, scalable, and efficient time-series storage. Meet VictoriaMetrics, a high-performance and cost-effective TSDB (time-series database) that perfectly complements the Prometheus ecosystem when paired with Grafana for visualization.
What Is VictoriaMetrics and Why Do You Need It?
Prometheus handles real-time monitoring and storage well, but its built-in TSDB isn’t designed for long-term retention or scaling to terabytes or petabytes of data. That’s where VictoriaMetrics comes in.
July 16, 2025
In a world where cyberattacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated, protecting remote access to servers and network equipment is of paramount importance. Simply opening ports for SSH, RDP, or web interfaces makes them targets for constant scanning and brute-force attacks.
Today, we’ll explore a powerful yet lesser-known technique that significantly improves the security of your MikroTik (and not only): Port Knocking. It’s not just about “closing ports,” but a smart system that makes your services invisible to most scanners and bots.
July 15, 2025
We’ve already looked at Munin for basic insights and Prometheus + Grafana for cloud environments. Now let’s turn to Zabbix — a powerful, versatile, and scalable monitoring system that offers a comprehensive out-of-the-box solution for medium and large infrastructures. Zabbix is often chosen by organizations needing centralized monitoring, flexible alerting, and a wide range of data collection methods.
What Is Zabbix and How Does It Work?
Zabbix is a mature open-source monitoring system designed to track the state and performance of various IT components: servers, virtual machines, network devices, databases, web services, and applications.
July 14, 2025
We’ve reviewed Munin as a simple solution for basic monitoring. Now let’s move on to a stack that has become an indispensable tool in the world of modern cloud infrastructure, microservices, and containers: Prometheus, Node Exporter, and Grafana. This trio provides a powerful, flexible, and scalable approach to collecting, storing, analyzing, and visualizing metrics.
What is Prometheus and Its Ecosystem?
Prometheus is an open-source monitoring system originally developed at Google and later handed over to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). Its key feature is the “pull” model: Prometheus scrapes metrics from targets via HTTP endpoints.
July 13, 2025
After our introductory journey into the world of monitoring, it’s time to explore specific tools. Let’s start with one of the oldest yet still relevant solutions for those who value simplicity and clarity — Munin.
Munin is a lightweight and intuitive monitoring system specializing in collecting and graphically presenting system data. If you need a quick way to get a general view of your servers’ health without diving deep into complex configurations, Munin might be a great place to start.
July 12, 2025
In today’s world, where digital technologies penetrate every sphere of life, the stable operation of IT infrastructure is not just a desirable condition — it is a critical necessity. Whether it’s a small website, a large online store, a mobile application, or an internal corporate system — any failure can lead to serious losses, reputational damage, and user dissatisfaction. This is where monitoring steps in.
What is Monitoring and Why Is It Important?
Monitoring in IT is the continuous collection, analysis, and visualization of data about the state and performance of infrastructure, applications, and services. Imagine you have a complex machine, like a car. To keep it running smoothly, you regularly check fuel level, oil, tire pressure. Monitoring serves the same purpose for servers, databases, networks, and applications.
