It’s hard to be a medium sized systems management (“monitoring”) company: you either have to niche it out and exit early, or go big. With some recent funding and PE activity in that area, Brandon and Coté discuss that. Also, a detailed HOWTO on eating Texas BBQ.

This episode brought to you by: Datadog!

This episode is sponsored by Datadog, a monitoring platform for cloud-scale infrastructure and applications. Built by engineers, for engineers, Datadog provides visibility into more than 200 technologies, including AWS, Chef, and Docker, with built-in metric dashboards and automated alerts. With end-to-end request tracing, Datadog provides visibility into your applications and their underlying infrastructure—all in one place. Sign up for a free trial at www.datadog.com/sdt

Datadog wants you to know they monitor all kinds of data about Amazon EC2 instances. You can try it out by signing up for a trial at www.datadog.com/sdt.

Housekeeping

• Listen to Brandon and Satish talk about product management on Software Defined Interviews.
• Make sure to subscribe to the CashedOut.coffee podcast if you like Coté shit.

Week’s wunderkammer

New MacBook Pro:

• The touchbar is pretty cool. I do keep hitting “back” because I’m used to resting my fingers on that part of the keyboard. Whatever.
• The speakers are very nice too, like the iPad Pro.
• Migrate Utility is either easy to screw up or not fully baked.
• Dropbox gets a little confused with how long something will take.
• USB-C: I’m just here so I don’t get fined.

How to eat (Hill Country) BBQ

• Order a plate - two meats (always brisket if it's your first time, then lady's choice), beans, Cole slaw. I’d skip the bread, but load up on onions, and pickles if they’re you’re thing
• Eat all the BBQ.
• Eat with your fingers.
• Don't put sugar on your meat.
• Don’t tell people how to eat BBQ, or argue about dry rubs and sauce. Just eat.

Relevant to your interests

• HCL buys into hybrid data management with majority stake in Actian:
  • 451: “Actian is being acquired in an all-cash deal valued at $330m by a JV in which HCL Technologies owns 80% and Sumeru Equity Partners the remaining 20%”
  • 451: “Actian told us in March [of 2018?] that revenue was back up to more than $100m while headcount totaled approximately 300." They also own Pervasive (including Data Junction for ETL/integration soup-to-nuts), y’all: “In 2013, Pervasive Software was acquired by Actian Corporation for $161.9 million. Actian had initially made offers in August 2012 starting at $154 million 30% higher than its shares traded at the time.”
• Vista buys Logic Monitor from Providence. Meanwhile, AppDynamics seems fine.
• Sensu raises $10M to build a robust monitoring system for all your different operations.
• Microsoft’s Linux Distro, for Azure Sphere - IoT, edge device stuff: an edge device in every home, office, street corner, etc. More from El Reg.
• Announcing Docker Enterprise Edition 2.0.
• Changing the calculus of containers in the cloud.
• Database decisions: AWS has changed the game for IT.
• The Platform Matters More Than Ever, The Operating System Less So
• For the first time ever, Microsoft will distribute its own version of Linux.
• OLPC’s $100 laptop was going to change the world — then it all went wrong.
• After Months of Development, B3i's Blockchain Prototype Is Ready for Testing.

Nonsense

• KITECH Dual Arm Robot: using scissors.
• A sea of Mark Zuckerberg cutouts has taken over the Capitol lawn.

Conferences, et. al.

• April 26-27, DevOpsDays Jakarta - Matt is keynoting, and Coté will be speaking too.
• May 15th to 18th, 2018 - Coté talking EA at Continuous Lifecycle London.
• May 16-17, Matt presenting at Cloud Expo Hong Kong
• May 22-25, ChefConf 2018, in Chicago.

SDT news & hype

• Check out Software Defined Interviews, our new podcast. Pretty self-descriptive, plus the #exegesis podcast we’ve been doing, all in one, for free.
• Keep up with the weekly newsletter.
• Join us in Slack.
• Buy some t-shirts! DISCOUNT CODE: SDTFSG (20% off)
• Send your name and address to [email protected] and we will send you a sticker. If you run into Matt he’ll give you one too!

Listener Feedback

• Jonathan from Denver says we are the best and we sent him a sticker
• Jody was binging the Software Defined Talk backlog and asked for a sticker

Recommendations

• Brandon: Killers of the Flower Moon and Travis Country Texas Online Property Tax Appeal.
• Coté: The Grand barbershop, Austin - they got all the whatnots. Also, Stiles Switch: this is how a beef rib is supposed to be.

Sponsored By:

• Datadog Free Trial: This episode is sponsored by Datadog, a monitoring platform for cloud-scale infrastructure and applications. Built by engineers, for engineers, Datadog provides visibility into more than 200 technologies, including AWS, Chef, and Docker, with built-in metric dashboards and automated alerts. With end-to-end request tracing, Datadog provides visibility into your applications and their underlying infrastructure—all in one place. Sign up for a free trial today!
• DevOpsDays: Get a 20% discount for one of the best DevOpsDays on the planet, DevOpsDays Minneapolis. It's July 12th to 13th, and you can bet it'll be worth your time. If you're new to DevOps you'll get an idea of what it is, how it's practices, and how to get started. If you're an old pro, you'll dive down into topics and catch-up with all the other old hands. Promo Code: SDT2018