Grafana Labs vs New Relic

Observability Stack: Prometheus, Node Exporter, Grafana

A technical how-to explaining the three-piece observability stack: Prometheus (time-series database that scrapes metrics), Node Exporter (exposes OS-level metrics at a /metrics HTTP endpoint), and Grafana (visualizes Prometheus data as dashboards). The article describes the pull-based model Prometheus uses, the role of Node Exporter as a translator of OS stats, how Grafana queries Prometheus, default ports (Prometheus 9090, Node Exporter 9100, Grafana 3000), basic install commands, a sample prometheus.yml with scrape_interval and job_name, and next steps such as adding scrape targets, writing PromQL queries, and adding Alertmanager for notifications.

• Prometheus is a time-series database and monitoring system that scrapes metrics from HTTP endpoints and exposes its own metrics on port 9090.
• Node Exporter exposes hardware and OS-level metrics at a /metrics endpoint (default port 9100) and is typically installed one-per-machine.
• Grafana queries Prometheus (e.g., via PromQL) to render dashboards and runs by default on port 3000; it stores no metrics itself.

Building an Internal Developer Platform on Azure AKS

This technical article explains how to create an Internal Developer Platform (IDP) using Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). It outlines core components including AKS as the managed Kubernetes backbone, a service mesh (e.g., Istio or Linkerd) for microservice communication, CI/CD pipelines (Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Jenkins) for automated build and deployment, monitoring and logging tools (Azure Monitor, Prometheus, Grafana, Azure Log Analytics), and security/compliance controls (RBAC, Pod Security Policies, Azure Policy, Azure Security Center). The piece describes an example developer workflow from code push to production and summarizes benefits such as increased efficiency, scalability, security, and consistency.

• An Internal Developer Platform (IDP) is a set of tools, processes, and automations that simplifies development, testing, and deployment for developers.
• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is presented as the central managed Kubernetes environment where containerized applications run.
• Service meshes such as Istio or Linkerd are recommended to manage microservice communication, including load balancing, traffic management, and security policies.

Read-Only SRE: Using AI in Production Safely

The author argues for a conservative, observation-first role for AI in production SRE workflows: grant AI read-only access to telemetry (logs, dashboards, events, commits, deployment history, IaC plans) so it can synthesize incident timelines, summarize recent activity, and surface anomalies — but keep production write actions (restarts, scaling, Terraform changes, firewall edits) under human control. The piece frames AI as a fast, always-available “SRE intern” that helps engineers think faster without taking ownership of risky changes. The author acknowledges AI may earn broader operational responsibilities in the future but recommends an onboarding approach that mirrors human engineers: observe, learn, and prove understanding before receiving write permissions. Published on dev.to on 2026-07-10.

• Author recommends giving AI read-only access to production telemetry (logs, events, monitoring dashboards, deployment history, Terraform plans, Git commits) to help with incident troubleshooting.
• Author explicitly advises against allowing AI to perform production writes (restarts, scaling, deleting resources, changing Terraform, updating firewall rules) due to accountability and business-context gaps.
• Author frames AI as a fast 'SRE intern' useful for preparing incident timelines, summarizing dashboards, highlighting anomalies and suggesting possible causes without making changes.

Announcing the 2026 Observability Forecast

New Relic announces the 2026 Observability Forecast, a major industry report. The blog highlights the new report as the highlighted post, replacing the previous round-up. Additionally, the company introduces New Relic Compound Alerts, a new product feature.

New Relic Report Finds High-Impact IT Outages Drain $74 Million Annually from Businesses

New Relic published a new report on September 22, 2026, revealing that high-impact IT outages cost businesses $74 million annually. This is a significant press release highlighting the financial impact of IT downtime.

New Relic Lens is now Generally Available

New Relic Lens is now Generally Available. 1 min read. Sep 15, 2026.