field notes
Things I've dug into.
Long, honest write-ups on infrastructure, monitoring, and the AI I build around it. Some are deep research, some are working proofs-of-concept, one became a product. None are hand-waving.
The 6 Ways Monitoring Tools Bill You (One Is a Trap)
Per-host, per-GB, per-event, per-node, flat, or free — the pricing model decides your monitoring bill more than the tool does. Here's the one that quietly bankrupts you.
Escaping SolarWinds Without Losing Your Mind
SolarWinds vs Prometheus vs Zabbix — an honest, at-scale comparison from someone staring down a doubled renewal: cost, SNMP, alerting, HA, and AI-readiness.
Your Switches Are Screaming. Nobody's Listening.
Building a real-time AI log analyzer from scratch with a Unix box, a few devices, and zero enterprise software. Here's the actual POC.
The AI Write Tool Factory: 1,000 Pages, Zero Prompts
What if every 'ai write [X]' Google search had its own single-purpose tool page? The keyword data says yes.
Network Monitoring Is a Racket Built on Free Protocols
SolarWinds charges six figures to run SNMP queries you could do from a Raspberry Pi. AI is about to make that business model very uncomfortable.