back to article To do DevOps right, beam down a UFO says Dynatrace

Application performance monitoring outfit Dynatrace is getting into the flying saucer business. The company today unveiled a UFO – actually a UFO-shaped lamp – that dangles from your ceiling. The idea is that it will help software development teams to “visualize pipeline health” by flashing its 36 LEDs in different colours and …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    O brave new world,

    That has such people in't.

  2. Tom 64
    Big Brother

    Should make a decent frizbee

    I imagine it will be used as one, once it has attracted one-too-many pointy haired boss.

  3. jake Silver badge

    Do not want.

    What else is there to say?

    (Is there an echo in here?)

  4. John Robson Silver badge

    Often wanted a warning beacon/klaxon

    But seriously - it's only there to send the operations team scurrying to the monitoring system (which frankly should already be up on screen - preferably a big one)...

    So I reckon a single light would do the job at least as well...

    Just trying to work out how many times the beacon would have turned *off* at some places I've worked...

    1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Re: Often wanted a warning beacon/klaxon

      It does not belong in the office.

      There may be some benefit to have it in recreational areas - serve the same function as an "all hands on deck" siren.

      1. John Robson Silver badge

        Re: Often wanted a warning beacon/klaxon

        I did say the main monitoring panel should be on a big screen anyway...

        But yes - the break out area is a much better place. maybe have it manually activated by the ops team as and when 'more alarms than we can deal with' hit the big screen...

      2. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

        Re: Often wanted a warning beacon/klaxon

        The scene in "The IT Crowd" where Richmond the server minder confides he has no idea what the flashing lights on the thing mean. Is that good? Is it supposed to do it?

        In the grand old days of computing, your IT staff would program the hard drive lights to display a Christmas tree shape, or rev the drives to play popular songs of the time. Giving them a shiny toy that doesn't actually matter if they play with it seems an excellent idea.

  5. Rich 11
    1. Daggerchild Silver badge

      Re: Roll your own UFO

      Honestly, I'd just point a small projector at the wall/ceiling running an X11 server.

      Yes, a UFO is pretty, but if you want to display things with light, why slomo when you can flymo?

  6. BebopWeBop

    Sequences of lights can be very useful in this context, I remember getting one of the first 386 based iPSCs (Intel's hypercube - eventually updated to 486s - wow) and many of our tools were very primitive although we got better at home,e development with time. . The lights on the front pane;ts were extremely useful for debugging and performance hints.

  7. TRT Silver badge

    Sort of reminds me a bit...

    of TIM from The Tomorrow People.

  8. John 104

    The whole thing gives me a bad taste.

  9. timdeboer

    Great minds think alike.

    Touché. Our first prototype goes out tomorrow. Auto updates feeding a growing range of plugins and an inbuilt webserver to configure and monitor as many builds as you can muster. May the best light win! Go to http://thebuildlight.com or follow @thebuildlight

  10. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    Well, should be good for target practice. For the 'Uncle Duke' types in your office, anyway.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    This is why people think IT types are weird

    Mr. Robot - Distortion of Reality

  12. corcoran

    I love lamp.

  13. Coofer Cat

    $390?

    Seems a bit steep for a Raspberry Pi + LEDs. FWIW, it looks like a nice implementation of the idea, but it's questionable how useful the idea really is, especially at this sort of price. I'd imagine it should be more like a 'seems fun, give it a go' sort of price.

    I've often wondered if instead everyone needs RGB fairy lights around their monitors, and if you're the one that broke the build, yours go red. You could integrate stink sensors to shame the one that dealt the deadly blow too. You could go further and nominate someone to do the tea round using the same mechanism. When it comes around to annual reviews your boss could announce the amount of bonus you got by colour changes. The list goes on...

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