Dec
19
2024
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Percona Wins 2024 Digital Innovator Award from Intellyx

Percona Wins 2024 Digital Innovator Award from IntellyxAs organizations turn to the cloud for more and more products and services, many are discovering that the majority of these offerings come with hidden, yet significant, costs. This is especially true in the database space, where the increasing popularity of public database-as-a-service (DBaaS) solutions has left many organizations grappling with the unforeseen consequences of […]

Dec
17
2024
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Percona Server for MongoDB 8.0: The Most Performant Ever

Percona Server for MongoDB 8.0MongoDB Community Edition 8.0 has been available since October. At Percona, we took the time to examine this release carefully, check performance, and guarantee it works perfectly, stand-alone, and with other tools like Percona Backup for MongoDB and Percona Monitoring and Management. Today, we are excited to announce the General Availability of Percona Server for […]

Aug
27
2024
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Important Notice: Update Process for Percona Monitoring and Management 2.38 and Earlier

ENV Variables in PMM AMI.jpgWe’ve received numerous reports about issues occurring with Percona Monitoring and Management (PMM) when updating to the latest version (currently 2.42.0), or updating to any version from an old version (2.37.1 and before) using the update button on the UI.  Symptoms PMM won’t show any notifications on the UI about new available versions if: You’ve […]

Jun
11
2024
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Important Update: Streamlined Repository Management for Improved Efficiency

Streamlined Repository ManagementWe’re announcing an upcoming update to our repository management system to ensure you receive the most timely updates and benefit from improved efficiency. Effective July 1st, 2024, we’ll be streamlining our repository structure on repo.percona.com. We’ll no longer be updating the original/percona and tools repositories, which include packages for EOL versions of Percona Server for […]

Jun
06
2024
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End of Life Alert: CentOS 7 and Debian 10 Approaching EOL

CentOS 7 and Debian 10 Approaching EOLThe End-of-Support date for CentOS 7 and Debian 10 is coming soon. According to their respective release life cycles, the EOL date for both systems is June 30th, 2024. This announcement has some implications for support for Percona software running on these operating systems.So, we will no longer produce new packages and binary builds for […]

Apr
10
2023
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Important Note for Users and Customers Using the Physical Backup Feature in Percona Backup for MongoDB

percona backup for mongodb

Percona Backup for MongoDB (PBM) is an open source, distributed, and low-impact solution for consistent backups of MongoDB sharded clusters and replica sets.

With PBM v2.0.0, the ability to take physical backups, in addition to logical ones, has been made Generally Available. Physical backups were added since v1.7.0 as a technical preview.

In March 2023, we discovered an issue with physical backups, which, under certain conditions, can cause the restore to fail (PBM-1058).

This article includes additional details about the following:

  • The conditions under which bug PBM-1058 is triggered.
  • The available workarounds.
  • How to permanently resolve the issue and our recommendations to affected users and customers.

Issue description

If you use PBM v2.0.4 or earlier, and your dbPath contains a trailing slash (for example dbPath is /var/lib/mongodb/), the backup process fails to correctly trim the dbPath from the file path.

As a result, when attempting to restore a backup taken in the above scenario, the restore process will fail as it will copy the files into the wrong location inside dbPath. For instance, “fileName” will be copied into dbPath/dbPath/fileName instead of dbPath/fileName, as in the following example:

  • dbPath:
    • /var/lib/mongodb/
  • fileName:
    • Index-19-2519978004532031907.wt
  • Location of fileName after the restore:
    • /var/lib/mongodb/var/lib/mongodb/index-19-2519978004532031907.wt
  • Expected location of fileName after the restore:
    • /var/lib/mongodb/index-19-2519978004532031907.wt

Am I affected?

You are affected by PBM-1058 if all conditions of one of the following two cases apply to you:

Case one

  • You are using PBM v2.0.4 or earlier.
  • You are taking physical backups.
  • Your mongod’s dbPath option has a trailing slash.
    • Example: your dbPath is path-to-some-directory/

Case two

  • You are using PBM v2.0.4 or earlier.
  • You are taking physical or incremental backups.
  • replsets[].files[].filename fields in the backup metadata start with a forward slash /.

Available workarounds

We have identified some workarounds that can be used with PBM v2.0.4 or earlier. The permanent solution to the issue described in this article is available with PBM v2.0.5 (see next section for more details).

If you are using PBM v2.0.4 or earlier and you are affected by PBM-1058, we recommend one of the following workarounds, depending on if you can restart your MongoDB and take a new backup or not.

Workaround one

If you can take a new backup, please follow these steps:

  1. Plan a short downtime window.
  2. Change your mongod dbpath (in any script you use to start MongoDB and in its configuration file /etc/mongo.conf) to remove any trailing slash.
  3. Restart your mongod.
  4. Take a new physical backup.

At this time, your new physical backup will not be affected by PBM-1058, and its restore will work normally.

Workaround two

If taking a new backup is not possible, and you are in the need of restoring an already taken backup that is affected by PBM-1058, please follow the following steps:

  1. In the backup meta on storage (<backup_name>.pbm.json) trim the “path-to-some-directory/” prefix in all “filename” fields.
  2. Move these files on the disk accordingly.
    • Example: Move “Timestamp/Shard_0/path-to-some-directory/fileName” to “Timestamp/Shard_0/fileName”
  3. Run the command pbm config –force-resync.
  4. Restore the backup.

Permanent issue resolution

The permanent fix for PBM-1058 has been merged via Pull Request #802.

PBM v2.0.5 includes this fix and was released on March 23, 2023. Packages can be downloaded from this link, and release notes are available here.

Starting with PBM v2.0.5, any newly taken backup will not be affected by PBM-1058, even if your dbPath contains a trailing slash.

Furthermore, starting with v2.0.5, during the restore process, PBM will identify if the backup (taken with PBM v2.0.4 or earlier) is affected by PBM-1058. If yes, it will attempt to auto-resolve the issue during the restore process (Pull Request #805).

The previously mentioned workaround two will still be useful in all other cases.

Recommendations

We recommend all PBM users and customers affected by PBM-1058 upgrade to PBM v2.0.5 or higher and take a new backup as soon as possible. This will avoid any possible issues in the future.

Additional questions

For any additional questions, Percona customers can open a new support ticket.

Community users can use the usual community support channels to request help.

Percona Distribution for MongoDB is a freely available MongoDB database alternative, giving you a single solution that combines the best and most important enterprise components from the open source community, designed and tested to work together.

 

Download Percona Distribution for MongoDB Today!

Apr
10
2023
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Important Note for Users and Customers Using the Physical Backup Feature in Percona Backup for MongoDB

percona backup for mongodb

Percona Backup for MongoDB (PBM) is an open source, distributed, and low-impact solution for consistent backups of MongoDB sharded clusters and replica sets.

With PBM v2.0.0, the ability to take physical backups, in addition to logical ones, has been made Generally Available. Physical backups were added since v1.7.0 as a technical preview.

In March 2023, we discovered an issue with physical backups, which, under certain conditions, can cause the restore to fail (PBM-1058).

This article includes additional details about the following:

  • The conditions under which bug PBM-1058 is triggered.
  • The available workarounds.
  • How to permanently resolve the issue and our recommendations to affected users and customers.

Issue description

If you use PBM v2.0.4 or earlier, and your dbPath contains a trailing slash (for example dbPath is /var/lib/mongodb/), the backup process fails to correctly trim the dbPath from the file path.

As a result, when attempting to restore a backup taken in the above scenario, the restore process will fail as it will copy the files into the wrong location inside dbPath. For instance, “fileName” will be copied into dbPath/dbPath/fileName instead of dbPath/fileName, as in the following example:

  • dbPath:
    • /var/lib/mongodb/
  • fileName:
    • Index-19-2519978004532031907.wt
  • Location of fileName after the restore:
    • /var/lib/mongodb/var/lib/mongodb/index-19-2519978004532031907.wt
  • Expected location of fileName after the restore:
    • /var/lib/mongodb/index-19-2519978004532031907.wt

Am I affected?

You are affected by PBM-1058 if all conditions of one of the following two cases apply to you:

Case one

  • You are using PBM v2.0.4 or earlier.
  • You are taking physical backups.
  • Your mongod’s dbPath option has a trailing slash.
    • Example: your dbPath is path-to-some-directory/

Case two

  • You are using PBM v2.0.4 or earlier.
  • You are taking physical or incremental backups.
  • replsets[].files[].filename fields in the backup metadata start with a forward slash /.

Available workarounds

We have identified some workarounds that can be used with PBM v2.0.4 or earlier. The permanent solution to the issue described in this article is available with PBM v2.0.5 (see next section for more details).

If you are using PBM v2.0.4 or earlier and you are affected by PBM-1058, we recommend one of the following workarounds, depending on if you can restart your MongoDB and take a new backup or not.

Workaround one

If you can take a new backup, please follow these steps:

  1. Plan a short downtime window.
  2. Change your mongod dbpath (in any script you use to start MongoDB and in its configuration file /etc/mongo.conf) to remove any trailing slash.
  3. Restart your mongod.
  4. Take a new physical backup.

At this time, your new physical backup will not be affected by PBM-1058, and its restore will work normally.

Workaround two

If taking a new backup is not possible, and you are in the need of restoring an already taken backup that is affected by PBM-1058, please follow the following steps:

  1. In the backup meta on storage (<backup_name>.pbm.json) trim the “path-to-some-directory/” prefix in all “filename” fields.
  2. Move these files on the disk accordingly.
    • Example: Move “Timestamp/Shard_0/path-to-some-directory/fileName” to “Timestamp/Shard_0/fileName”
  3. Run the command pbm config –force-resync.
  4. Restore the backup.

Permanent issue resolution

The permanent fix for PBM-1058 has been merged via Pull Request #802.

PBM v2.0.5 includes this fix and was released on March 23, 2023. Packages can be downloaded from this link, and release notes are available here.

Starting with PBM v2.0.5, any newly taken backup will not be affected by PBM-1058, even if your dbPath contains a trailing slash.

Furthermore, starting with v2.0.5, during the restore process, PBM will identify if the backup (taken with PBM v2.0.4 or earlier) is affected by PBM-1058. If yes, it will attempt to auto-resolve the issue during the restore process (Pull Request #805).

The previously mentioned workaround two will still be useful in all other cases.

Recommendations

We recommend all PBM users and customers affected by PBM-1058 upgrade to PBM v2.0.5 or higher and take a new backup as soon as possible. This will avoid any possible issues in the future.

Additional questions

For any additional questions, Percona customers can open a new support ticket.

Community users can use the usual community support channels to request help.

Percona Distribution for MongoDB is a freely available MongoDB database alternative, giving you a single solution that combines the best and most important enterprise components from the open source community, designed and tested to work together.

 

Download Percona Distribution for MongoDB Today!

Oct
10
2022
--

Gearing Up for Percona’s Next Great Chapter

Ann Schlemmer PerconaAt this point, we’ve already announced that Peter Zaitsev has assumed the role of Founder, while I have taken over as Chief Executive Officer at Percona.  While Peter will be stepping back in his managerial capacity within the Executive Management Team (EMT), he will continue to be a big part of Percona both internally and within the broader Percona community.

These moves mark the completion of a transition that began almost two years ago when Peter asked me to take on the role of President of Percona on January 1, 2021. I had been with the company for about nine and a half years at that point, and while that tenure gave me an extended opportunity to see how a true leader can transform an organization, the last two years working by his side gave me an entirely new appreciation of what he was able to accomplish in the 16 years that he spent building this incredible company.

But now the time has come to turn the page and embark on a new chapter in the Percona story. I am humbled by the opportunity to serve as the next chief executive, and I know where the company must go. This transition is about securing Percona’s future. The change in our respective roles is a reflection of where Percona is headed and how we can optimize our respective strengths to help this great company continue to prosper. The Executive Management Team and I are ready for the coming challenges.

How far we’ve come

Percona has grown from a small, ambitious team with an idea to a 350-plus-employee organization that is a global leader in the open source database management space. Over the past two years alone, we’ve seen our headcount nearly double, our renewal rate increase by over 10%, and our trailing 12-month software downloads grow by 20% year-over-year.

That’s a whole lot of unequivocal success in a short period of time. And moving forward, I am certain we will continue to earn even greater victories. To ensure that’s the case, in the short-term, I will remain dedicated to delivering on our fourth-quarter goals while also forging a three-year strategy that is as strong as it possibly can be.

On a somewhat less tangible (but no less meaningful) level, my hopes are for Percona to retain the enthusiasm and urgency of a startup, while continuing to cultivate the discipline and profitability of a well-established company. And this change in our roles has been designed to achieve precisely that.

We remain committed to being the best of Percona

I’d like to thank Peter and Vadim for their confidence, trust, and ongoing support. And I’d like to thank all Perconians for continuing to embody our core values and principles day in and day out: Get Stuff Done; Putting the Customer First; Find a Better Way; Provide Quality & Value. If we can all continue to do those things, then I am certain that Percona’s greatest days are still to come.

Most of all, I’d like to thank Percona’s customers. Without you, there would obviously be no company. But more than that, your faith in us to partner with you to solve your biggest challenges has spurred us to be innovative and tireless in our efforts to advance the paradigm of database operations. Thank you for the lift you’ve given us over the past 16 years. Now we’d like to return the favor for the next 16!

–Ann

Oct
10
2022
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I Am Taking on Founder Role, Ann Schlemmer Takes Over as Percona CEO

PZ Percona

PZ PerconaI have decided to step down from the role of CEO at Percona and take on the Founder role.  Ann Schlemmer takes over as Percona CEO.

I believe at this point this is the right step for the Company and myself personally. When – together with Vadim – we started Percona more than 16 years ago, we never thought it would grow to more than 350 staff members, have an impact on the Open Source community, and build a customer base that many companies would be proud to have!

I believe my strengths are as an early-stage Entrepreneur, Technologist, and Engineer but not the Leader of a company as large as Percona. What were keys for success in the early stages of the company, in my opinion, have the potential to become liabilities as we continue to grow and scale.  I want to make sure I continue to contribute to Percona in the best way possible, and it is CEO no more.

I’ve grown a lot with Percona, grown as CEO and as a person. However, I do not think I’m growing as fast as Percona needs me to, probably because I don’t really want to become the person Percona needs at its current stage. One of these growth areas for me is recognizing my strengths and weaknesses, and ensuring I am leveraging my strengths for greater success (and hiring other leaders who are strong where I know my weaknesses are).

What does the “Founder” role mean?  It means I’m not going to go anywhere and I’m going to continue supporting Percona in a part-time capacity in any way possible. I plan to continue speaking at conferences, blogging, doing webinars, and interfacing with customers and staff – activities which I both love and I believe I can provide value. I will remove myself from the direct management chain as we have an outstanding management team that does not need me to be involved in this capacity anymore.

This move also formalizes our company structure for all of us and resolves some uncertainty. Specifically, with myself having the Founder title and Ann being CEO, this makes it clear that my opinions (however strongly worded) are exactly that – opinions – and it is Ann who makes Percona’s business decisions. Ann has already proved herself in Percona Leadership first as General Manager and more recently as President, and I think this is a very natural next step. In reality, Ann already was handling a lot of the work that the CEO usually does.

I said I will continue with Percona part-time, so what does that mean? First I have recognized I have a bit of burnout. 16 years is a long time. So I’m expecting to work a bit less… for a bit.

Second I’m planning to pursue other ventures, in areas matching my interests and experience, as an advisor, investor, and mentor – I find this is where my wide range of interests are, and the variety is where I have a lot of strengths (as opposed to focussing on one thing).

I have full confidence that I’m leaving Percona in good and capable hands with Ann and the rest of our Executive Management Team to grow as a business and continue to serve the Open Source community as we’ve done for the last 16 years. In reality, if I did not have this confidence then I would not be stepping down – this is the best indication I can give in the confidence of both Percona as a company and the ability of all Perconians to continue to thrive and succeed.

I want to thank everyone in our community and our Customers who made Percona possible. I thank each and every Perconian – both past and present – for your commitment and support over the past 16 years. Seeing the success of Percona over the first 16 years of its life is my proudest business achievement. I am excited by what the future holds, and I continue to support the EMT, and Percona as a whole on its future journey.

Sep
28
2022
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PMM v2.31: Enhanced Alerting, User-Friendly Main Menu, Prometheus Query Builder, Podman GA, and more!

Percona Monitoring and Management v2.31

Percona Monitoring and Management v2.31Autumn brought new cool features and improvements to Percona Monitoring and Management (PMM) in V2.31. Enhanced user experience with the updated main menu, Alerting, and better PostgreSQL autovacuum observability with the new Vacuum dashboard are the major themes that we focused on in this release. Check out our Release Note of 2.31 for the full list of new features, enhancements, and bug fixes.

You can get started with PMM in minutes with the PMM Demo to check out the latest version of PMM V2.31.

Some of the highlights in PMM V2.31 include:

General availability of Percona Alerting

We are excited to introduce a streamlined alert setup process in PMM with an overhauled, unified alerting system based on Grafana. 

All Alerting functionality is now consolidated in a single pane of glass on the Alerting page. From here, you can configure, create and monitor alerts based on Percona or Grafana templates. 

The Alert Rules tab has also evolved into a more intuitive interface with an added layer for simplifying complex Grafana rules. You’ll find that the new Percona templated alert option here offers the same functionality available in the Tech Preview of Integrated Alerting but uses a friendlier interface with very advanced alerting capabilities. 

As an important and generally useful feature, this new Alerting feature is now enabled by default and ready to use in production! 

For more information about Percona Alerting, check out Alerting doc.

Deprecated Integrated Alerting

The new Percona Alerting feature fully replaces the old Integrated Alerting Tech Preview available in previous PMM versions. The new alerting brings full feature parity with Integrated Alerting, along with additional benefits like Grafana-based alert rules and a unified alerting command center

However, alert rules created with Integrated Alerting are not automatically migrated to Percona Alerting. After upgrading, make sure to manually migrate any custom alert rules that you want to transfer to PMM 2.31 using the script

Easier query building, enhanced main menu in PMM 2.31

We have powered-up PMM with Grafana 9.1 by drawing on its latest features and improvements. Here is the list of features and enhancements that have been shipped in this release: 

Redesigned expandable main menu (side menu)

With the 2.31 release, we introduce a more user-friendly and accessible main menu inspired by Grafana’s expandable side menu. PMM dashboards are the heart of the monitoring, and we aimed to provide quick and easy access to the frequently used dashboard from the main menu. On this menu, you’ll be able to browse dashboards with one click, like Operating System, MySQL, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, etc. 

PMM new side menu

PMM new side menu

Pin your favorite dashboards to the main menu (side menu)

PMM provides many custom dashboards with dozens of metrics to monitor your databases. Most users in an organization use just a handful of dashboards regularly; now, it is much easier to access them by saving the most frequently used dashboards to the main menu. You see your saved dashboards under the Starred section on the main menu.

This feature is enabled by default in PMM. You can disable it by disabling the savedItems feature flag if you have server admin or Grafa admin roles.

dd

Tip:

You can follow these steps to add your dashboard to Starred on the main menu:

  1. Open your dashboard
  2. Mark it by clicking the star icon next to the Dashboard name on the top right corner
  3. Hover Starred icon on the main menu and see all saved dashboards.

Search dashboards on Panel titles

While looking for a specific metric or panel inside dashboards, it is easy to forget which dashboard presents it. Now you can quickly find the dashboard you need on the Search dashboard page.

Percona Monitoring and Management v2.31

Command palette

A new shortcut which is named “command palette” in Grafana, has been provided in this PMM version. You can easily access main menu sections, dashboards, or other tasks using cmd+K (MacOS) or ctrl+K (Linux/Windows).  Run the command on the Explore section to quickly run a query or on the Preferences section to easily change theme preferences. 

Command Palette

Command Palette

Visual Prometheus Query Builder in Explore (Beta)

A new Prometheus query builder has been introduced in Grafana 9. This feature allows everyone, especially new users, to build queries on PromQL without extensive expertise. Visual query builder UI in Explore allows anyone to write queries and understand what the query means. 

You can easily switch to the new Prometheus query builder (Builder) by clicking on Builder mode in the top-right corner. The Builder mode allows you to build your queries by choosing the metric from the dropdown menu. If you want to continue on Text mode, you can switch to Code mode while having your text changes preserved. Please check this blog to learn more about Builder mode.

new visual query builder

Visual Prometheus Query Builder in Explore (Beta)

Add your queries to a dashboard or create a new dashboard from Explore

You’ll probably like this news if you’re a fan of the Explore feature or frequently use it. Now, creating a panel/dashboard from Explore with one click is possible by saving you from jobs like copy-paste or re-write queries. You only need to click the “Add to dashboard” button after you run your query.  Then, your panel will be automatically created with the query and a default visualization. You can change the visualization on the dashboard later by clicking the “Edit” panel. Note that you need to have the Editor/Admin/SuperAdmin role to save the panel to the chosen dashboard and follow the current dashboard save flow to save the added panel. Otherwise, you’ll lose the added new panel on your dashboard.

add query from Explore

Add your queries to a dashboard or create a new dashboard from Explore

Experimental Vacuum Dashboard

The autovacuum process in PostgreSQL is designed to prevent table bloat by removing dead tuples. These dead tuples can accumulate because of the unique way that PostgreSQL handles MVCC. Because PostgreSQL’s architecture is so unique, the autovacuum process is sometimes not understood well enough to be able to tune its parameters for peak performance. After talking to many customers and realizing that this is a recurring problem, we decided to help our users by providing a dashboard that allows you to monitor metrics related to the vacuum process – thereby helping you tune these parameters for better performance.

Now, you can monitor PostgreSQL vacuum processes with a new experimental dashboard named PostgreSQL Vacuum Monitoring which is available in the Experimental folder. We’re still working on this dashboard to add more metrics. Please let us know your feedback about this dashboard in the comments.

Experimental Vacuum Dashboard

Experimental Vacuum Dashboard

Tip

If you’d like to move the Vacuum experimental dashboard to the PostgreSQL folder or other folders that you internally use to gather all PostgreSQL dashboards, please check this document to see how you can move dashboards to a different folder.

General availability of Podman

We are excited to announce the General Availability (GA) of Podman support for deploying PMM 2.31.0. We had introduced it in 2.29.0 as a preview feature, but now we are production ready with this feature

Simplified deployment with Database as a Service (DBaaS)

In our constant endeavor and focus on an enhanced user experience, in PMM 2.31.0, we have simplified the deployment and configuration of DBaaS as follows:

  • With PMM 2.31.0, you can easily add a DB cluster from a newly created K8s cluster. All the DB cluster window fields are auto-populated with the values based on the existing K8s cluster. 
  • For PMM 2.31.0, while accessing DbaaS, if you have an existing Kubernetes cluster configured for DBaaS, you will be automatically redirected to the DB Cluster page. Otherwise, you would be redirected to the Kubernetes Cluster page.

What’s next?

  • New UX improvements are baking! We’re working on making our main menu easy to use and minimal. Next release, the main menu will present only monitored services, and you’ll have a clearer and less crowded main menu.
  • The home dashboard will replace the experimental Home dashboard, which is available in the Experimental folder after v2.30. Please do not forget to share your feedback with us if you have tried it. 
  • We’ll improve the vacuum dashboard with more metrics. If you’d like to enhance it with us, you can share your feedback in the comments.
  • We have started to work on two new and big projects: High Availability in PMM and advanced role-based access control (RBAC). We’d love to hear your needs, use cases, and suggestions. You can quickly book a short call with the product team to collaborate with us. 

Thanks to Community and Perconians

We love our community and team in Percona, who help shape PMM and improve better! 

Thank you for your collaboration on the new main menu:

Pedro Fernandes, Fábio Silva, Matej Kubinec

Thank you for your collaboration on Vacuum Dashboards:

Anton Bystrov, Daniel Burgos, Jiri Ctvrtka, Nailya Kutlubaeva, Umair Shahid

Percona Monitoring and Management is a best-of-breed open source database monitoring solution. It helps you reduce complexity, optimize performance, and improve the security of your business-critical database environments, no matter where they are located or deployed.

Download Percona Monitoring and Management Today

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