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Craig McDonald

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Craig McDonald

Craig McDonald is the vice president of product strategy for systems at SolarWinds. McDonald has over 20 years of product management experience, and a proven success record in product delivery and revenue growth, with a wide variety of software product, business model, M&A, and go-to-market strategies experience. Prior to SolarWinds, McDonald was senior director of product management at NVIDIA and then WP Engine. He holds a B.A. and M.B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin.

The Latest Posts Featuring Craig McDonald

The High-Performance DBA: Breaking the Burnout Cycle in Modern Database Teams

In this article, Kevin Kline introduces The High-Performance DBA webcast series, drawing on insights from our recent State of Database Report to explain why DBA burnout is rising and how teams can move beyond constant reactivity.

April 1, 2026
Database
The High-Performance DBA: Breaking the Burnout Cycle in Modern Database Teams
Man with hand to face in despair, holding a laptop.
IT pro looks at computer and works
Inside the Black Box: Bridging the Database Observability Gap
March 27, 2026
Database

Over the past 15 years, Agile and DevOps have accelerated application delivery, enabling faster, more reliable releases. Yet the database layer often remains a blind spot for observability and performance monitoring.

In this article, Kevin Kline shows why closing the database observability gap is critical to improving performance, efficiency, and resilience for DBAs, developers, and the businesses that depend on their data.
How Digital Transformation Is Changing the Role of the Government CIO
December 7, 2020
Monitoring and Observability Network
Under the leadership of innovative CIOs—Chief Information Officers—the public sector is blazing new trails and focusing on things like digital transformation to provide constituents with the best services available in…
Monitoring 101: The Fundamental Concepts of System Monitoring
November 9, 2020
Monitoring and Observability
The answer to troubleshooting network challenges lies in effectively monitoring your environment. But saying “let’s monitor our network” presumes you know what you should be looking for, how to find…
How to Monitor, Manage, and Secure Active Directory
October 5, 2020
Monitoring and Observability Security
Microsoft Active Directory (AD) is the nerve center enabling your federal agency to access the systems and applications staff members need to do their jobs. AD is also a high-risk…
Are Cloud Computing Engineers the Missing Link on Your Federal IT Team?
August 11, 2020
Applications Monitoring and Observability
Cloud computing can be more complex than anticipated, particularly as agencies continue to move applications and operations into a cloud environment. Does your federal IT team have the in-house skills…
Monitoring and Securing Cloud-Based Databases Is the Developer’s Responsibility
August 4, 2020
Database
Modern application development requires more work to ensure the development path and the data it produces are fully in sync, secure, optimized, and error-free. This responsibility has increasingly fallen upon…
3 Ways to Maintain Your Agency’s Focus on IT Modernization
July 21, 2020
Monitoring and Observability
Congress set the stage for IT modernization across the federal government by passing the Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act, allowing agencies to apply for a loan from the Technology Modernization…
Suggested Cloud Monitoring Strategies for IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS
July 7, 2020
Applications Monitoring and Observability
From the Cloud First policy established in 2010 to last year’s Cloud Smart update, it’s clear the government is driving federal agencies toward cloud computing. The strategy makes sense, but…
After Cloud, Is a Software-Defined Data Center in Your Future?
April 7, 2020
Monitoring and Observability Network
All roads lead to the cloud. In fact, our cybersecurity survey revealed a majority of state IT leaders are planning major investments in public and hybrid clouds in addition to…