Essential Utilities Every Systems Engineer Should Know

๐Ÿ› ๏ธ Curated list by Jorel del Portal, engineer specialized in architecture, resilience and troubleshooting

This collection gathers the essential tools I use daily for incident diagnosis, troubleshooting, observability and working with high-availability critical systems. Designed for systems engineers, SRE, DevOps, software architects and developers working with banking platforms, cloud computing and microservices.

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๐Ÿ”Œ Connectivity & Remote Access

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PuTTY

Connectivity

SSH, Telnet and serial client for Windows. Lightweight, portable and the de facto standard for secure remote connections to Linux/Unix servers.

Use case: Access production servers via SSH for incident diagnosis, log review or command execution.
ssh terminal windows remote
๐Ÿ”— Official Page
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WinSCP

Connectivity

SFTP, SCP and FTP client for Windows with graphical interface. Securely transfer files between local machines and remote servers.

Use case: Upload configurations, download heap dumps or thread dumps, and transfer logs from production servers.
sftp scp file-transfer windows
๐Ÿ”— Official Page
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MobaXterm

Connectivity

Advanced terminal for Windows with SSH client, integrated SFTP, X11 forwarding and multiple tabs. All-in-one for remote administration.

Use case: Manage multiple simultaneous SSH sessions with integrated file transfer and remote graphical application execution.
ssh sftp x11 multi-tab
๐Ÿ”— Official Page

๐Ÿ’ป Development & Code Editing

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Visual Studio Code

Development

Modern and extensible code editor by Microsoft. Multi-language support, integrated debugging, Git and thousands of extensions.

Use case: Script development, YAML/JSON configuration review, working with Terraform, Kubernetes manifests and structured log analysis.
editor ide git extensions
๐Ÿ”— Download
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Notepad++

Development

Lightweight text editor for Windows with syntax highlighting, regex search and support for large files.

Use case: Open and analyze large logs, quickly edit configuration files, and search with regular expressions.
editor lightweight logs windows
๐Ÿ”— Download

๐Ÿ”— API & Service Testing

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Postman

API Testing

Complete platform for API development and testing. Create collections, automate tests and document REST/GraphQL endpoints.

Use case: Test microservices in development, validate API responses during troubleshooting, and automate smoke tests.
api rest testing automation
๐Ÿ”— Download
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Insomnia

API Testing

Minimalist and elegant HTTP client for REST and GraphQL API testing. Clean interface focused on productivity.

Use case: Quick endpoint testing, HTTP/HTTPS call debugging, and working with GraphQL APIs.
api graphql rest lightweight
๐Ÿ”— Download

๐Ÿ”ง Troubleshooting & Diagnosis

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Eclipse MAT

Troubleshooting

Memory Analyzer Tool for Java heap dump analysis. Detects memory leaks, analyzes memory consumption and generates object retention reports.

Use case: Analyze OutOfMemoryErrors in production, identify memory leaks in Java/JVM applications and optimize heap usage.
heapdump java memory-leak jvm
๐Ÿ”— Download
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IBM Thread Dump Analyzer

Troubleshooting

IBM tool for JVM thread dump analysis. Detects deadlocks, analyzes thread states and helps diagnose concurrency problems.

Use case: Diagnose "hung" applications, detect deadlocks, analyze thread contention and performance issues.
threaddump java deadlock concurrency
๐Ÿ”— Download
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VisualVM

Troubleshooting

All-in-one visual tool for JVM monitoring and troubleshooting. CPU/memory profiling, thread analysis and real-time heap dumps.

Use case: Monitor Java applications in development, generate and analyze heap/thread dumps, identify CPU hotspots.
jvm profiler monitoring performance
๐Ÿ”— Download
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Wireshark

Troubleshooting

World's most popular network protocol analyzer. Captures and analyzes network traffic in real-time at the packet level.

Use case: Diagnose connectivity issues, analyze network latency, debug communication between microservices and APIs.
network packets tcp sniffer
๐Ÿ”— Download
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Process Monitor

Troubleshooting

Sysinternals tool for advanced Windows monitoring. Captures filesystem, registry and process activity in real-time.

Use case: Diagnose why an application fails to start, find files or registry keys blocking processes.
windows sysinternals process debug
๐Ÿ”— Download

โ˜๏ธ Cloud, Kubernetes & Infrastructure

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kubectl

Cloud & Infra

Official Kubernetes CLI for managing clusters, deployments, pods and services. Essential for any work with orchestrated containers.

Use case: Deploy applications, review pod logs, execute commands in containers and diagnose cluster issues.
kubernetes k8s containers devops
๐Ÿ”— Install
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k9s

Cloud & Infra

Interactive terminal interface for Kubernetes. Navigate clusters, pods and resources with vim-style keyboard shortcuts. Very productive.

Use case: Monitor pods in real-time, view logs quickly, execute shell in containers without writing long commands.
kubernetes tui terminal monitoring
๐Ÿ”— Install
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Terraform CLI

Cloud & Infra

HashiCorp's Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool. Define and provision infrastructure across multiple clouds declaratively.

Use case: Create and manage cloud infrastructure reproducibly, automate provisioning and maintain resource state.
iac infrastructure cloud automation
๐Ÿ”— Download
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AWS CLI

Cloud & Infra

Official Amazon Web Services command line interface. Manage all AWS services from the terminal.

Use case: Automate AWS operations, manage S3, EC2, Lambda and other services, scripting administrative tasks.
aws cloud s3 ec2
๐Ÿ”— Install
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Azure CLI

Cloud & Infra

Official Microsoft Azure CLI for managing cloud resources. Intuitive commands for all Azure services.

Use case: Manage Azure resources, deploy applications, automate infrastructure and administration tasks.
azure microsoft cloud devops
๐Ÿ”— Install
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IBM Cloud CLI

Cloud & Infra

Command interface for IBM Cloud. Manage services, Kubernetes clusters, Cloud Functions and infrastructure resources.

Use case: Administer IBM Cloud resources, manage IKS clusters, deploy applications and automate workflows.
ibm cloud kubernetes cli
๐Ÿ”— Install

โšก Productivity & Utilities

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Everything Search

Productivity

Instant file search for Windows. Indexes the entire disk and finds any file in milliseconds.

Use case: Quickly find logs, configurations, scripts or any file in seconds without waiting.
search windows fast files
๐Ÿ”— Download
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Ditto

Productivity

Clipboard manager for Windows. Saves history of everything copied and allows searching and reusing previous clips.

Use case: Recover commands, IPs, passwords or snippets copied earlier without having to search for them again.
clipboard history productivity windows
๐Ÿ”— Download
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AutoHotkey

Productivity

Scripting language for Windows automation. Create keyboard shortcuts, macros and automate repetitive tasks.

Use case: Automate repetitive tasks, create custom hotkeys, expand text and accelerate daily workflows.
automation macros scripting hotkeys
๐Ÿ”— Download
Jorel del Portal - Systems Engineer specialized in architecture and troubleshooting

About the Author

Jorel del Portal โ€” Systems Engineer

Specialist in enterprise software architecture, high availability platforms and critical system troubleshooting. With over 12 years of experience in the banking and financial sector, I've led modernization projects, middleware integration and design of resilient architectures. I share knowledge about observability, microservices, incident diagnosis and modern engineering best practices.