DevOps ? a clipped compound of development and operations – is a way of working whereby software developers are in a team with project beneficiaries. A client centred approach extends the project plan to include the life cycle of the product or service, for which the software is developed.
We can then no longer speak of a software project for say Joe?s Accounting App. The software has no intrinsic value of its own. It follows that the software engineers are building an accounting app product. This is a small, crucially important distinction, because they are no longer in a silo with different business interests.
To take the analogy further, the developers are no longer contractors possibly trying to stretch out the process. They are members of Joe?s accounting company, and they are just as keen to get to market fast as Joe is to start earning income. DevOps uses this synergy to achieve the overarching business goal.
A Brief Introduction to OpsDev
You can skip this section if you already read this article. If not then you need to know that DevOps is a culture, not a working method. The three ?members? are the software developers, the beneficiaries, and a quality control mechanism. The developers break their task into smaller chunks instead of releasing the code to quality control as a single batch. As a result, the review process happens contiguously along these simplified lines.
Code
QC
Test
?
?
?
?
Code
QC
Test
?
?
?
?
Code
QC
Test
?
?
?
?
Code
QC
Test
Colour Key
Developers
Quality Control
Beneficiary
This is a marked improvement over the previously cumbersome method below.
Write the Code
?
Test the Code
?
Use the Code
?
Evaluate, Schedule for Next Review
?
Working quickly and releasing smaller amounts of code means the OpsDev team learns quickly from mistakes, and should come to product release ahead of any competitor using the older, more linear method. The shared method of working releases huge resources in terms of user experience and in-line QC practices. Instead of being in a silo working on its own, development finds it has a richer brief and more support from being ?on the same side of the organisation?.
The Key Role that Application Program Interfaces Play
Application Program Interfaces, or API?s for short, are building blocks for software applications. Using proprietary software-bridges speeds this process up. A good example would be the PayPal applications that we find on so many websites today. API?s are not just for commercial sites, and they can reduce costs and improve efficiency considerably.
The following diagram courtesy of TIBCO illustrates how second-party applications integrate with PayPal architecture via an API fa?ade.
Working quickly and releasing smaller amounts of code means the OpsDev team learns quickly from mistakes, and should come to product release ahead of any competitor using the older, more linear method. The shared method of working releases huge resources in terms of user experience and in-line QC practices. Instead of being in a silo working on its own, development finds it has a richer brief and more support from being ?on the same side of the organisation?.
The DevOps Revolution Continues ?
We close with some important insights from an interview with Jim Stoneham. He was general manager of the Yahoo Communities business unit, at the time Flickr became a part. ?Flickr was a codebase,? Jim recalls, ?that evolved to operate at high scale over 7 years – and continuing to scale while adding and refining features was no small challenge. During this transition, it was a huge advantage that there was such an integrated dev and ops team?
The ?maturity model? as engineers refer to DevOps status currently, enables developers to learn faster, and deploy upgrades ahead of their competitors. This means the client reaches and exceeds break-even sooner. DevOps lubricates the value chain so companies add value to a product faster. One reason it worked so well with Flickr, was the immense trust between Dev and Ops, and that is a lesson we should learn.
?We transformed from a team of employees to a team of owners. When you move at that speed, and are looking at the numbers and the results daily, your investment level radically changes. This just can’t happen in teams that release quarterly, and it’s difficult even with monthly cycles.? (Jim Stoneham)
More than just building energy, improving skills and undertaking audits, Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme works beyond. ESOS adheres to policy coherence, provides information to raise awareness, facilitates energy efficiency market and encourages adoption of appropriate energy efficiency measures.
Generally, ESOS is great for energy professionals and businesses. And in the current situation of UK?s energy industry, this new scheme is a substantial help. The key is to know the benefits that ESOS provides, understand how it can affect you, learn how to maximise its potential and make a big difference. Here?s to explore the highlights of ESOS.
Who benefits from ESOS?
Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme covers non-SME enterprises which includes UK businesses having more than 250 employees; even those with employees fewer than 250 but have annual turnover of more than ?50m and balance sheet exceeding ?43m; or those professionals that belong to a large enterprise. This is in accordance with what Article 8 of the EU Derivative provides.
What are the benefits of ESOS?
ESOS provides opportunities to enhance an organisation’s energy efficiency strategy, of which the benefits include:
Economic Growth and Competitiveness
The implementation of energy efficient measures increases local employment in the labour markets. Consequently, this taps the labour potential and drives economic growth.? In a lower carbon economy, businesses need to develop green projects to maintain economic competitiveness as well. ESOS is strategic approach initiated by the UK government to push technological innovation and energy investments.
Cost Savings and Emission Reductions
ESOS is flexible in such a way that it combines energy policies and innovations tailored to every organisation’s need. The energy efficiency measures taken, resulting from the scheme, quickly cuts down both carbon emissions and energy bills at cheapest possible ways.
Managing Energy Demand
ESOS provides energy security to UK by reducing the energy consumption of enterprises. With this, the economy would be more efficient and less exposed to international energy market volatility. Also, this will lead to more savings from less future investment in energy infrastructure.
Getting your Management Performance Noticed
If you are an energy professional, you will benefit from ESOS by exploiting it ?to boost your charisma towards the company directors. You can show them how the scheme works and how it can save your company substantial costs. Managing energy with ESOS can help an organisation grow. Nevertheless, you are the key person designated to get the project done and achieve success.
How can ESOS make a difference?
More than anything else, ESOS can make a huge change. True to its name, it provides large enterprises the opportunity to manage energy wisely, reduce overhead costs and promote responsible corporate energy consumption.
The International Energy Agency said that investing in energy efficiency leads to growth, additional jobs, competent budgets on public spending and enhanced industry productivity. If you are an energy and environment professional or a non-SME business entity, you hold the impulse to act. Aside from all those excellent business benefits that you get to enjoy, you will be able to contribute a portion towards achieving UK?s national carbon target of 80% in CO2 by 2050.
For many people within the UK, water is not really something to worry about. Surely enough of it falls out the sky throughout the year that it does feel highly unlikely that we?ll ever run out of it. There certainly does seem to be an abundance of Branded Water available in plastic bottles on our supermarket shelves.
Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink.
Despite this, Once-unthinkable water crises are becoming commonplace. If you consider that In England and Wales, we use 16 billion litres of clean drinking water every day ? that’s equivalent to 6,400 Olympic sized swimming pools.
Currently, water companies can provide slightly more than we need ? 2 billion litres are available above and beyond what we’re using. In some areas, though, such as south east England, there is no surplus and, as such, these regions are more likely to face supply restrictions in a dry year.
If we take little moment to reflect on some of the most notable water related stories over the past few years, we’ll start to get a picture of just how real the potential and the threat of water shortages can be.
Reservoirs in Chennai, India?s sixth-largest city, are nearly dry right now. Last year, residents of Cape Town, South Africa narrowly avoided their own Day Zero water shut-off.
It was only year before that, Rome rationed water to conserve scarce resources.
Climate change is likely to mean higher temperatures which may drive up the demand for water (alongside population growth) and increase evaporation from reservoirs and water courses during spring and summer.
The impact of climate change on total rainfall is uncertain, but the rain that does fall is likely to arrive in heavier bursts in winter and summer. Heavier rain tends to flow off land more quickly into rivers and out to sea, rather than recharging groundwater aquifers.
A greater chance of prolonged dry periods is also conceivable. This combined with the harsh reality that no human population can sustain itself without sufficient access to fresh water.
If present conditions continue, 2 out of 3 people on Earth will live within a water-stressed zone by 2025
What is water stress?
Water stress is a term used to describe situation when demand for water is greater than the amount of water available at a certain period in time, and also when water is of poor quality and this restricts its usage. Water stress means deterioration in both the quantity of available water and the quality of available water due to factors affecting available water.
Water stress refers to the ability, or lack thereof, to meet human and ecological demand for water. Compared to scarcity, water stress is a more inclusive and broader concept.
Water Stress considers several physical aspects related to water resources, including water scarcity, but also water quality, environmental flows, and the accessibility of water.
Supply and Demand
Major factors involved when water scarcity strikes is when a growing populations demand for water exceeds the areas ability to service that need.
Increased food production and development programs also lead to increased demand for water, which ultimately leads to water stress.
Increased need for agricultural irrigation in order to produce more crops or sustain livestock are major contributors to localised water stress.
Overconsumption
The demand for water in a given population is fairly unpredictable. Primarily, based on the fact that you can never accurately predict human behaviour and changes in climate.
If too many people are consuming more water than they need because they mistakenly believe that water is freely available and plentiful, then water stress could eventually occur.
This is also linked to perceived economic prosperity of a give region. Manufacturing demand for water can have huge impact regardless whether water is actively used within the manufacturing process or not.
Water Quality
Water quality in any given area is never static. Water stress could happen as a result of rising pollution levels having a direct impact on water quality.
Water contamination happens when new industries either knowingly or unknowingly contaminate water with their industrial practices.
Largely, this can happen and frequently does so because these industries do not take effective control of monitoring and managing their impact on communal water supplies. Incorrectly assuming this is the responsibility of an additional third party like the regional water company.
The truth is, water quality and careful monitoring of it is all of our responsibility.
Water Scarcity
Simple increases in demand for water can in itself contribute to water scarcity. However, these are often preceded by other factors like poverty or just the natural scarcity of water in the area.
In many instances, the initial locations of towns or cities were not influenced by the close proximity of natural resources like water, but rather in pursuit of the extraction of other resources like Gold, Coal or Diamonds.
For Instance, Johannesburg, South Africa is the largest City in South Africa and is one of the 50 largest urban areas in the world. It is also located in the mineral rich Witwatersrand range of hills and is the centre of large-scale gold and diamond trade.
Johannesburg is also one of the only major cities of the world that was not built on a river or harbour. However, it does have streams that contribute to two of Southern Africas mightiest rivers – Limpopo and the Orange rivers. However, most of the springs from which many of these streams emanate are now covered in concrete!
Water Stress and Agriculture
Peter Buss, co-founder of Sentek Technology calls ground moisture a water bank and manufactures ground sensors to interrogate it. His hometown of Adelaide is in one of the driest states in Australia. This makes monitoring soil water even more critical, if agriculture is to continue. Sentek has been helping farmers deliver optimum amounts of water since 1992.
The analogy of a water bank is interesting. Agriculturists must ?bank? water for less-than-rainy days instead of squeezing the last drop. They need a stream of real-time data and utilize cloud-based storage and processing power to curate it.
Sentek?s technology can be found in remote places like Peru?s Atacamba desert and the mountains of Mongolia, where it supports sustainable floriculture, forestry, horticulture, pastures, row crops and viticulture through precise delivery of scarce water.
This relies on precision measurement using a variety of drill and drop probes with sensors fixed at 4? / 10cm increments along multiples of 12? / 30cm up to 4 times. These probe soil moisture, soil temperature and soil salinity, and are readily repositioned to other locations as crops rotate.
Peter Buss is convinced that measurement is a means to an end and only the beginning. ?Too often, growers start watering when plants don’t really need it, wasting water, energy, and labour. By accurately monitoring water can be saved until when the plant really needs it.
Peter also emphasises that crop is the ultimate sensor, and that ?we should ask the plant what it needs?.
This takes the debate a stage further. Water wise farmers should plant water-wise crops, not try to close the stable door after the horse has bolted and dry years return.
The South Australia government thinks the answer also lies in correct farm dam management. It wants farmers to build ones that allow sufficient water to bypass in order to sustain the natural environment too.
There is more to water management than squeezing the last drop. Soil moisture goes beyond measuring for profit. It is about farming sustainably using data from sensors to guide us.
Ecovaro is ahead of the curve as we explore imaginative ways to exploit the data these provide for the common good of all.
A Quarter of the World?s Population, Face High Water Stress
Data from WRI?s Aqueduct tools reveal that 17 countries? home to one-quarter of the world?s population?face ?extremely high? levels of baseline water stress, where irrigated agriculture, industries and municipalities withdraw more than 80% of their available supply on average every year.
Water stress poses serious threats to human lives, livelihoods and business stability. It’s poised to worsen unless countries act: Population growth, socioeconomic development and urbanization are increasing water demands, while climate change can make precipitation and demand more variable.
How to manage water stress
Water stress is just one dimension of water security. However, like any challenge, its outlook depends on adequate monitoring and management of environmental data.
Even countries with relatively high water stress have effectively secured their water supplies through proper management by leveraging the knowledge they have garnered by learning from the data they gathered.
3 ways to help reduce water stress
In any geography, water stress can be reduced by measures ranging from common sense to innovative technology solutions.
There are countless solutions, but here are three of the most straightforward:
1. Increase agricultural efficiency: The world needs to make every drop of water go further in its food systems. Farmers can use seeds that require less water and improve their irrigation techniques by using precision watering rather than flooding their fields.
Businesses need to increase investments to improve water productivity, while engineers develop technologies that improve efficiency in agriculture.
2. Invest in grey and green infrastructure: D Data produced by Aqueduct Alliance – shows that water stress can vary tremendously over the year. WRI and the World Bank?s researchshows that built infrastructure (like pipes and treatment plants) and green infrastructure (like wetlands and healthy watersheds) can work in tandem to tackle issues of both water supply and water quality.
3. Treat, reuse and recycle: We need to stop thinking of wastewater as waste.
Treating and reusing it creates a ?new? water source.
There are also useful resources in wastewater that can be harvested to help lower water treatment costs. For example, plants in Xiangyang, China and Washington, D.C. reuse or sell the energy- and nutrient-rich byproducts captured during wastewater treatment.
Summary
The data is undeniably clear, there are very worrying trends in water.
Businesses and other other organisations need to start taking action now and investing in better monitoring and management, we can solve water issues for the good of people, economies and the planet. We collectively cannot kick this can down the road any further, or assume that this problem will be solved by others.
It is time, for a collective sense of responsibility and for everyone to invest in future prosperity of our Planet as a collective whole. Ecological preservation should be at the forefront of all business plans because at the end of the day profit is meaningless without an environment to enjoy it in!
When DuPont lost $400 million in intellectual property, it wasn’t because a hacker from the other side of the world infiltrated their system. The information was simply stolen by a former employee. Alarmingly, data loss incidents are not always caused by deliberate actions.
A file containing personal information accidentally attached to an email and sent to multiple recipients; financial data stored in a USB pen drive, accidentally left in a restaurant; or bank account data of colleagues, inadvertently posted on a company website – these are also some of the everyday causes of data loss.
A report done by research company Infowatch regarding global data leaks in 2010 showed that there were actually more accidental data leaks in that year compared to intentional ones. Accidental leaks comprised 53%, while intentional leaks comprised 42% (the rest were unidentified).
But even if they ?only? happened accidentally, breach incidents like these can still be very costly. The tens of thousands of dollars that you could sometimes end up paying in civil penalties (as in the case when you lose other people?s personal information) can just be the beginning. More costly than this is the loss of customer and investor confidence. Once you lose those, you could consequently lose a considerable portion of your business.
Confidential information that may already be leaking out right under your nose
With all the data you collect, process, exchange, and store electronically every day, your IT system has surely now become a storehouse of sensitive information. Some of them, you may be even taking for granted.
But imagine what would happen if any of the following trade secrets fell into the wrong hands: marketing plans, confidential customer information, pricing data, product development strategies, business plans, supplier information, source codes, and employee salaries.
These are not the only kind of data that you should be worried about. You could also get into trouble if your sloppy IT security fails to protect employee or client personal information such as their names; social security numbers; drivers license numbers; or bank account numbers and credit/debit card numbers along with their corresponding PINs.
In some countries, you could face onerous data breach notification requirements and heavy fines when these kind of data are involved.
There are now more holes to plug
It’s not just the different varieties of sensitive electronic information that you have to worry about. Because these data can take on different forms, i.e. data-at-rest, data-in-motion, and data-at-the-endpoints, you also need to take aim at different areas in your IT system.
Sensitive information can be found ?at rest? in each of your employees? hard disks, in your servers, storage disks, and in off-site backup disks. They can also be found ?in motion? in email, instant messaging, social networking messaging, P2P file sharing, ftp, http, and so on.
That’s not all. Your highly mobile workforce may have already introduced yet another high-risk area into your system: data-at-the-endpoints. This includes USB flash-disks, laptops, portable hard disks, CDs, and even smartphones.
The main challenge of data leak prevention
Having been made aware of the various aspects of data leakage, have you already come to grips with the extent of the task at hand?
There are two major things you need to do here to prevent data leakage.
One, you need to identify what data you have that can be considered as sensitive/confidential information. Of course you have financial information and employee salaries in your files. But do you also store personally identifiable information? Do you have trade secrets that are stored in electronic form?
Two, you need to pinpoint their locations. Are they only on your hard disks and laptops? Or have they made their way to flash drives, CDs/DVDs, or portable HDDs? Are they being transmitted through email or any other file transfer media?
The reason why you need to know what your sensitive data are as well as where they are is because you would like all efforts of securing them to be as efficient and unobtrusive as possible.
Let’s say, as a way of protecting your data, you decide to implement encryption. Since encryption can consume a lot of storage space and significantly reduce performance, it may be impractical to encrypt your entire database or all your files. For the same reason, you wouldn’t want to encrypt every single email that you send.
Thus, the best way would be to encrypt only the data that really need encryption. But again, you need to know what data needs to be encrypted and where those data can be found. That alone is no simple task.
Not only will you need to deal with the data you already have, you will also have to worry about the data that will go through your systems during the course of your day-to-day transactions.
Identifying sensitive data as it enters or leaves your system, goes through your network, or gets stored in your file system or database, and then applying the necessary security actions should be done automatically and intelligently. Otherwise, you could end up spending on a lot of man-hours or, worse, wasting them on a lot of false positives and negatives.
