HAN, Lead Right ❤

What is Web3? Decentralising the Internet and Financial Systems

2025-10-04T21:11:00.000-07:00

The Evolution of the Web

The internet has passed through three major phases, each redefining digital interactions differently. From the read-only era of Web 1.0 to the interactive, social dominance of Web 2.0, and now towards Web 3.0, the web continues to evolve to meet the needs of a digital-first world.

Web 1.0 (1991–2004): The Static Web

‍Web 1.0 was the internet’s read-only era. Websites served as digital brochures or online libraries, where information was published by a select few and passively consumed by many. Interaction was minimal – there were no social features, comment sections or user contributions. Websites were static, built primarily with HTML, and focused on delivering information rather than engagement.

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Platforms like Yahoo! and Britannica Online offered reference materials in a one-way information flow, while services such as AOL and email networks facilitated communication. Though revolutionary at the time, Web 1.0 lacked the social and interactive features that define today’s internet.

Web 1.0 vs Web 2.0 vs Web 3.0: What’s Changing?

Reference:

https://www.exp.science

10 Ways AI Has Changed Our Lives

2025-03-03T01:51:00.000-08:00

The human race has come a long way in history. The recent technological advancements contribute to this progress, making lives easier for everyone. Robots, supercomputers and interactive applications are no longer science-fiction tropes. Data scientists and machine learning engineers are working on realistic machines with human-like intelligence. Artificial intelligence is an integral part of our everyday life. From our smartphones to the GPS navigation in our cars- life without AI seems impossible. Here are some ways that AI impacts our life;

Improved Healthcare and Treatments
There was a time when a simple cough and cold could be fatal to human life. Over the decades, the healthcare sector has come up with effective treatments to cure serious ailments. Today, we can heal cancerous growths, ulcers, deadly injuries, nervous conditions and more. AI helps doctors in successfully diagnosing diseases in the human body. The advance scanners, ultrasound machines, probes are intuitive enough to detect the minutest of changes. Artificial intelligence also speeds up the treatment and recovery process for most patients. Disabled patients can now live a healthy life with robotic limbs.

Enhanced Data Management
Data is an essential asset for any organization that wants to survive intense competition online. The recent e-commerce trends and the rising influence of social media have only made things attractive. Companies can no longer claim a monopoly over the market and offer substandard services. Cliché as it might sound, but it is a consumer’s market after all. The customer has no shortage of choices. It is you who has to pull up your socks and tap into the valuable insights and demand metrics. Artificial Intelligence now aids developers design complex databases for storing, sorting and arranging raw data. This data is then analyzed and used to predict future trends and customer preferences.

Easier Navigation
Thanks to AI, it is impossible to get lost! With an extensive global positioning system installed in almost every device, we can now determine our live location. However, the wonders of GPS are not limited to you finding your way to the supermarket. GPS is an indispensable part of the transport industry. Aircraft, trains, cab companies and other service-based sectors use AI for traffic detection and safer navigation. Book tickets, place online orders, track the location of your package- everything is a touch away. AI also improves website navigation and access. With intuitive website builders, you can build functional dynamic web pages from scratch without any coding.

Cybersecurity and Decreased Risks
With GPS, it is easier to track criminals and locate them anywhere in the world. AI technology is indispensable in cybersecurity. You don’t have to worry about data theft, hacking, and other online threats. Armed with voice recognition software, AI platforms also offer better protection against unauthorized access. This improves the chances of detecting terrorist camps, predict adversities and prevent calamities. Some platforms use AI to detect activities deep underground as well. It gives scientists an idea about earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other disasters. This allows authorities to gather force and execute successful evacuation programs. AI, therefore, is crucial in disaster management.

Machine-oriented Manufacturing
With machines becoming smarter and self-sufficient, the need for human labor has become obsolete. Manufacturing units prefer automated engines to boost their production process. Using devices removes the scope of human error. Plus, companies also save the cost of employing people for a job that can now be done by machines. Today, AI-powered devices can complete the tasks faster and more efficiently than the best of human teams. Entrepreneurs are applying machine learning and deep learning technologies in multiple industries. Artificial Intelligence also enhances service-based sectors. The hospitality industry, aviation, e-commerce- AI has left no industry untouched.

Smart Weather Forecasting
With AI technology, weather reports are also far more accurate than they were in the past. It is easier to study the climate, predict storms and excessive rainfall in specific areas. It gives authorities the time required to get the inhabitants to a safer location. GPS and weather prediction systems get live feed from satellites for accurate and actionable information. It is, therefore, more comfortable to prevent natural disasters which would have otherwise led to the loss of life and property. Forecasting also assists the agricultural sector, giving farmers accurate insights on upcoming rains and drought spells.

Personalized and Interactive Experiences
Everything we need is now at our fingertips. Students have better access to information. Institutions and learning spaces optimize on AI-based frameworks to improve teaching techniques. Students can stream live lectures, interact with machine-controlled bots to simplify the learning process.

What’s more, mobile phones are more interactive and intuitive than before. There are special applications for scheduling events, setting reminders, saving notes, sending messages, storing pictures and more. Even websites and streaming platforms come tailor-made to our tastes. There are AI algorithms that chart your web activity and shows you content that matches your preferences.

Time-Effective and Sustainable
Artificial intelligence platforms save you a lot of time and effort. Companies save tons of money and resources in the manufacturing process. Businessmen also save time on the distribution and shipping of the packages. Customers can track their orders, determine the date and time of the delivery and more. AI makes everyone’s life a lot easier. It removes the risk of repetition, improves accuracy and accounts for quicker error detection. Furthermore, AI is a sustainable, renewable resource that has no limit. There is immense scope for research in this field, opening new avenues of development.

Holistic Entertainment
AI-powered entertainment platforms have caused a revolution in mainstream media. Earlier, the technology was used only in the gaming industry. The first-ever usage of artificial intelligence for entertainment was in role-playing games. The modern-day gaming platforms incorporate intuitive graphics, better interaction opportunities and overall realistic experience. Add to that the VR/AR devices, and we have a whole new virtual sphere that looks and feel extremely real!

The Social Impact
AI even left a lasting impact on social media. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram have chat bots and automated platforms for checking the credibility of users. These networks also trace our online activity, thereby getting insights into our preferences. This makes it easier for companies to marketing their product and pitch services that cater to our needs. AI is also applied to fight online trolling, cyber bullying and detect offensive content online.

Reference:
https://hackernoon.com/10-ways-ai-has-changed-our-lives-m85v3ych

Author’s Bio

As a technology enthusiast, Bella contributes to open-source projects. She is also a Consultant for topmygrades and part time academic tutor at expertassignmenthelp and loves to write about students. When she not helping students, you can find her enjoying a bar of chocolate, traveling or taking a stroll down the beach. You can also find her on LinkedIn.

Let’s play a new game to improve our lives

2024-04-11T20:09:00.000-07:00

Do you feel bored when you keep doing the same thing for years without any new improvements, and no one gives you trustworthy support or encouragement?

Don't you feel that you've been living in your comfort zone for too long, to the point where you can't challenge the outside world?

Let's build your reputation within the community, among your peers, and with people around the world. Then, you can learn about new trends in working experiences, life, and technological advancements, especially in areas like AI, ChatGPT, Big data management, and Cybersecurity. All of these areas require individuals with advanced capabilities in human leadership who can interact effectively with others.

People are great and powerful, especially they could produce much more productivities with courage under a superb leader who truly understands the human mindset and can manage it well.

Education related to soft skills training should be provided to all Chiefs or Heads of Companies who are essentially managing hundreds of staff under their supervision. The problem of high staff turnover each year is not due to the size of the companies but rather to issues with the Chiefs' leadership. Obviously, they couldn't control their emotions and anger towards the staff in the appropriate situations.

Experiencing tough and difficult managers can be beneficial as it prepares you to embrace new opportunities in the future. When you become a leader, you must evolve to exhibit good leadership as well.

Don't be afraid to move out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself with new experiences. Believe me!

When playing chess, if you don't move your pieces, do you think you will win the game?

Jensen Huang says kids shouldn't learn to code — they should leave it up to AI

2024-02-25T18:58:00.000-08:00

But this isn't the first time a tech exec has predicted the death of coding.

At the recent World Government Summit in Dubai, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made a counterintuitive break with what he thinks is a long tradition of tech CEOs advising youngsters to learn how to code. Huang argued that, even at this early stage of the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, programming is no longer a vital skill. With coding taken care of by AI, humans can instead focus on more valuable expertise like biology, education, manufacturing, or farming, reasoned the Nvidia head.

You can see the exchange if you expand the above tweet. In the minute-long segment of Huang’s stage time shared on social media, the Nvidia CEO said that for 10-15 years almost every person sitting on a tech forum stage would have insisted that it is “vital” for young people to learn computer science, to learn how to program computers. “In fact, it’s almost exactly the opposite,” according to Huang’s counterintuitive sense.

“It is our job to create computing technology such that nobody has to program. And that the programming language is human,” Jensen Huang told the summit attendees. “Everybody in the world is now a programmer. This is the miracle of artificial intelligence.”

After his grand counterintuitive pronouncement, the Nvidia CEO surmised that people could instead learn the skills to become experts in more useful fields. Experts in domains like biology, education, manufacturing, farming, and so on could save the time they might have needed to learn computer programming for more productive pursuits. Thus, the only language people would need is the language they were born and raised to speak, and are already experts in.

However, people still need to know how and when to apply AI programming. Therefore Huang asserts at the end of the brief clip that “It is vital that we upskill everyone, and the upskilling process I believe will be delightful, surprising.”

With the above clip shared widely on social media, tech industry analyst Patrick Moorhead was stirred enough to comment. The top analyst pointed out to his Twitter / X followers, "For over 30 years, I’ve heard “XYZ will kill coding” yet we still don’t have enough programmers.” Moorhead listed several programming languages and tools that he said were supposed to kill coding – but clearly didn't.

Moorhead also drew parallels with the computer DTP revolution. He said that AI isn’t going to kill coding, but put it in the hands of more people. “Just like desktop publishing didn’t kill “creativity” it just expanded it.” While I agree that DTP and other digital art tools didn’t kill creativity, I don’t remember anyone suggesting moving from scalpels, Spray Mount, and scraps of paper to DTP would actually stunt creativity.

The impacts of AI on the (freelancing) job market - as seen so far

Only time will tell the actual impacts of the wave of AI applications that are set to appear in the coming months and years. However, a recent study of the volume of freelance work available since ChatGPT arrived was published by Bloomberry. This research shows that writing and translation freelancers have been hit hardest by AI rivals. Meanwhile, the numbers suggest software development jobs are up 6% since ChatGPT hit the scene.

Reference:

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/jensen-huang-advises-against-learning-to-code-leave-it-up-to-

Grab launches Web3 crypto wallet in Singapore

2023-09-11T01:38:00.002-07:00

Grab has integrated Web3 services into its platform, allowing users to set up their own Web3 wallets within the app. With Grab’s Web3 Wallet, users can now earn blockchain-based rewards and pay with NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens).

The wallet, which is hosted on blockchain network Polygon, currently only supports two types of digital assets — digital vouchers, as well as collectibles from the SG Pitstop Pack, which can be purchased through smart payment app Fave.

Reference: https://thehollywoodpremiere.com/grab-launches-web3-crypto-wallet-in-singapore/

Web 3.0 Empowers The World

2021-11-27T20:07:00.006-08:00

Web 2.0 will be transformed to new evolution of web 3.0 in the near future soon while Blockchain and Cryptocurrency technology is now most discussion by communities around the world.

1. We are using Amazon EC2 of Web2.0 for computation but future we'll use Ethereum or Truebit of Web 3.0 instead.

2. We are using Amazon S3 or Google Cloud of Web 2.0 for file storage but future it'll change to use Storj or IPFS of Web 3.0 instead.

No more single entity to control you and your data anymore when Web 3.0 comes up. Everything will be owned privately by yourself.

This is how decentralized network empowers the world and businesses, corruption-free and leverage the data transparency.

Reference: https://youtu.be/aPVmd7SyKfQ

CHANHAN HY

What is Active-Active Clustering

2021-10-03T19:42:00.003-07:00

What is Active-active Clustering?

Active-active clustering is a data resiliency architecture in which client workloads are distributed across two or more nodes in a cluster to keep your data safe and available in the event of an unexpected component failure.

The Benefits of Active-active Clusters

Common benefits of active-active clusters include:

High availability of mission-critical apps across data centers, campuses, and metros
Load balancing across a cluster of servers
Data redundancy and resiliency (maintain uptime even when one site fails)

Why Active-active vs. Active-passive?

When it comes to high-availability (HA) clusters, the two main configurations you’ll encounter in data storage are:

Active-active clusters: Client machines connect to a load balancer that distributes their workloads across multiple active servers.
Active-passive clusters: Client machines connect to the main server, which handles the full workload, while a backup server remains on standby, only activating in the event of a failure.

The key difference between these two architectures is performance. Active-active clusters give you access to the resources of all your servers during normal operation. In an active-passive cluster, the backup server only sees action during failover.

Why Choose Pure for Your Active-active Cluster?

Purity ActiveCluster™ is a multi-site active-active stretch cluster that comes with Pure Storage® all-flash arrays. It allows you to achieve new levels of availability across your data center, metro region, or globally, with the simplicity of the Purity operating environment.

Key perks of using ActiveCluster include:

All the benefits of a true active-active cluster running on an all-flash array
Elimination of the need for third sites and gateways with Pure1® Cloud Mediator
Zero recovery point objective (RPO) and zero recovery time objective (RTO)
Live migration of application workloads between flash arrays
Automatic resync of servers using dedupe-aware async upon restoration of a failed connection

Purity ActiveCluster is also radically simple to configure. With one new command and the following four short steps, you can whip up a stretched active-active cluster in minutes:

Connect the arrays
Create a stretched pod
Create a volume
Connect hosts

With ActiveCluster, failures and recovery are now transparent across your environment, array, data center, or network.

Reference: https://www.purestorage.com/knowledge/what-is-active-active.html

Life Was Born for Love in Digital Era

2021-09-09T22:05:00.003-07:00

Life was born to help each other, give love to one and others. I'd thank lovely mother for giving a such great birth, a birth which has been striving so hard since Life was in a little younger lived with nature at countryside; far away from the city. More than 10 years was living with farm, cows, and stayed with grandparents or uncle. Life had never got a warm care from parents at all, due to economy constraint.

From nothing Life becomes better Life, a Life which not having much properties, and no much money, but it's an enjoyable Life which surrounding by good people giving happiness, respect and love.

This life has not been contributing much money to other people or community. It actually can afford for family and self-improvement only. However, entire Life has been sharing and contributing so much of knowledge, inspiration, experiences and skills to some of young generation which including sisters, brothers, relatives, friends, staffs under supervision and several small business startups as well as grateful to family by supporting them for living a better way.

Life now is starting to have more responsible since Lovely Son came out on a great day, 09 September 2021. Life seems like receiving more happier, a slight heavy responsibility, yet it's fulfilling with happiness, and meaningful in the family. Life with one daughter and one son is really completed.

It's a sort of another motivation and strength to commit the goal in the future to make sure that they have well-healthy and well-educated in the society by adapting to digital transformation and advance technology. Hopefully they could grow up to be a responsible person like daddy and mommy did in the past.

(x) Life has high academy but no morality is equal to "Nothing".

(x) Life has much money but no dignity and honest is equal to "Nothing".

(y) Life is fulfilled with Love and Happiness as long as having "Morality, Dignity, and Honest".

Daughter and Son, you guys must remember and adhere to these things responsibly. You need to learn from professional and expert's experiences and get new concepts & ideas from them as much as possible, but don't copy them because the success is absolutely coming from your thought and your trust the most.

CHANHAN HY

Pair Programming vs Mob Programming

2021-08-20T00:41:00.006-07:00

Developers actually could design software and coding by following various technique or they don't even exactly know what approach they are using to develop the software at all. Normally they just do by their previous experience and follow their teammates.

Have you ever heard about Pair Programming and Mob Programming before? and which approach does it really suit with software development at your company?

Let's see the definition of both approaches as the following:

1. Mob programming (informally mobbing) (aka. ensemble programming) is a software development approach where the whole team works on the same thing, at the same time, in the same space, and at the same computer. [Wikipedia]

2. Pair programming is an agile software development technique in which two programmers work together at one workstation. One, the driver, writes code while the other, the observer or navigator, reviews each line of code as it is typed in. The two programmers switch roles frequently. While reviewing, the observer also considers the "strategic" direction of the work, coming up with ideas for improvements and likely future problems to address. This is intended to free the driver to focus all of their attention on the "tactical" aspects of completing the current task, using the observer as a safety net and guide. [Wikipedia]

After read this article, what do you think which approach is much better than? Please judge one for implementing in your workplace right now.

CHANHAN HY

Nothing Lasts Forever in This Digital World

2021-08-10T20:11:00.007-07:00

I believe that nothing happened without reason and nothing lasts forever. One day it absolutely will be changed. As same as #Messi30 recently transferred to PSG, he seems like shaking the world and shocked his fans globally. I'm sure that this is a right decision for France, Paris football club's economic will potentially get growth, and popular to another step.

Our life, career and love are the same situation, it never lasts forever. One day we will lose it from our life. So, what we have to do is starting to share our respect, have a kindness for one to another. Especially contribute what we have to other people for a better growth.

Innovative of technologies are being invented every seconds and new tech created in every day it changes so fast. As a geek, you must adopt and adapt to these new trends and learning something new as much as possible because nothing lasts forever!!!!

CHANHAN HY, #Han30

Right Tool for Organization Roadmap Management

2021-08-10T00:56:00.002-07:00

I have been working with many organization in various business industries, I saw that technology implementation in their companies actually are very old school they mostly utilized incorrect tool to manage their data and planning. Most of MS Excel file is used to manage everything including financial & budgeting, project management, feedback or backlog management as well as product roadmap.

When we use incorrect tool to manage data it will affect to our productivity slow down and especially has no efficiency and no teamwork collaboration.

If you are on the top level of management, there is one Tool recommended to help you for product roadmap management it is easier to keep tracking your features priority planning effectively, it's called "ProductBoard". Since I'm starting to use this tool I feel that it is really powerful and help my work a lot. No more mistake occurred again since all data has been storing on the cloud-based ProductBoard system.

In according to my research, I found ProductBoard is the right choice for product / feature planning and feedback collection. Highly recommended!!! => URL: https://www.productboard.com/

CHANHAN HY

Yahoo Mail Made Me So Disappointed

2021-08-06T09:09:00.007-07:00

It is the first email service I was using since I started my journey in University of Computer Science in 2002. All emails had been stored in Yahoo such as my lecture's assignment, University trips and photos with my classmates during bachelor degree for four years.

Especially I used it to communicate with my girlfriend where she was studying at Malaysia (now she is my wife). I had lovely stories with her a lot. We had many sweet emails and photos while we were in teen. Every time, I was bored most of the time, just sign into the Yahoo and read older messages and looked at old photos it made me a lot of power and happiness.

After left Yahoo Mail for few years, I felt to sign in and find my old memories with her then everything were gone :( , I'm so disappointed. Technology fooled me! I hopefully trusted on it but at the end of the day it fooled me, they just updated terms of condition and policy and wiped out all of user's personal mails and things. I thought that it is not only me had this experience but others also hurt by Yahoo.

See this article, they also had as same problem as me:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/10/yahoo-deleted-all-my-emails-and-theres-nothing-i-can-do-about-it

CHANHAN HY

[Useful] Laptop Touchpad Not Working Problem!! Fix

2021-07-29T22:09:00.008-07:00

Fix Laptop Touchpad Not Working Problem, Touchpad Not Working fix. How to Fix Laptop Touchpad (Mouse) Not Working. My laptop mouse touchpad is not working. laptop's touchpad stops working fix.

Keyboard, touchpad, or mouse not working correctly. Having touchpad issues in Windows 10,8,7 fix it. Solve Mouse/Touchpad not working after update windows. laptop mouse pad not working. touchpad not working windows 10, 8, 7. hp laptop touchpad not working, toshiba touchpad not working, hp laptop mouse pad not working.

If your PC Touch pad doesn’t work or your PC touchpad broken, you can easily add it by purchasing a new Wireless Touch Keyboard with touchpad.

See this video: https://youtu.be/l0qhOGofV_c

What is Operator Framework?

2021-07-13T02:52:00.005-07:00

The goal of an Operator is to put operational knowledge into software. Previously this knowledge only resided in the minds of administrators, various combinations of shell scripts or automation software like Ansible. It was outside of your Kubernetes cluster and hard to integrate. With Operators, CoreOS changed that.

Operators implement and automate common Day-1 (installation, configuration, etc) and Day-2 (re-configuration, update, backup, failover, restore, etc.) activities in a piece of software running inside your Kubernetes cluster, by integrating natively with Kubernetes concepts and APIs. We call this a Kubernetes-native application. With Operators you can stop treating an application as a collection of primitives like Pods, Deployments, Services or ConfigMaps, but instead as a single object that only exposes the knobs that make sense for the application.

Read more: Operator framework

Which one is the best? Oracle EPM vs Jedox vs Board

2021-06-02T03:02:00.005-07:00

Nowadays, every business institution have much challenging with managing budget plan and forecasting because it is complicated and a huge work to do. If we do not have a tool or software to support there will be trouble for financial data report.

So, by using Excel spreadsheet is when you are in the early stage of business and having a small data. As long as the business is scaling bigger and large operations you need Enterprise Performance Management software to assist the works. Otherwise, spreadsheet will make you a lot of mistakes, not accurate report and data also is not consistent.

We would recommend two software for your consideration:

1. Oracle EPM

2. Jedox EPM

3. Board EPM

Sorry, Your Spreadsheet Has Errors (Almost 90% Do)

2021-05-10T01:43:00.005-07:00

Various studies report that nearly 9 out of 10 spreadsheets (88%) contain errors. A majority of these errors were from human error (and could have been avoided). This article lists famous examples of spreadsheet blunders and how companies can avoid spreadsheet error in the future.

You may want to pause before hitting “send” on your next Excel masterpiece: Various studies over the past few years report that 88 percent of all spreadsheets have "significant" errors in them. Even the most carefully crafted spreadsheets contain errors in 1 percent or more of all formula cells. A majority of errors reported were caused by human error—meaning they could have been completely avoidable mistakes.

Big Spreadsheet Bloopers

Spreadsheet software provides an easy-to-use data entry platform for students and professionals, particularly in the marketing, sales, business, and finance fields. However, there are equal opportunities to overtype incorrect numbers or formulas, or incorrectly factor in numbers.

For families and small businesses, miscalculations may only have a minor effect on balance sheets, but these errors can have a much greater financial and professional impact for larger organizations. Even small spreadsheet mistakes can cost companies billions of dollars or ruin a professional’s career and reputation.

Several cases of spreadsheet errors over the past few years have added fuel to this topic and increased pressure for organizational action. Researchers discovered a major math error in a 2010 study by Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff on the sustainability of debt, poking holes in their popular economic theory based on spreadsheet calculations. This resulted in widely reported speculation that their theory, quoted by experts in several different publications, was incorrect.

JPMorgan Chase lost more than $6 billion in its “London Whale” incident, in part due to Excel spreadsheet errors (including alleged copying and pasting of incorrect information from multiple spreadsheets). In a sad twist of fate, the British bank Barclays sent an offer to purchase another firm in 2008 that hid—instead of deleted—nearly 200 spreadsheet cells, resulting in unnecessary losses.

How to Avoid Spreadsheet Errors

Like most programs, using spreadsheet software like Microsoft Excel is a manual process. That means your calculations are always susceptible to human error, such as keying in the wrong numbers or copying over the wrong amounts.

Unfortunately, every formula is unique and has a specific task, there isn’t an automated tool to check for spreadsheet errors. Still, there are some steps you can take to prevent most errors from happening.

Some industries are proactively avoiding spreadsheet miscalculations by creating industry-wide standards of financial modeling. On a smaller level, organizations can skirt many major errors by developing an organization-wide, comprehensive policy for spreadsheet development. And, a good practice for any business is to include a final peer review or “scrub” of all spreadsheets before including them in analysis.

According to experts, many mistakes can be spotted early visually or through double-checking formulas.

Has your organization put a process in place to avoid spreadsheet errors?

Reference: https://www.forbes.com/sites/salesforce/2014/09/13/sorry-spreadsheet-errors/?sh=21691c1a56ab

Why Asset Management Is Important?

2021-04-13T01:29:00.001-07:00

Most of companies are not considering on asset management properly in their organization. At the end of the day they always have complaints, headache and painful with assets because of loss, broken, not able to track and especially lost much investment in yearly.

I would recommend and suggest that Asset management is required necessarily by using technology so that you will save time, and earn much revenue. You will never miss your assets anymore after you implement the following software below:

1. https://www.assetinfinity.com/

2. ManageEngine, Asset Explorer

Thank you,

Approval Process Workflow Automation

2021-04-11T19:29:00.001-07:00

When employees and supervisors spend more time tracking down paperwork, sharing Word or Excel documents, managing emails, making phone calls than doing real work, it's a sign your approval workflow needs to be automated.

Approval workflow can be a challenge for large and small organizations since many departments still rely on manual, inefficient ways of making approval requests and providing sign-off. Also, these processes don't provide the transparency and audit trails needed.

I would recommended software:
1. https://www.integrify.com/
2. Power Automation & SharePoint

I have tested these tools, it is very helpful for process approval enhancement in the organziation. It help to save time and efficient in operation among superior management team to track approval task & progress automation.

Thanks,

What is the Difference Between MVP and POC?

2021-02-19T03:52:00.003-08:00

Did you know that 95% of new products fail?

There are many reasons why new products fail to resonate with customers, but one of them is that the market was not there in the first place.

This is where minimal viable products (MVPs) and proof of concepts (POCs) come into play. If you’re not sure of where MVPs and POCs fit into the world of lean startup methodology, you’ve come to the right place!

In this article, we will look at definitions for MVPs and POCs, the circumstances in which to utilise them and how you can apply them to your lean startup.

What does POC mean?

The theoretical idea

POC is short for ‘proof of concept’. It’s sometimes referred to as ‘proof of principle’.

The purpose of a proof of concept is to check that an idea is technically feasible. POCs are commonly used in the hardware, software, manufacturing, medical, and engineering industries.

For example, let’s say that you want to launch a mobile app. Before wasting time and money creating an app that doesn’t work or that people aren’t interested in, you can implement a POC.

You can spend as much or as little time on your POC as you need. Areas you can look at include:

Does your product or app have a unique selling point that will set you apart from your competitors? What other features will it have?

How will your product or app align with the organisational goals and objectives of your business? If you haven’t put a vision statement together, this will help

Do your existing customers or target audiences like the idea of your product or app? Would they buy it?

Is your product or app financially sustainable? How much money do you need to get started?

Are there any risks or errors that you need to be mindful of? A SWOT analysis is an excellent way of identifying your product’s strengths and weaknesses

What will be your next steps if the POC shows your product or app is viable?

You don’t need to do lots of research here, and you don’t need to look at deliverables – many POCs can be completed in the space of a few days. All you need is enough research to answer the question: ‘is my product feasible?’

If the answer to this question is yes, that’s great! It means that you can move onto the next stage. If the answer is no, it’s time to go back to the drawing board.

The additional benefit of carrying out POC research is that you have information to show potential investors and stakeholders. This means an increased chance of funding!

What does MVP mean?

The physical product

MVP stands for minimum viable product. This is a basic version of your prospective product that you have put together. You can use an MVP to see how your customers react to your product and generate feedback you can use to improve it.

The term was coined by the author of the ‘Lean Startup’ Eric Ries in 2009. He defined an MVP as a new product that allows a company to collect the most information with the least effort.

Let’s circle back to your mobile app. An MVP is a simple version of your app you have created, one that doesn’t have all the features or functionality yet. You can launch your app to some of your customers and see what they think of it and how they use it. You can then adapt and improve it based on the positive and negative feedback they provide.

Even though your app is a simple and no-frills version, it should be robust and thoroughly checked for bugs and other errors. After all, you are still launching it to market.

The benefit of an MVP is that it helps you determine if your product is right for the market. If you decide not to go ahead with the full version, you have not wasted your time and money.

Looking for an example of a minimal viable product? Take a look at Kickstarter. Lots of entrepreneurs and startups use Kickstarter to see if there is interest in their product. They do this by offering people the chance to purchase an MVP at a low price. They can then take people’s feedback and thoughts on the product and if positive, they can roll it out to a larger audience!

In fact, a lot of apps and websites that you know and love today, like Spotify, Uber, Facebook, and Twitter… all started as MVPs!

Here is some useful info about how Airbnb, Dropbox and Buffer got started on their MVP journeys. What is more, we described even more tactics that were used by Yelp, Craiglist, Uber, eBay and much more.

Should I use an MVP or POC for my startup?

We hope this article has given you clear insight into the definitions of MVPs and POCs and the differences between them. The next question you may ask is: which one should I use for my lean startup?

The answer is that you may very well use both MVPs and POCs when creating your product, just at different stages of the process!

Generally, you would create a POC first. Once you’ve determined that your product is viable, you can use this data to build your MVP.

There may be circumstances where you might jump straight to an MVP. For example, if you are confident that your product is a viable one, or if you are pushed for time and need to launch as quickly as possible.

However, if you need to double and triple check the details before you commit to building, we’d recommend you start with a POC.

Still not sure what MVP and POC mean? We’re here to help

You Are Launched has been working with lean startups, accelerators, and venture capital companies since 2014.

Specialising in lean startup methodology, we have the experience and expertise you need to help get your startup up and running.

If you need a hand to help get your idea off the ground, get in touch with us today!

Also published on: https://www.urlaunched.com/blog/poc-vs-mvp

Reference: https://www.hackernoon.com/what-is-the-difference-between-mvp-and-poc-s03733xh

Digitalization in Bank Industry

2021-02-01T18:33:00.013-08:00

What are the advantages of digitalization in Banking?

Digitization is the conversion of data into a digital format with adoption of technology. Adoption of digitalization is very important for bank sector.

By embracing digitalization , Banks can provide enhanced customer services. This provides convenience to customers and helps in saving time. Digitalization reduces human error and thus builds customer loyalty.

Today, people have round-the-clock to access to banks due to online banking. Managing large amount of cash has also become easier. Digitalization has also benefitted customers by facilitating cashless transaction. Customers don't need to store cash anymore and cab make transaction at any place and time.

Abstract

IT and IOT are the talk of the new era. IT had revolutionized the industries and made life easy by automating tedious tasks. Along with automating tasks, IT had helped industries like banks in attracting and retaining customers, enhance marketing and promotion techniques without burning down cost. The research paper revolves around the need, birth, growth, pros and cons of digitalization in banking industry. The reasons that had pushed the population to adapt the digital way of banking and surging growth of e wallets.

Motivated by its IT intensive nature, the research focus of this paper lies within the financial service industry.

This paper discusses the effect of digitalization on the banking Services from the perspective of business, customer and technology relationship. The results include that digital technologies enables new business models, cause (dis-)intermediation and customer centricity becomes increasingly important for financial service providers. Additionally, the interaction between user and technology changes and information is increasingly digitized

Introduction

The need for digitalization in banking arose in the 1970s with the introduction of ATM Machines, electronic trading in 1980s and the early move into online banking in the 1990s, digital banking has not looked back since. Specially with innovation and discoveries being made by the minute.

However, Digital Transformation is far beyond just moving from traditional banking to a digital world. It is a vital change in how banks and other financial institutions learn about, interact with and satisfy customers. An efficacious Digital Transformation begins with an understanding of digital customer behavior, preferences, choices, likes, dislikes, stated as well as unstated needs, aspirations etc.. And this transformation leads to the major changes in the organizations, from product-centric to customer-centric view.[1]

Banks began using Information Technology initially with the introduction of standalone PCs and migrated to Local Area Network (LAN) connectivity. With further advancement, banks adopted the Core Banking platform. Thus branch banking changed to bank banking. Core Banking Solution (CBS) enabled banks to increase the comfort feature to the customers as a promising step towards enhancing customer convenience through Anywhere and Anytime Banking. Different Core Banking platforms such as Finacle designed by Infosys, BaNCS by TCS, FLEXCUBE by i-flex, gained popularity.[2]

With the digital transformation of banking sector, came the need for UX design for banking apps/websites, where companies like Fortune cookie, Techdew and Cooper help the players of digital marketing bridge the gap between their offerings and customer demands.

More on need for UX design in Digitalization along with how they are not only helping the end users have a better experience, but also, help the banks improve their processes and save a lot of resources from getting unnecessarily wasted will be discussed further ahead in the paper.

Discussion

Digitalization has certainly helped change a lot of aspects on digital banking and its core value, Following are some such aspects that the birth of Digital banking has supported/ promoted/enhanced.

The Omnipresence

Digitalization has enabled the banks in serving their consumers anywhere and everywhere they need via Digital banking be it through their laptops, desktops or phones.

It allows the ease of access for both, service provider and service seekers, this type of low contact service providing works smoothly solely with the help of UI and UX design for banking, ie; since there is little to no physical contact between the bank and the customer. The only point of contact they have is through the interface and functionalities of the websites/applications.

Service Seeker

In today’s hectic world, people do not have enough time to physically go to the bank and get their work done.

Digital banking services allow the consumers to access their accounts anywhere they are, anytime they want, processes like money transfer, loan seeking, bill payments, and standing instructions for bill payments etc. are all just an app /a website away.

Activities like updating passbooks, contact information, adding beneficiaries to one’s account is now just as easy as going to the ATM and withdrawing cash, thanks to the passbook machines and account management through net banking.

Specially with the introduction of E-Wallets like Phone Pe, PayTm, Chillar etc. and the ability to integrate such e-wallets with one’s bank account has made things even easier in terms of managing their personal funds.

Service Provider

With the help of Digital banking the banks are able to reach places they were not present before without having to open up 100s of branches all around the country.

Even in case of rural areas where people may not be very well versed with the technology, UI and UX design comes handy where personalization becomes possible so it suits the person who is using it which makes it even more approachable and usable which drives customers towards the app and help the banks increase their consumer base and gain more business.

Another big advantage of digitalization is tools like Google analytics and other data analytics tools that help the banks assess the past records and make adjustments on the real-time basis to know what sells and what they need to push in the market.

From the financial aspect, thanks to digitization and an efficient UX design for banking, customers have actually started preferring digital banking over paying actual visits to the banks, which reduces the bank’s cost regarding the physical locations in terms of opening up new branches or spending a lot on bigger buildings etc.

Even online, open-source is at such a boom right now the development and maintenance of the apps and websites costs very little.

Lean & Green Banking

There is a scope to introduce Lean Management in Banking in order to handle large number of customers and their accounts in far and wide branches of banks in a country like India. This could be possible only through conscious efforts by the managements through heavy investment in hardware, software and intense training of the operating staff at all levels. One side bankers are expecting more business through customer satisfaction but on the other side, the technology effect makes the customers not coming to the bank but bank is going to the doorstep of the customers [Goyal KA and Vijay Joshi (2011)]. [3]

Green Banking is also gaining importance in recent times. While the banking industry is undergoing computerization, networking and offering of on-line banking is naturally

gaining momentum [Mohmed Aminul Islam (2010)]. Besides several benefits of computerization like speed, accuracy, ambience, efficient handling of sizeable business,etc., there is a factor like paper-less business resulting in waste management, eco-friendliness and pollution control [Ela Sen (2010)]. [3]

Marketing and Promotions

Since the Digital revolution, marketing techniques have changed drastically, organizations have started preferring digital marketing over traditional marketing.

This digital transformation has actually made it easier for banks to reach their targeted customers in a much more efficient way than traditional media.

Digital marketing has helped the banks a lot in the 2 most important things for any organization:-

Customer Attraction & Customer Retention

To ensure customer attraction, social media marketing has proven to be very affective in targeting specific customers for specific offers and deals.

Along with social media, back linking and advertising on the bank’s own websites and apps have proven to bring in quite a lot of traffic.

Recent research reveals that financial services firms’ use of social media marketing is up 31% year-over-year, a significant increase over past years. Increasingly, bank marketers who engage with customers on the most popular social media channels and maximize the effectiveness of each platform will realize a brand loyalty advantage over competitors that don’t. [4]

Channel optimization is also critical for creating differentiated digital customer experiences. Banks must provide a seamless user experience for customers to conduct their banking transactions across multiple devices and platforms by using both native apps and mobile sites with a common look and feel, and that offer ease of use. Yet with the advent of new marketing capabilities, especially digital marketing vs. traditional marketing, it is difficult for marketers to prioritize investments and make effective choices. For banks, the challenge is to balance scalable campaigns with appropriate investments in technology and skills, such that both drive sizable and sustainable returns on investment. Programmatic advertising

— or the use of complex software and data modeling to purchase digital advertising — has become

common topic of conversation for both bank marketers and advertisers. Along with native advertising and personalization, it has become the latest innovation in customer acquisition, as it drives engagement to places where people are, not where marketers wish them to be. [4]

Employment

The digital transformation of banks since the digital revolution has helped the banks grow at an exponential level which has in return created a whole other domain of IT within the banking sector, including information security, banking tool development, IT consultants dedicated to Digital banking etc.

However, there has been a debate on whether the digitalization in the banking industry good or bad for the employment opportunities of people, since there are concerns regarding robotics and automated processes.

In a conventional bank branch, a clerk seated next to the cash dispensing teller was a sought after banker because he used to update the pass book of the account holder after the cash withdrawal or a deposit. That job has almost vanished in the past decade with few account holders getting a pass book. Coming years would see even the position of the teller, who is fast being replaced by sophisticated automated teller machines. [5]

The transformation of traditional banking into digital banking is agreeably automating a lot of processes but has also created a lot of other job opportunities, in the IT sector (as mentioned above).

Therefore,

Just like others, the banking industry had also created a lot of opportunities, just in different roles or domains.

Conclusion

Just like any other domain/field, digitalization in the banking industry has come with their Pros and Cons.

Cons being the risk of information hacking, the server problems that hind the workflows and people’s hesitation to go online and adapt to change (employees as well as customers).

However,

The pros are in favor of both, service providers and service seekers of banking. In terms of social change, economic advantage, ease of access and many other things.

As for the future, we are quickly moving to a complete digital form of banking with the rising numbers of totally online banks like PayTm and older banks adapting the digital ways and slowly moving majority of their offerings online like SBI’s YONO.

Reference: https://www.codecnetworks.com/blog/digitalization-in-banking-industry/

Becoming business analyst without IT background

2021-01-22T20:13:00.006-08:00

Everything is possible but need time :)
This article is from techcanvass.com to guide to whom are willing to be professional IT Business Analyst position without IT Skills.

Business analyst profile is one of the most rewarding profiles in the IT industry today. So, if you are from a non-IT background, the natural question in your mind would be:

How can I become a business analyst without IT background?

But why to become business analyst?

There is a growing demand for IT Business analysts in the market nowadays. IT industry itself, bank, manufacture, oil industry, government, school, healthcare, agriculture and others are looking for IT Business Analyst position to work with them in order to help acceleration the business operation go faster, reach customer, grow sale conversion and increase revenue.

Business analysts in IT industry have a strong demand and a good future too. If you have made a decision to make this switch, you have a made the right decision.

This article is for everyone come from different background, sale, HR/Admin, finance or banker, please read the following steps:

Steps for becoming business analyst with no IT background

Business Analyst is a role employed in the IT industry and works with the customers as well as the software development team. This has led to a common perception that business analysts need programming skills.

Non-IT professionals assume that it’s extremely difficult to become a business analyst. However, that’s really far from the truth.

So, here are the steps to become a business analyst even without an IT background?

First of all, understand the role and responsibility of a business analyst in the IT industry.
Assess if you would like to do that role on a long term basis. Unless you enjoy doing something, it’s not for you
Understand the gaps in the skills between what you possess and what is needed to become a business analyst. The skills are listen in this article below.
Select and join a course to learn the BA skills.
Finish the course, prepare well for the certification and appear for the certification exam.
Update your resume with keywords relevant for the business analyst profile.
Start appearing for interview and make sure that you practice it well with entry level business analyst interview questions and scenario based interview questions.

Business Analyst Core Skills (CRAFT framework)

We have identified four key skills for entry level business analysts. Techcanvass CRAFT framework shows these skills as shown below:

Soft Skills for business analysts

Communication skills is important as you need to communicate extensively with the customers as well as development team. They speak different languages and business analysts play the role of an intermediary.

Reference: techcanvass.com

Functional Requirements Vs. Non-functional Requirements: What Is More Important?

2021-01-07T19:01:00.003-08:00

Like other professions, project management also has its own jargon that is frequently shared between software engineers and clients. You will hear terms like “functional requirements” and “non-functional requirements” frequently exchanged when a project is being initiated. If you are a novice in the project management field, you may feel like an outsider if you have no knowledge about functional vs. non-functional requirements. And hence, we have planned this blog specifically for those who want to have an in-depth understanding of the functional and non-functional requirements.

Let’s begin this blog by understanding the following scenario. Suppose that you have initiated the renovation of your old patio. You know that you want to refurbish the look with subtle color, either white or ivory color, and want to have a flyscreen installed. But wait, what about the surface of the patio? Do you want it to be concrete, gravel, tile, or sand? You know that you are going to use the patio for outside entertainment with family and friends. But you do not know how and what surface will add on to the convenience?

This further means you know the purpose of renovation; however, you do not know what all things will help you meet the purpose. And if you do not pay enough attention to the things that will enrich the patio experience you are expecting, your “purpose” of renovation fails. This situation is exactly the same when we talk about the functional and non-functional requirements of the project.

In other words, all the requirements should be given enough thought, understood, and well-drafted for a project to be successful. In software technology terms, say for instance,

You do not know how the system will respond to the change in workloads?
Also, you do not know how frequently the system faces downtime?

To compile up, you must clearly define all your requirements to the business analyst while you initiate your project discussion.

To compile up, you must clearly define all your requirements to the business analyst while you initiate your project discussion.

The understanding of the entire mobile app development process also plays a major role in defining the requirements of an application. Here is the index for your easy reference. Click on the link to grab a better understanding of each step that will help you in drafting your functional, non functional requirements.

1. A Guide on Lean Canvas Model;

2. How to Prepare a Product Requirement Document and its importance;

3. Importance of Wireframe in Product development;

4. A complete guide on selection of technology stack for startups;

5. How prototyping helps businesses?

6. A handbook to select development company for startups;

7. A detailed guide on project management & delivery milestones;

8. Role of Quality assurance in product development;

9. Importance of User testing;

10. Know where you should deploy your project?

11. How Feedback and product iteration makes a difference in product development?

12. What is the variation in the cost? What factors affect the variation?

13. Why is a Good design the ultimate thing in the project?

You may ask how it will impact if you miss on communicating or defining your project requirements?

Well, an undiscussed yet important project requirement may doom you to failure. You always wish to deliver a product that your customer will embrace, but nothing happens without effective communication. Every individual working on the product works in haywire without knowing the product-specific goal. The below-mentioned figures might convince you more, over this thought.

You disturb your project timeline and budget by almost 60% if you do not specify the requirements clearly.

Also, these unspecified requirements later can charge you over 41% of your budget.
Only 68% of projects succeed in delivering the expected product by meeting the quality standards by effective communication.
Almost 32% of IT projects have failed because of unclear project requirements and estimation.

Without a clearly defined project requirement, you may miss upon your project’s scope, which may cost you at later stages. Additionally, you would have to invest both time and money behind correcting the mistakes and improving the quality.

So there is always a competition similar to what comes first, an egg or a hen? Similarly, what comes first, functional requirements Vs. non-functional requirements. So let us understand both the terms from their definition.

What is a Functional Requirement?

Functional requirements are primary requirements that define a system or a component. It specifies how a system should work and behave upon certain inputs. The functional requirements can be anything, an output, a behavior, or a change in functionality upon any action.

It defines how a system is expected to perform over certain functions. It can be anything from a calculation, user interaction, data manipulation, anything. Functional requirements are the features you define in a product that will enrich the customer experience.

What is a Non-Functional Requirement?

Non-functional requirements are those that lay the foundation for a quality user experience. It checks on the quality attributes of the system and ensures the effectiveness of the function.

Non-functional requirements help you judge the overall quality of the functions and the system from a user-oriented perspective.

If we define the functional requirements as “how the system will work?” then a non-functional requirement can be defined as, “how we expect the system to work upon an interaction”?

A non-functional requirement lets you highlight the constraints of the system that may arise after developing the product. Also, you can put constraints/limits over the functionality of the system.

Having said that, a functional product can be developed without defining non-functional requirements. But its success will always be a question! You may lose out on your customers if you haven’t paid attention to the NFRs.

Hence, we can say both the requirements are of equal importance and interconnected. If you falter over anyone, the whole system is affected.

Let’s look at the benefits of defining the functional and non-functional requirements.

It brings the team and the stakeholders on the same page:

Once you have a well-defined and clear business requirement, you can explain the same in-depth to the stakeholders and bring them on the same page as you are.

It reduces the time spent behind irrelevant communication:

A step by step approach towards the mentioned requirements ensures that all the process requirements are acknowledged. This way, the whole team and BA work in collaboration, resulting in faster and expected results of development.

It gives you a more precise budget estimation:

A detailed understanding of the project requirements allows you to give a precise estimation of the project.

Develop a bug-free application:

It is often observed that any variation or change in functionality at later stages, often leads to error in the system. On the other hand, if you identify and rectify these errors at the inception phase, then you can develop a bug-free application on time.

Thus we can conclude that functional and non-functional requirements make you ready for what you have thought of your dream project.

Have a look at the below table and grab a better knowledge about both.

Functional requirements	Non-functional Requirements
Describes how a feature should work	Describes which properties will make the feature work
Focuses on the output of user actions	Focuses on simplifying the process and execution of the output on user actions
Defines user requirements	Defines user’s expectations and experience
It has functions covered in use cases	It has constraints which will help in reducing development time and cost
Verifies the functionality of the system	Verifies the performance of the system

Functional Requirements Examples:

The list of functional requirements examples comprises every system behavior, changing under the applied function. If the functional requirements are not acknowledged, the system will not function.

User authentication upon request;
Business rules;
Server logs of all the existing data;
Audit tracking;
Administrative functions;
Report generation in a specific period;
External interfaces;
Historical data generation;
Authorization levels;
Defining authorization levels of the system

Non-functional Requirements Examples:

The list of non-functional requirements include,

Performance;
2-level authentication;
Capacity;
Reliability;
Maintainability;
Scalability;
Serviceability;
Security;
Usability;
Data integrity;
Environmental;
Regulatory;
Interoperability;
Recoverability

A further elaboration of the non-functional requirements is,

The system should record every unsuccessful attempt of login;
The system should be capable of handling the XYZ number of users ensuring seamless performance;
Users should change the password after the first successful login.
Your application should adhere to the laws of the state or the government.
The dashboard should appear within 3 seconds after the user’s login.
The background color of all the screens should be #fff3b5.

We hope these examples give you a clear understanding of how non-functional requirements pay attention to the quality attributes of a system. However, both the client, as well as the development team, might forget to discuss the non-functional requirements at the initial phase. And this may result in a conflict later.

How to define a functional requirement?

If your approach towards development is Agile, you probably will define the requirements in a doc. The functional requirements document will include user stories, use cases, and also the following sections.

Purpose: This section will include all the background, definitions, and system overview;
Describe the scope of product, the expectations, and the business rules;
Define the database requirements, system attributes, and functional requirements;
Include the use cases, which means describe how a user will interact with the system. Define the role of every actor participating in the interaction;
Write down the goal of the product clearly.
Mention user stories that will describe in detail how a user will engage with the developed product step by step.
Develop clickable prototypes. This will help you to represent the product in a better and convincing way to the stakeholders. You can either go for throwaway prototypes or interactive prototypes for your project.

How to define a non-functional requirement?

Now comes the part where you define the quality expectations of the product. These attributes describe the ways in which you expect your product to behave.

Define the usability expectations from the product.
Describe in the document which laws and regulations should the product adhere to.
Define the availability of the application, which means will it function 24/7/365?
Determine the performance of the product solution for various functionality. This means, in how much time the user should see the list, how long the user will be connected with the app if there is no internet connection, etc.
Define the security requirements of the system.
Use automated testing tools like Selenium, TestComplete, and Appium to reassure product performance.

How are the functional and non-functional requirements written and represented?

Defining both functional and non-functional requirements during project initiation is like brainstorming the idea of the product. You can collect the requirements and prepare a document individually.

You can prepare a system requirement specification (SRS), where both the requirements are mentioned in a single document. This document is highly narrative and defines the purpose and objective of the product clearly. The functional requirements of the solution can be broken down into the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) structure, where the entire process is divided into components. These components are so small that they can not be divided further.

Another approach to defining the document is taking the user stories approach. In this approach, the process is divided into various states, like actors and the roles. The user stories approach allows you to consider the requirements of every user and define their needs accordingly.

Final Words:

Referring back to the question, what comes first, non-functional requirements or functional requirements? Well, we would say both of these are intertwined. You may prepare a working model by collecting the functional requirements but may not be able to deliver an expected and satisfactory solution. Hence, defining clear and understandable requirements is the key to the success of the product.

By defining the functional and non-functional requirements, you would be able to define accurate and precise results. Also, the entire team is clear about the product expectations, and thus you can expedite the process of development.

Note: Ensure that you cover every scenario and address them in detail. You can study the competitors and set your benchmarks if required to define the needs clearly. Create a better and bigger picture by defining the functional and non-functional requirements right at the inception stage. If you need any assistance in defining the project approach, you can contact our business analyst team at Kody Technolab.

Reference: https://kodytechnolab.com/functional-requirements-vs-non-functional-requirements

Kubernetes Vs. Docker Swarm: A Comparison of Containerization Platforms

2020-10-09T21:54:00.005-07:00

Container orchestration is fast evolving and Kubernetes and Docker Swarm are the two major players in this field. Both Kubernetes and Docker Swarm are important tools that are used to deploy containers inside a cluster. Kubernetes and Docker Swarm have carved respectable niches for themselves, cementing their places in the Docker ecosystem. Let’s briefly look into Kubernetes and Docker Swarm before moving onto see what are the differences between these two containerization platforms.

Overview of Kubernetes

Kubernetes is based on years of Google’s experience of running workloads at a huge scale in production. As per Kubernetes website, “Kubernetes is an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.”

We covered the basics on Kubernetes in a previous post. You can read it here if you need a more in depth overview of the platform.

Overview of Docker Swarm

Docker swarm is Docker’s own container’s orchestration. It uses the standard Docker API and networking, making it easy to drop into an environment where you’re already working with the Docker containers. Dock Swarm is designed to work around four key principles:

Simple yet powerful with a “just works” user experience
Resilient zero single-point-of-failure architecture
Secure by default with automatically generated certificates
Backward compatibility with existing components

Kubernetes vs Docker Swarm

Although both orchestration tools offer much of the same functionalities, there are fundamental differences in between how the two operate. Below are the listed some of the most notable points:

Application definition

In Kubernetes, an application can be deployed using a combination of pods, deployments, and services (or micro-services).

Whereas, in Docker Swarm, applications can be deployed as services (or micro-services) in a Swarm cluster. YAML files can be used to specify multi-container. Moreover, Docker Compose can deploy the app.

Installation and set-up

In Kubernetes, installation is manual and it takes serious planning to make Kubernetes up and running. Installation instructions differ from OS to OS provider to provider. Cluster configuration like IP addresses of a node or which node takes what role is needed to know in advance in Kubernetes.

Whereas; Docker Swarm is simple to install as compared to Kubernetes. With Docker, only one set of tools are required to learn to build upon environment and configuration. Docker Swarm also provides flexibility by allowing any new node to join an existing cluster as either a manager or a worker.

Working on two systems

It requires knowing CLI (Command Line Interface) to run Kubernetes on top of Docker. You should know Docker CLI to navigate within a structure and then supplemental Kubernetes common language infrastructure to run for those programs.

Since Docker Swarm is a tool of Docker, same common language is used to navigate within a structure. This provides variability and speed to this tool and gives Docker a significant usability edge.

Logging and monitoring

Kubernetes supports multiple versions of logging and monitoring when the services are deployed within the cluster:

Elasticsearch/Kibana (ELK) logs within the container
Heapster/Grafana/ Influx for monitoring in the container
Sysdig cloud integration

Docker Swarm is supported for only monitoring with the third party applications. It is recommended to use Docker with Reimann for monitoring, however since Docker Swarm has an open API, it makes easier to connect with plenty of apps.

Scalability

Kubernetes is more of an all-in-one framework for distributed systems. It is a complex system as it offers a unified set of APIs and strong guarantees about the cluster state, which slows down container deployment and scaling.

As compared to Kubernetes, Docker Swarm can deploy containers faster; this allows fast reaction times to scale on demand.

High availability

In Kubernetes, all pods are distributed among nodes and this provides high availability by tolerating application failure. In Kubernetes, load-balancing services detect unhealthy pods and remove them, this supports high availability.

Docker Swarm also provides high availability as services can be replicated in Swarm nodes. In Docker Swarm, Swarm manager nodes are responsible for the whole cluster and manage the resources of worker nodes.

Networking

Kubernetes network is flat, as it enables all pods to communicate with one another. In Kubernetes, the model requires two CIDRs. The first one requires pods to get an IP address, the other is for services.

In a Docker Swarm, a node joining a cluster creates an overlay network of services that span all of the hosts in the Swarm and a host only Docker bridge network for containers. In Docker Swarm, users have the option to encrypt container data traffic when creating an overlay network by on their own.

Benefits & drawbacks of Kubernetes

Benefits of Kubernetes:

Kubernetes is backed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF).
Kubernetes have an impressively huge community among container orchestration tools. Over 50,000 commits and 1200 contributors.
Kubernetes is an open source and modular tool that works with any OS.
Kubernetes provides easy service organization with pods

Drawbacks of Kubernetes

When doing it yourself, Kubernetes installation can be quite complex with steep learning curve. An option to solve this issue is to opt for a managed Kubernetes-as-a-service such as ours.
In Kubernetes, it is required to have a separate set of tools for management, including kubectl CLI.
It is Incompatible with existing Docker CLI and Compose tools

Benefits & drawbacks of Docker Swarm

Benefits of Docker Swarm

Docker Swarm is easy to install with a fast setup
Docker Swarm is a lightweight installation. It is simpler to deploy and Swarm mode is included in the Docker engine.
Docker Swarm has an easier learning curve.
Docker Swarm smoothly integrates with Docker Compose and Docker CLI. That’s because these are native Docker tools. Most of the Docker CLI commands will work with Swarm.

Drawbacks of Docker Swarm

Docker Swarm provides limited functionality.
Docker Swarm has limited fault tolerance.
Docker Swarm have smaller community and project as compared to Kubernetes community
In Docker Swarm, services can be scaled manually.

In a nutshell

It’s not exactly easy to compare those two containerization platforms as Docker Swarm is a simple and easy solution to work with whereas Kubernetes is targeted those who require full fledge support with higher complexity. Docker Swarm is preferred in environments where simplicity and fast development is favored. Whereas Kubernetes is suitable for environments where medium to large clusters are running complex applications.

You can read all about Kubernetes and know everything that it involves in our all-encompassing post here!

Reference: https://vexxhost.com/blog/kubernetes-vs-docker-swarm-containerization-platforms/

How to estimate Story Points in Agile and How to choose a reference task

2020-08-06T22:20:00.003-07:00

A reference task is a certain task, which has a fixed amount of story points assigned, and which is used as a reference point to estimate other tasks. But how do you choose such a reference task? This post should give you a method and some ideas, how you can find a good reference task.

As a side node – I use the word task here for every type of work item in a sprint. So user stories, backlog items or whatever you call it – here I always use the word task.

Scales for story points

There are a couple of different scales for story points, the most common ones are the power of two (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc.) and a Fibonacci-like scale (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100). (These are not really the Fibonacci numbers, but are a bit similar). It doesn´t really matter, which scale you use, the point is, that the scale shouldn´t be linear. The gaps between two numbers should become bigger the higher the numbers are. The reason is, that it is easier to say, a task is more 8 than 5 than it is to say a task is more 8 than 7. The bigger a task, the more uncertainty and therefore it is harder to distinguish little differences.

In my team we use the Fibonacci-like scale, therefore I will use that scale to explain how to choose a reference task. But before we get into that, let´s have a deeper look at the that scale.

In the Fibonacci-like scale we have nine different numbers: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40 and 100 (sometimes you also have 0.5, but let me ignore that here). Let me call them 9 categories, because they are used to categorize the size of a task. The number 8 is in the middle of the scale. There are four categories above and four categories below 8.

We should aim to use the full scale, but – to be honest – I have never seen a team really doing that. Usually teams are only using a part of the scale, but I think you should make use of at least 6 categories (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13) in order to have a fine-grained differentiation of the sizes of tasks. (Basically, what I want to make clear is, that having only three categories – small, medium, large – is not enough).

I personally recommend to go for 7 or 8 categories. This should help you and your team to classify each of the given tasks in one of those categories – each category representing a certain estimated duration of effort to finish the task.

Ok, now let´s go on with the 2-step approach to find a proper reference task.

Step 1: Choose a common, medium-sized task

In step 1 you look at your tasks, which have already been finished in the past weeks and then pick one as your (temporary) reference task.

But wait, which one do I pick?

Right, that´s the question. But don´t worry, it is not so crucial to get it right in the first place. You can always change the reference task later on. Here are some guidelines, which should help you to make a good choice:

Pick a task, for which everybody in the team exactly understands, what work was required to finish it. It should be completely clear to every team member, what actions had to be done to complete the task.

It would be best if the task is a very common thing to do in your project and, in the perfect case, most of the team members have already worked on a similar task by themselves.

For example, consider following user story: “As a user I want to be able to store the birthday of customers“. This requires to add a new column in the database, adding it to the code and showing it on the front-end, maybe adding some simple validation, etc. It is probably a very common thing to do for a lot of software projects and therefore pretty clear to the team members, what actions need to be taken.

Now, let´s go to step 2, which will take you probably a couple of weeks of refinement work.

Step 2: Estimate

When you have chosen your reference task, you take the next 15-20 tasks, which you have to estimate for the upcoming sprints, and estimate each of the tasks relatively to the reference task.

What does relative estimation mean? Well, you basically decide whether the time to complete the task will be bigger, smaller or equal than the reference task.

It is a good idea to have physical cards for your tasks and put them on board. At first you place your reference task in the middle of the board. Then you estimate your first task. Your team decides it is smaller than the reference task, so you place it on the left side of the reference task. Then you estimate your second task. The team decides that it is also smaller than the reference task, but bigger than the first task – so you place the second task in the middle of the first task and the reference task.

After that your board looks like the following graph:

Then you continue with all the other tasks. You estimate the effort of each task relatively to the tasks which are already on the board. After a few weeks your board might look like in the next graph:

Well, probably your board won´t look like that – this would be too idealistic. The above board is more the output we want to have – in reality you probably won´t have 7 categories, but probably a bit less. And your tasks are probably also not distributed almost equally over the board as in the example above. Even your reference task might not be exactly in the middle category.

But don´t worry – that´s not a problem. The aim of this process is to find your categories and to find a proper reference task. During the creation of the board and the estimation with your team you can steer that process a bit. Before you estimate your tasks, try to pick tasks, which are very small and also tasks which are very big. This will result in more categories.

But make sure you don´t create unnecessary categories, which don´t deserve to exist by themselves. Before a new category is created, challenge the team by asking “Is the task really notable bigger than the category to the left and also notable smaller than the category to the right?” If not, you might place the task under one of the existing categories instead, and not create a new one.

Now it is also a good time to ask the question: “Was the previously selected reference task a good choice?” The reference task should be in the middle category. If this is not the case, then change your reference task and pick one task from the middle category.

Finally, when your board is in place, you assign a number of story points to each category. See here:

Congratulations, now you have your reference task and also the number of story points for your reference task.

Multiple reference tasks

I suggest to have not only 1 reference task, but 3 reference tasks. In the above example I picked a task from category 2 and a task from category 13 as my additional reference tasks. Having these references in place can help you and your team during estimations. Because it is easier to do estimations, when you have a reference in place.

Make your reference task visible

After a few days people in the team don´t remember anymore, what they chose for their reference tasks. But it is quite important that everybody in the team knows about the reference tasks. Because only with that they are able to do proper estimations relatively to the reference tasks. Therefore it is crucial to make them visible to the team during estimation sessions. For example, put them in your team wiki and show them on the beamer, or write them on the whiteboard, or ask a random guy in front of the group to repeat them – do something so that people remember them!

Ok, that´s it for today – leave a comment if you have anything to say! (Nice rhyme, he?)

Stay tuned and HabbediEhre!

Reference:
https://www.scrum-tips.com/2016/03/05/how-to-choose-a-reference-task/

Startup’s Secrets: How to Run Remote Sprint Planning

2020-05-27T03:27:00.001-07:00

I’ve found that every small win or small difference, often makes the biggest difference in terms of impact. Imagine sprints as small battles, where your startup is fighting in an open arena. Every small victory accumulates, leading to the larger victory of the greater war - which involves outrunning your competition and owning the market.

Before every battle (or sprint), planning is key to achieve small wins and an overall greater victory.
In this article, we’ll teach you everything you need to know about Sprint planning and the steps to follow to run remote sprints. Here’s what we’ll cover:

What is Sprint Planning?
Sprint Planning Roles
How to run an effective Sprint planning meeting?
Why is Sprint planning important?

My goal is to give you the knowledge we gained through our experience practicing scrum (while building a Jira alternative for software teams- meta!), so you can apply it and gain weekly, bi-weekly and monthly progress.