GAVS enGAge Nov 2019

November 2019

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.�

- Arthur C. Clarke

“Technology inspires art, and art challenges the technology.�

- John Lasseter

Contents November 2019

Recent Accolades

enGAge 2019

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Recent Accolades for GAVS

enGAge 2019

GAVS won 2 awards – Digital Excellence in IT / Technology and Best Digital Disruptive Technology of the Year – by the Digital Enterprise Awards & B2B Marketing Awards, for our proprietary AIOps platform, Zero Incident FrameworkTM (ZIF).

We had our annual client event, ‘enGAge’, at Orlando, Florida, from October 3 - 5. This year’s enGAge was themed on ‘Moonshot Goals’ — GAVS’ way of commemorating the 50th year anniversary of Apollo11’s landing on the Moon, and celebrating India’s Chandrayaan-2’s expedition to the Moon.

Contents November 2019

AI

SQL

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Is Your Investment in TRUE AI?

To SQL, NewSQL or NoSQL, that is the Query!

Yes, AIOps the messiah of ITOps is here to stay! The Executive decision now is on the who and how, rather than when. With a plethora of products in the market offering varying shades of AIOps capabilities, choosing the right vendor is critical, to say the least.

The amount of data we produce every day is truly mind-boggling. To leverage all this data, is a SQL-based RDBMS good enough? Is NoSQL better than SQL? In this age of XaaS, where everything is offered as a Service, is NewSQL relevant?

Author:

Author:

Padmapriya Sridhar

Bargunan Somasundaram

Contents November 2019

Holography

Work and Life

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HOLOGRAMS: A Bridge Between the Physical and Virtual World

Balancing Work and Life

On October 2 each year, India celebrates Gandhi Jayanti – the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. And if you are in the same filter bubble as I am, you would have read a news headline saying, “Gandhi Jayanti 2019: Mahatma Gandhi Brought To Life”. How was that made possible?

The age-old question - Work to live or live to work? Where is the balance?

Author:

Author:

Priyanka Pandey

Rama Vani Periasamy

Contents November 2019

Mental Health

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Mental Health at the Workplace – A call to action to make sure we “show up” wherever we go.

The world focused on a complex, yet socially hyper-relevant subject in “Suicide Prevention” on World Health Day last month. As with any global social issue today, organizations such as WHO or WEF showcased their support in addressing it through efforts centered around awareness creation as well as well-thought-out programs that are implementable.

Author: Vidyarth Venkateswaran

who and how, rather than when. With a plethora of products in the market offering varying shades of AIOps capabilities, choosing the right vendor is Critical, to say the least.”

Editor’s Notes

Bargunan has written, “To SQL, NewSQL or NoSQL, that is the Query!”. He writes, “Today’s users are pampered with rapid response times. In a web-based application, if a web page doesn’t refresh within milliseconds customers get quickly frustrated.

If a website is down, customers fear it’s the end of civilization! If a major e-commerce website has an outage, it makes global headlines.”

Priyanka has written, “HOLOGRAMS: A Bridge Between the Physical and Virtual World”. She writes, “What are Holograms? The word holography is taken from the Greek words holos or “whole” and graphē or ‘writing’ or ‘drawing’. Holograms are sort of “photographic ghosts”.”

We also have two articles on Mental Health in this edition. At GAVS, we take mental along with physical well-being seriously and have a day of the week dedicated to conducting activities around this initiative.

Soumika Das

Months of hard work culminated in a splendid event last month in Florida, where GAVS’ annual client event, enGAge was held. This year’s theme was ‘Moonshot Goals’, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s landing on the Moon and celebrate India’s Chandrayaan-2’s lunar expedition. As part of the 3-day event, the guests were welcomed with an evening of Cuban entertainment, taken on a private tour of the Kennedy Space Center, served dinner under the Atlantis spaceship, and enthralled by speeches of some truly inspiring speakers.

The first keynote was delivered by Dr. Rhea Seddon, Astronaut, Author and Surgeon, who spoke about her initial days as a surgeon to how the Earth looked from orbit. The second keynote was by Ms. Rhonda Vetere, Technology Icon, Author, Mentor, Speaker, and Corporate Athlete. She spoke about leadership and how one can make a difference in people’s lives through leadership.

It was also an exciting month for us as our proprietary AIOps platform, Zero Incident FrameworkTM was recognised and awarded for its Business Transformation capabilities. We won two awards at the 3rd Digital Enterprise Summit in Mumbai and one at the GEC Awards, Dubai.

Priya has written, “Is Your Investment in TRUE AI?”. She writes, “Yes, AIOps the messiah of ITOps is here to stay! The Executive decision now is on the

Rama has written “Balancing Work and Life”. She writes, “To put it simply, a meaningful definition for work-life balance will be ‘Achievement and Enjoyment in Work, Family, Friends, Self and in whatever you do.’”

Vidyarth has written “Mental Health at the Workplace – A call to action to make sure we “show up” wherever we go.” He writes, “The world focused on a complex, yet socially hyper relevant subject in “Suicide Prevention” on World Mental Health Day last month. As with any global social issue today, organizations such as the WHO or the WEF showcased their support in addressing it through efforts centered around awareness creation as well as well thought-out programs that are implementable.”

Happy Reading!

Recent Accolades for GAVS

GAVS won 2 awards – Digital Excellence in IT / Technology and Best Digital Disruptive Technology of the Year – by the Digital Enterprise Awards & B2B Marketing Awards, for our proprietary AIOps platform, Zero Incident FrameworkTM (ZIF).

The awards were presented at the 3rd Digital Enterprise Summit 2019 on October 4, at Taj Lands End, Mumbai.

GAVS also won the Best Futuristic BT Solution in Automation award at the GEC Awards 2019, for our AIOps Platform, Zero Incident FrameworkTM.

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GEC Awards is the benchmark for outstanding performances across the Middle Eastern and African IT industry, where leading players in the ICT domain compete for the winning title. Spanning over 50 categories, the jury scrutinizes every nook and corner of progress and innovation in the field of Information Technology and makes sure the deserving ones are recognized, honoured and crowned!

These awards are yet another testimony to the Business Transformation capabilities of ZIF.

70 events thus far, including triathlons, half-marathons, marathons, and IRONMAN 70.3-mile triathlons!

enGAge 2019

We had our annual client event, ‘enGAge’, at Orlando, Florida, from October 3 - 5. This year’s enGAge was themed on ‘Moonshot Goals’ — GAVS’ way of commemorating the 50th year anniversary of Apollo 11’s landing on the Moon, and celebrating India’s Chandrayaan-2’s expedition to the Moon.

The welcome dinner on October 3 was a ‘Havana night’ replete with cigars and roulette tables, lots of music and dancing after some cool networking. It was great to see the guests having fun with their families.

The business sessions on October 4, started with the first keynote by Dr. Rhea Seddon, Astronaut, Author and Surgeon. A woman of many firsts, Dr. Seddon was one of only six women in a class of 100 in medical school and the first woman ever accepted to General Surgery Residency Program. As one of the first six women accepted into the Astronaut Corps, her marriage to fellow Astronaut Capt. Robert “Hoot” Gibson made them the first astronaut couple and the two of them produced the first official ‘astrotots’. She was the eighth woman accepted to the Astronaut Hall of Fame.

Dr. Seddon had the audience enthralled with anecdotes from her initial days as a surgeon to how the Earth looked from orbit. We will soon have the video out, look out for a mail from us, you wouldn’t want to miss this!

The second keynote was by Ms. Rhonda Vetere, technology icon, two-time author, mentor, speaker, and corporate athlete. A passionate leader in technology across industries, Rhonda has lived and worked internationally – in New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, London, Mumbai, and across India – and managed teams of more than 20,000 people and in over 162 countries. Rhonda is a change agent for digital transformation who has led the way for growth with more than 23 mergers and acquisitions at various companies. An avid sports fan and real-world corporate athlete, Rhonda stays focused and sharp by competing in marathons and triathlons on a regular basis – over

Ms. Vetere spoke about leadership and how one can make a difference in people’s lives through leadership.

“Life is a transition, fail hard, fail fast, know it is going to happen and embrace moments, and when you learn to do that, you will fly”, she says. You will receive the video soon. It is replete with anecdotes, and also has her running through the wilderness at Serengati National Park to train for her next triathlon.

The panel discussion was on ‘Moonshot Goals - how AI, Automation, Instrumentation etc. can engender a transformational event within a company and create a disruptive trend’. The panelists were Mr. Chris Wantlin, Chief Information Officer & Chief Digital Officer, Ashley Furniture Industries, Inc., Mr. Joe Reed, Head of Critical Applications Infrastructure, Honeywell, Mr. Durga Dhanikonda, Vice President, Chief Information Officer, SCO, Mr. Sam Esfahani, Senior Technologist, Dr. Mukesh Aghi, President & CEO, US-India Strategic Partnership Forum, and Col. Bruce Carper, Division Vice President, The American College of Cardiology. The session was moderated by our CEO, Sumit Ganguli.

Sumit had some interesting questions, and the leaders tackled the questions with zest. Dr. Aghi spoke on what is aspirational, what is unreasonable, and how he reconciles it with his day to day work. He said “You have to break it down bit by bit, and as long as you are going in the right direction, you will achieve what you want.

Break down the objectives, milestones and make sure you have measurements to those objectives”.

Col. Bruce Carper, with his 23 years in the military and his service in Afghanistan brought it all down plain and clear when he said “I am nothing special...I was proud to go (when he signed up for the military), the burden really was on my wife... and she had to carry the load at home alone...” He spoke about ACC embarking on their digital transformation, a 5-year strategic goal to deliver actionable knowledge at the point of care for physicians, for cardiologists with their patients. Mr. Wantlin spoke about Ashley Furniture’s 1982 moment and how they took on the huge furniture imports coming in from Japan and China, their huge decision moment that is called the ‘rebirth’ moment at Ashley Furniture, their DNA and the 15 major rebirths. Mr. Reed spoke about his global perspective, to get to the next level how Honeywell is looking to moonshot - get to automate, get out of the legacy. He spoke about the support model, the aspect of being ahead of the game, proactive monitoring and the process to get an awareness before their customers do, their drive to be available for the customers 24/7. Mr. Esfahani spoke about his experiences and his life defining moments, customer journey mapping, design thinking and robotic process automation. He spoke about the importance of being evangelists and sell ideas and at the same time know how to impact cycle times and so on to really impact business. Mr. Durga Dhanikonda spoke about using technology to enhance and enable behavioural health to

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their 60,000 clients who are largely children and people who need special care and how they bring technology to deliver business outcomes smoothly so that they can better serve their clients.

The guests had a great time on Friday evening when they were taken on a private tour to the Kennedy Space Center. The evening was truly special with dinner served under the Atlantis Spaceship!

We hope to see you at enGAge 2020!

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Yes, AIOps the messiah of ITOps is here to stay! The Executive decision now is on the who and how, rather than when. With a plethora of products in the market offering varying shades of AIOps capabilities, choosing the right vendor is critical, to say the least.

Exclusively AI-based Ops?

Is Your Investment in TRUE AI?

Padmapriya Sridhar

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Simply put, AIOps platforms leverage Big Data & AI technologies to enhance IT operations. Gartner defines Acquire, Aggregate, Analyze & Act as the four stages of AIOps. These four fall under the purview of Monitoring tools, AIOps Platforms & Action Platforms. However, there is no Industry-recognized mandatory feature list to be supported, for a Platform to be classified as AIOps. Due to this ambiguity in what an AIOps Platform needs to Deliver, huge investments made in rosy AIOps promises can lead to sub-optimal ROI, disillusionment or even derailed projects. Some Points to Ponder...

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Quality in, Quality out. The value delivered from an AIOps investment is heavily dependent on what data goes into the system. How sure can we be that IT Asset or Device monitoring data provided by the Customer is not outdated, inaccurate or patchy?

How sure can we be that we have full visibility of the entire IT landscape? With Shadow IT becoming a tacitly approved aspect of modern Enterprises, are we seeing all devices, applications and users?

Doesn’t this imply that only an AIOps Platform providing Application Discovery & Topology Mapping, Monitoring features would be able to deliver accurate insights?

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There is a very thin line between Also AI and Purely AI. Behind the scenes, most AIOps Platforms are reliant on CMDB or similar tools, which makes Insights like Event Correlation, Noise Reduction etc., rule-based. Where is the AI here?

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In Gartner’s Market Guide, apart from support features for the different data types, Automated Pattern Discovery is the only other Capability taken into account for the Capabilities of AIOps Vendors matrix. With Gartner being one of the most trusted Technology Research and Advisory companies, it is natural for decision makers to zero-in on one of these listed vendors. What is not immediately evident is that there is so much more to AIOps than just this, and with so much at stake, companies need to do their homework and take informed decisions before finalizing their vendor.

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Most AIOps vendors ingest, provide access to & store heterogenous data for analysis, and provide actionable Insights and RCA; at which point the IT team takes over. This is a huge leap forward, since it helps IT work through the data clutter and significantly reduces MTTR. But, due to the absence of comprehensive Predictive, Prescriptive & Remediation features, these are not end-to-end AIOps Platforms.

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At the bleeding edge of the Capability Spectrum is Auto-Remediation based on Predictive & Prescriptive insights. A Comprehensive end-to-end AIOps Platform would need to provide a Virtual Engineer for Auto-Remediation. But, this is a grey area not fully catered to by AIOps vendors.

ZIF Highlights

The big question now is, if an AIOps Platform requires human intervention or multiple external tools to take care of different missing aspects, can it rightfully claim to be true end-to-end AIOps? So, what do we do?

Time for you to sit back and relax! Introducing ZIF- One Solution for all your ITOps ills!

We have you completely covered with the full suite of tools that an IT infrastructure team would need.

We deliver the entire AIOps Capability spectrum and beyond.

ZIF (Zero Incident Framework™) is an AIOps based TechOps platform that enables proactive Detection and Remediation of incidents helping organizations drive towards a Zero Incident Enterprise™.

The Key Differentiator is that ZIF is a Pure-play AI Platform powered by Unsupervised Pattern-based Machine Learning Algorithms. This is what sets us a Class Apart.

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Rightly aligns with the Gartner AIOps strategy. ZIF is based on and goes beyond the AIOps framework Huge Investments in developing various patented AI Machine Learning algorithms, Auto-Discovery modules, Agent & Agentless Application Monitoring tools, Network sniffers, Process Automation, Remediation & Orchestration capabilities to form Zero Incident Framework™

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Powered entirely by Unsupervised Pattern-based Machine Learning Algorithms, ZIF needs no further human intervention and is completely Self-Reliant

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Unsupervised ML empowers ZIF to learn autonomously, glean Predictive & Prescriptive Intelligence and even uncover Latent Insights

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The 5 Modules can work together cohesively or as independent stand-alone components

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Can be Integrated with existing Monitoring and ITSM tools, as required

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Applies LEAN IT Principle and is on an ambitious journey towards FRICTIONLESS IT.

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Realizing a Zero Incident Enterprise

About the Author: Priya is a new joinee at GAVS and is part of the Marketing team. She is passionate about Technology, Indian Classical Art, Travel and Yoga. She aspires to become a Yoga Instructor some day!

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The amount of data we produce every day is truly mind-boggling. To leverage all this data, is a SQL-based RDBMS good enough? Is NoSQL better than SQL? In this age of XaaS, where everything is offered as a Service, is NewSQL relevant?

To SQL, NewSQL or NoSQL, that is the Query!

Let’s try to find answers for the above questions.

Today’s users are pampered with rapid response times.

In a web-based application, if a web page doesn’t refresh within milliseconds customers get quickly frustrated.

If a website is down, customers fear it’s the end of civilization! If a major e-commerce website has an outage, it makes global headlines.

The performance of an application depends mainly on how the data is stored and how efficiently it is used for computations. Faced with new data types at extreme scale, businesses are increasingly choosing alternative methods to store and use their data. Choosing the right alternative takes their business to the next level.

Bargunan Somasundaram

For a high performant application, the following factors need constant tuning.

Scalability: Applications should be able to handle growing amount of workload by adding resources to the system.

High Availability: Minimizing the downtime is important since the applications must run 24x7 and be resilient to failure.

High Performance: As the application scales, its performance also must remain stable and optimal. At the extreme end, Amazon estimates it loses $1.6 billion a year for each additional second taken for one of its pages to load!

Velocity: As web connected sensors are increasingly built into machines (your smartphone being the obvious one), transactions can repeatedly arrive at millions of transactions per second.

Real Time Analytics: Nightly batch processing and Business Intelligence is no longer acceptable. The line between analytical and operational processing is becoming blurred, and there are demands for real-time decision making.

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Unstructured data Unstructured data has an internal structure but is not structured via pre-defined data models or schema. It may be textual or non-textual, and human or machine generated. It may also be stored within a non-relational database like NoSQL. Typical human-generated unstructured data

Understanding the Structure, schema and model of data.

Text files, Email, Social Media content, Website content, Mobile data like Text messages, locations, Media files like MP3, digital images etc., business applications like MS Office and Libre.

“Not every data is created equal”

Typical machine-generated unstructured data

Some are structured, others are either semi-structured, or unstructured. Understanding the distinction between them is vital since they are directly related to choosing the type of database technologies, persistent storage, query pattern and processing required for a high performant application.

Satellite imagery data, Scientific data like oil and gas exploration, space exploration, seismic imagery, atmospheric data, digital surveillance like surveillance photos and videos and Sensor data from traffic, weather, oceanographic sensors.

Structured data •

• • • • • •

Structured data is pretty straightforward to analyze since it adheres to a pre-defined model, that is, it is represented by a logical data model that is defined by a schema in a database It is based on Relational database table since the schema is fixed Matured transactions and various concurrency techniques can be applied It can be versioned over tuples, rows and tables It is less flexible since it is schema dependent It is difficult to scale DB schema for Structured data Since it has a fixed data model, it is extremely efficient in quickly aggregating data from various locations in the database

But structured data represents only 5% to 10% of all informatics data. So, let’s introduce semi structured data.

Semi-structured data Semi-structured data is a form of structured data that does not conform to the formal structure of data models associated with relational databases or other forms of data tables, but nonetheless contain tags or other markers to separate semantic elements and enforce hierarchies of records and fields within the data.

Therefore, it is also known as self-describing structure.

Examples of semi-structured data include JSON and XML. • • • •

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NoSQL databases are considered semi-structured Transaction adapted from DBMS not matured Versioning over tuples or graph is possible It is more flexible than structured data but less than that of unstructured data

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Unstructured data is based on character and binary data Transaction management and concurrency techniques cannot be enforced on unstructured data On the scalability and flexibility front, it is highly scalable and flexible since it is schema-less Only textual queries are possible

Key factors for choosing SQL (RDBMS) Structure A SQL Database follows a table like structure which can have an unlimited number of rows and every data present inside the database is properly structured with Predefined Schema, i.e. columns (attributes), rows (records) and keys have constrained logical relationships.

Transactional Properties A SQL Database is stable and is always preferred when doing heavy duty transactions. The reason being it keeps the data very secure through data integrity and atomicity. It follows ACID Property which stands for Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability.

Scalability A SQL Database is always vertically scalable. If there is heavy load on the server, then it can be handled by increasing the CPU, SSD, RAM, etc. This will work only on a single server. Also, the onus of sharding or partitioning is often on the user and is not well supported in SQL. Thus, the load will be high on the single node server.

Support and communities SQL databases are backed by massive communities, stable codebases, and proven standards. Multitudes of examples are posted online, and experts are available to support those new to programming relational data.

Popular SQL databases and RDBMSs • • • • • •

MySQL Oracle Sybase MS SQL Server MariaDB PostgreSQL

Choose SQL when, • • • •

There is logical relation within the discrete data requirements, which can be identified up-front i.e. Structured data.

Handling query intensive complex databases.

Data integrity is essential.

Standards-based proven technology with good developer experience and support is required.

Key factors for choosing NoSQL Structure NoSQL databases do not stick to any format, but generally fit into one of the following four broad categories: •

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Column-oriented databases transpose roworiented RDBMSs, allowing efficient storage of high-dimensional data and individual records with varying attributes.

Key-Value stores are dictionaries which access diverse objects with a key unique to each.

Document stores hold semi-structured data, objects which contain all their own relevant information, and which can be completely different from each other.

Graph databases add the concept of relationships (direct links between objects) to documents, allowing rapid traversal of greatly connected data sets.

Transactional Properties NoSQL technologies adhere to the ‘CAP’ theorem, which says that in any distributed database, only two of the following properties can be guaranteed at once: • •

Consistency: Every request receives the most recent result, or an error. (Note this is different than in ACID) Availability: Every request has a non-error result, regardless of how recent that result is.

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Partition tolerance: Any delays or losses between nodes will not interrupt the system’s operation.

Scalability NoSQL databases scale horizontally, meaning that they can handle increased traffic simply by adding more servers to the database. NoSQL databases have the ability to become larger and more powerful, so they are great for handling large or constantly evolving data sets.

Support and communities NoSQL technologies are being adopted quickly, but communities remain small and more fractured.

However, many SQL languages are proprietary or associated with large single vendors, while NoSQL communities benefit from open systems and concerted commitment to onboarding users.

Popular NoSQL Databases • • • • •

MongoDB Apache’s CouchDB HBase Oracle NoSQL Apache’s Cassandra DB

Choose NoSQL when, • • • •

There is unrelated, indeterminate or evolving data requirements i.e Unstructured or semistructured data.

• While handling hierarchical data, NoSQL database proves to be a better fit.

• There are simpler project objectives, and need rapid development.

Speed and scalability are imperative.

What’s NewSQL? NewSQL is a class of modern relational DBMSs that seek to provide the same scalable performance of NoSQL for OLTP workloads and simultaneously guarantee ACID compliance for transactions as in RDBMS. In other words, these systems want to achieve the scalability of NoSQL without having to discard the relational model of SQL and transaction support of the legacy DBMS. Popular NewSQL Databases • • • • • • •

ClustrixDB NuoDB CockroachDB MemSQL VoltDB Percona TokuDB ActorDB

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Choose NewSQl when, • • • •

There are less complex applications, greater consistency i.e. Structured data.

Convenient standard tooling.

SQL influenced extensions.

More traditional data and query models for NoSQL-style clustering.

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Personalized Web Adverts — To dynamically select personalized web-based adverts in real time, record the event for billing purposes, and maintain the outcome for subsequent analysis

Which Applications Need NewSQL Technology?

Any application which requires very high ingest rates and fast response times (average 1-2 milliseconds), but also demands transactional accuracy provided by ACID guarantees — for example, customer billing.

Typical applications include: •

Real-Time Authorization — For example, validating, recording and authorizing phone calls for analysis and billing purposes. Typically, 99.999% of database operations must complete within 50 milliseconds.

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Real-Time Fraud Detection — Used to complete complex analytic queries to accurately determine the likelihood of fraud before the transaction is authorized.

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Gaming Analytics — Used to dynamically modify gaming difficulty in real-time based on ability and typical customer behavior. The aim is to retain existing customers and convert others from free to paying players. One client was able increase customer spend by 40% using these techniques, where speed, availability and accuracy are critical.

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Conclusion As a rule of thumb, consider SQL when there is a requirement for vertical scaling with ACID properties while NoSQL for horizontal scaling with BASE properties. NewSQL is best choice when working with Bigdata OLTP applications, Since NewSQL is enhancement of SQL providing horizontal scaling while maintaining ACID properties.

About the Author: Bargunan is a Big Data Engineer and a programming enthusiast. His passion is to share his knowledge by writing his experiences about them. He believes “Gaining knowledge is the first step to wisdom and sharing it is the first step to humanity.”

On October 2 each year, India celebrates Gandhi Jayanti – the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. And if you are in the same filter bubble as I am, you would have read a news headline saying, “Gandhi Jayanti 2019: Mahatma Gandhi Brought To Life”. How was that made possible?

HOLOGRAMS: A Bridge Between the Physical and Virtual World

On October 2, 2019, the fourth Ahimsa lecture was organised by UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) in cooperation with the Permanent Delegation of India at the UNESCO headquarters, Paris. It was this lecture that brought Gandhi to life in the form of a three-dimensional hologram. This life-sized hologram addressed the audience on Gandhian thoughts. Another time holograms were in the news was when the Prime Minister of India, Mr. Narendra Modi, used holograms during his election campaign in 2014. He used 3D holograms to speak live at rallies in dozens of remote towns all over India. It was the first time that hologram technology was used in a general election campaign.

Holograms also found their place in a famous German circus, Roncalli, to make it cruelty-free. It replaced real animals with massive, stunning holographic animals that included horses, lions and elephants.

They collaborated with Bluebox and used eleven laser projectors to achieve this.

Priyanka Pandey

Narendra Modi at a live 3D hologram telecast Holographic elephant in Circus Roncalli

If you think you haven’t seen a hologram in real, then

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think again. Holograms are used in our daily lives more often than you think. Chances are you are carrying one in your pocket right now. Currency notes such as the Brazilian real, British pound, South Korean won, Japanese yen, Indian rupee and all the currently circulating banknotes of the Canadian dollar, Croatian kuna, Danish krone, and Euro have security holograms or diffractive Optically Variable Devices (OVDs) on it.

It can also be found on credit and debit cards, ID cards, books, etc. Security holograms are used for protection against counterfeiting as they are very difficult to forge.

This is because they are reproduced from a master hologram that requires technologically advanced equipments and highly specialized work demanding expertise in this field. Nearly 100 countries over the world employ a hologram to protect their banknotes.

Hologram on an Indian 500 rupee note

Hologram on a Credit Card

What are Holograms? The word holography is taken from the Greek words holos or “whole” and graphē or ‘writing’ or ‘drawing’. Holograms are sort of “photographic ghosts”. It is a physical structure that uses light diffraction to create an image which appears to be three-dimensional showing depth and parallax. If you look at holograms from different angles, you would see objects changing perspectives, just like you would if you were looking at a real object. Some holograms even appear to move as you walk past them. A hologram is almost like a hybrid of viewing a photograph and a real object. One of the interesting properties of a hologram is that even when it is torn in small pieces, the whole image can be seen in each piece! This technology is not new, it emerged many decades ago. It can be traced back to the late 1940s, when the Hungarian-British physicist

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Dennis Gabor invented electron holography. The development of laser enabled the first practical optical holograms that recorded 3D objects.

To create a hologram, a laser beam is split into two separate halves and both the light waves travel in identical ways. One part of the beam bounces off a mirror, hits the object, and reflects onto the photographic plate inside which the hologram will be created. The other part of the beam bounces off another mirror and hits the same photographic plate.

By recombining these beams in the photographic plate, we can identify how the light rays in the first beam have changed as compared to the second beam. This shows how the object changes after light rays fall onto it. This information is engraved permanently into the photographic plate by the laser beams.

In its early days, holography required high-power and expensive lasers, but now, mass-produced low-cost laser diodes can be used and have made holography much more accessible. Most of us have experienced 2D and 3D technologies but the latest addition to the holographic technology is 7D. 7D hologram is a technique of capturing a high-quality hologram using 7 parameters, called dimensions. From each viewpoint in a threedimensional space, viewing direction is captured in a two-dimensional space and for each viewing direction time and light properties are captured. So, the seven parameters are: 3D position + 2D angle + time + image intensity (light properties). In simpler words, the main difference between a 3D and a 7D Hologram is that in 7D the subject or the whole scenario is captured from a larger number of viewpoints. This technology is still in the experimental stage but we will soon be able to experience it.

Holograms have appeared in a wide range of books, liveaction movies, television series, animations etc. There has been unrealistic depiction of holograms in fiction, which resulted in the general public having overly high expectations of the capabilities of holography.

Some of the famous movies that featured holograms are Star Wars, Batman, Iron Man, Wall-E and Avatar.

Star Trek, Power Rangers, The Simpsons and The Flash are some of the TV series which featured this technology. Holography has gained a lot of popularity in the world of video gaming as well. Recently, Sony Interactive Entertainment was granted a patent for a 3D holographic display screen by USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) which will be compatible with a game console to experience PlayStation 3D games without the 3D glasses. It has detailed eye tracking as well as facial recognition technology included. It can determine the number of people looking at the display. It is equipped with cameras and a light sensor which calculate the distance between the gamer and the screen. What’s more, this screen is even capable of recognizing gestures, including blinking of eyes, winking or nodding the head.

Hologram in the movie ‘Iron Man’ A team of researchers in Japan of Burton Inc., created a holographic projector which enables laser focused aerial display of text and images. It is achieved by focusing 1kHz infrared pulse to a single point in the air and breaking down air molecules to separate positive and negative ions. The team designed this technology to be used for communication assistance during any disaster or emergency situations by producing bright floating holograms. One of the problems with this system is that the intensity of the laser is so high that, if it comes in contact with the skin of the user, it can cause significant burns. So, a new system has been designed allowing users to interact with the mid-air images by using femtosecond lasers which have lesser intensity. Not only are these holograms safe to touch but can also be felt. These tangible aerial holographic images are called Fairy Lights. Another application of the holographic technology is the Euclideon Hologram Table which is the world’s first multi-user hologram table. It can be used to display digital models of cities or buildings which can be zoomed in to single blades of grass. As claimed by the company, users can pick up objects from the hologram and move them around on the table. This table is commercially available for businesses.

Recently, a Japanese hotel ‘Henn-na’ caught the eye of the media for using friendly dinosaurs as their frontdesk staff. This hotel, located in Tokyo’s buzzing Ginza district, is the world’s first hologram hotel. While checking in, the visitors are welcomed at the reception by holographic virtual staff like a ninja, or even a dinosaur (who apparently gets excited every time it sees a human). This allows real human staff to do other important work. Each hologram can speak 4 different languages — English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

There are cameras and sensors placed at the front desk which alerts the holographic receptionists when someone approaches. They can also read the visitors’ emotions and respond accordingly. This hotel is part of Japan’s cutting-edge hotel chain that opened one of the first hotels completely staffed by robots. The company behind Henn-na has revealed plans to open more than 100 properties worldwide over the next five years.

Front-desk of the Henn-na Hotel in Japan As we move towards a digitally advanced future, the potential of fusing physical atmosphere with the virtual world interaction between the physical and virtual worlds will no longer remain just a figment of our imagination. Holograms have many interesting and effective use cases which can push the limits of user experience. It has a wide scope of transforming businesses in new and unforeseen ways when fully implemented.

References: telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/ india/10803961/Magic-Modi-uses-hologram-toaddress-dozens-of-rallies-at-once.html https://www.explainthatstuff.com/holograms.html https://www.bloomberg.com/news/ videos/2019-10-06/japan-s-hologram-hotel-video https://www.theurbanlist.com/a-list/japan-robothotel https://interestingengineering.com/german-circusreplaces-animals-with-stunning-holograms

About the Author: Priyanka is an ardent feminist and a dog-lover. She spends her free time cooking, reading poetry and exploring new ways to conserve the environment.

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The age-old question - Work to live or live to work? Where is the balance?

I don’t have time for_____.

How many times have you uttered these words, either out loud to a friend or to yourself? When you feel this way, it’s a wake-up call to re-evaluate your priorities.

How about taking a quiz to find out how well you are balancing the demands of your work and family?

Balancing Work and Life

For the statements below, rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 5.

1-Never 2-Rarely 3-Occasionally 4-Often 5- Always Add up your total for each category and then add up those totals for an overall score for all categories.

Let’s get started: Know your balance Personal 1.

Rama Vani Periasamy

Your family complains that you don’t spend enough time with them. _____ 2. You are resentful for having responsibilities at home. _____ 3. You expect your family to adapt to your personal or work schedule. _____ 4. You often feel worried about your family’s needs. _____ Total for category: _____ Work 1.

You worry that your job interferes with your family or personal needs. _____ 2. You feel guilty about the time you spend at work, or for work. _____ 3. It bothers you to bring work home. _____ 4. You feel dissatisfied with your current income. _____ Total for category: _____ You 1. You feel guilty when you take a vacation. _____ 2. You yearn for a holiday. _____ 3. When it comes to doing things or activities, you feel you never get to do what you like. _____ 4. You feel that you never have enough time for yourself. _____ Total for category:

_____

Total for all categories:

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_____

Here’s what your score says: • • • •

If your total score is less than 20: You have learned to balance family, work and your needs.

A total score of 21–30: You have managed a good balance with some need for improvement.

If your total score is 31–40: You have a fair balance with areas for improvement.

A total score of 41–50: You are having trouble managing your family, work and personal needs.

If you are in the 40-50 bracket, then this article is for you. Now sit back, relax and read.

If you frequent bookstores, you’d have noticed that the self-help books section is devoted to books on work, life and the art of balancing it. The irony is that most times we do not even find the time to read a book or two. Are we really that occupied? Do we really have so much on our plates that we fail to manage work, family and a social life?

To begin with, do you think work-life balance is scheduling an equal number of hours for your work and personal activities? That is unrealistic. But when you have achieved and enjoyed something at work and your personal life, wouldn’t you find that to be more fulfilling? This may seem simple, but this fulfillment is difficult to find, for most of us. This forms the core of the art of balancing work and life.

We have a fair understanding of the word ‘Achievement’.

Enjoyment doesn’t just mean being happy. It is about a feeling of pride, satisfaction, zero stress and a sense of wellbeing. To put it simply, a meaningful definition for work-life balance will be “Achievement and Enjoyment in Work, Family, Friends, Self and in whatever you do.”

So, ask yourself now, when was the last time you Achieved and Enjoyed something at work? What about with your family? And most importantly, how recently have you Achieved and Enjoyed something just for yourself?

At work you can create your own Work-Life Balance by making sure you not only Achieve, but also enjoy and pass on the happiness to others. Say, if nobody pats you on the back today, pat yourself on the back. And help others do the same. That would surely bring a smile on your face and on the person who receives it. When you are a person who not only gets things done, but also enjoys doing, it attracts people to you. They want you on their team and they want to be on your team.

So how do you fill your day with achievement and enjoyment?

1. Take advantage of ‘Me time’ – ‘Me time’ doesn’t really have to be a day at a spa. Squeeze in some time in between your busy day to relax. It could be as simple as sketching or writing a journal, calling up an old friend or taking yourself for out for a nice lunch. These not only boost your endorphins but also relax your muscles and help you focus on the tasks ahead.

I remember as a kid, I’d see my mother multitask effortlessly. She never complained about the work-life imbalance. However, cut-throat competition, social validation and extreme ambitions prevail nowadays. Be it work life or social life, numbers matter. There’s a lot of pressure to be overly productive and successful. We run behind the numbers, forgetting our own selves and the purpose of our lives. Goals are important in one’s life. But it shouldn’t stand in the way of being able to allocate time to do things we love. That is where the art of balancing comes in.

2. Learn to say ‘NO’ – There’s always going to be another email or an assignment from your boss or your client but saying no politely will never make you a bad person. Reluctantly accepting a task and then fretting about meeting the deadline is only going to stress you out. Wouldn’t it be easier to say a polite no in the first place with a proper reason?

Remember that it is better to say no now than be resentful later.

Since we celebrated Mental Health Awareness Week in October, I find it appropriate to write a piece on how to handle work and life and strike that elusive balance.

3. Make plans - Plans and schedules always helps in reducing stress at work and in personal life.

Keep your plans realistic. Make your plans in

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these buckets - work, family, chores, fun. Focus on eliminating unimportant tasks and activities that distract you and drain your time.

4. Set your boundaries – Identify your priorities at work and in personal life. Draw firm boundaries, so that you devote time to your priorities. Trim down those activities that are distracting. Let go of things that you can’t tend to.

5. Reduce stress at work – Do you recollect the phrase that is associated with the theory of relativity, a hot stove and a pretty girl? or to put it another way, walking ten minutes with a nagging wife or husband can be stressful, causing more fatigue than walking ten miles with an adoring sweetheart. Now relate that with work. We rarely get stressed when we are doing something interesting and exciting. When you start enjoying your work, it becomes less stressful. Where your interests are, there lies your energy.

sitting back, letting go and relaxing. Simple concepts.

When they are prioritized as key components, they aren’t hard to implement. So, make it happen and strike that balance both at work and in life.

Sources: https://www.shutterstock.com/search/ work+life+balance+women?image_type=illustration https://www.careersinaudit.com/article/how-toachieve-work-life-balance/

Balance isn’t something that you find time for. It is something you achieve, enjoy and create. It’s about drawing boundaries, taking time, making choices, About the Author: Rama is that everyday woman you see who juggles family and a 9 hour work schedule. She loves reading history, fiction, attempting half marathons and travelling.

To break the monotony of life and to share her interest in books & travel, she blogs and curates at www. kindleandkompass.com

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The world focused on a complex, yet socially hyperrelevant subject in “Suicide Prevention” on World Mental Health Day last month. As with any global social issue today, organizations such as WHO or WEF showcased their support in addressing it through efforts centered around awareness creation as well as wellthought-out programs that are implementable.

For the uninitiated – let’s look at some broad numbers

Mental Health at the Workplace – A call to action to make sure we “show up” wherever we go.

to start with.

• •

• •

•

As per the WHO, suicide takes a life every 40 seconds, making it the principal cause of death among people fifteen to twenty-nine years old.

An estimated 275 million people suffer from anxiety disorders and depression today. That’s around 4% of the global population. Around 62% of those suffering from anxiety are female (170 million), compared with 105 million male sufferers.

An estimated 26% of Americans aged 18 and older - about 1 in 4 adults - suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder each year.

Approximately 9.5% of American adults aged 18 and over, will suffer from a depressive illness (major depression, bipolar disorder, or dysthymia) each year.

In low- and middle-income countries, between 76% and 85% of people with mental disorders receive no treatment for their disorder. In high-income countries, between 35% and 50% of people with mental disorders are in the same situation.

While one might be forgiven if these issues do not “show up” at the workplace or do not negatively impact business and productivity, a look under the carpet reveals even more startling numbers: Vidyarth Venkateswaran

• •

•

•

A recent study revealed that 48% of British workers have experienced a mental health problem in their current job.

In India, nearly 42.5% of employees in the private sector suffer from depression or anxiety disorder, per the results of a study conducted by Assocham.

Per the National Mental Health Survey of India (2015-16), nearly 15% of Indian adults need active interventions for one or more mental health issues.

The UK loses an estimated 70 million mandays of effort due to conditions related to poor mental health – the resultant cost being in the range of £100 billion. On the flip side, the costs from ‘Presentism’ are double that number.

Not all is gloom and doom though. Many studies have shown that companies of all shapes and sizes increasingly understand the importance of good mental health. Today’s leaders are aware of the negative

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impact that poor mental health has on business and productivity. Firms are experimenting with and implementing proactive practices such as employee friendly policies to manage working hours, Fun@ Work programs, Employee Assistance programs etc. to promote mental well-being in their employees.

The aim here is not to establish that this subject is important and needs attention. It is however – a call to action. It is an attempt at emphasizing that while the initiatives at a strategic level are perhaps the norm, there is an increasing need for the effort to become even more individualized at the grass roots. Safeguarding staff well-being, addressing problems before they become severe, enabling those suffering with counseling when issues do emerge, need more headspace in discussions. To put things in perspective, here are some interesting practices that came to light as part of a recent study: • • •

• • • •

• •

Leaders were encouraged to conduct a formal / informal review of employee mental health metrics along with quarterly financial results Mental Health and Awareness sessions/events are being conducted periodically Accountability is being established and Mental Health agenda is being driven through Wellness officers at senior leadership levels across all teams Improving mental well-being as a driver to improving business productivity is taking an increasingly important role Line Managers are being trained to enhance mental well-being in their teams.

Companies are beginning to include Mental Wellness under “Return to Work” programs and other benefits packages Enabling anonymous communication channels to encourage open communication and initiatives that work towards reducing the taboo that accompanies poor mental health Enforcing practices through an Employee Wellness policy Introducing “Power Down” hours where employees are encouraged to step away from their laptops and engage in non-work related interactions with their colleagues

At GAVS, we are proud to say that the topic of Mental Well-being of employees is very important to everyone across the board. For over a year now, employee initiatives under the #WELLNESS and Wellness Wednesdays umbrella have taken shape and are driving this agenda across the board. From guided meditation sessions focusing on self-awareness by some of our certified colleagues, Workstation Yoga, to targeted interventions through talks / sessions by experts, dedicated leadership to enhanced employee experience from Hire to Rehire, dedicated millennium bays where leaders and employees alike are encouraged to unwind, GAVS proactively does its bit in enabling and ensuring each GAVSian is given the opportunity to address his /

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her mental well-being. Flexible work arrangements and an open-door policy to the organization’s leadership are examples of other initiatives that focus on the broader employee well-being agenda as well.

Regarded as one of the greatest artists of her generation, Glenn Close said it with grace – “What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, and more unashamed conversation.” It is time, that as professionals and leaders, we embrace what it means to drive growth for our clients and our business and do it while also embracing ‘being human’.

References: https://www.tpr.org/post/how-can-we-changeminds-about-mental-health https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ suicide https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ mental-disorders https://www.assocham.org/newsdetail.php?id=4918 https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/our-work/mentalhealth-workplace https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/this-isthe-worlds-biggest-mental-health-problem/ https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellnessand-prevention/mental-health-disorder-statistics About the Author: Vidyarth is an Associate Vice President at GAVS with the Customer Success team at GAVS Technologies.

An ex-Accenture Strategy client engagement manager with over 8 years of Strategy and Management Consulting experience across multiple industries, he has managed projects and client accounts across USA, Europe, Singapore, Japan and Malaysia. He has led numerous engagements enabling digital transformation, operating model definition and improvement, business process and IT architecture and Supply Chain transformation for clients. In his role at GAVS, Vidyarth is currently responsible for, and drives strategic interventions that are focused on transforming GAVS’ business practices to enable bestin-class IP and solution-delivery to our clients.

“One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.�

- Elbert Hubbard

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