Case Study: Compuware’s DevOps Transformation

I just read this case on ITRevolution.  Compuware is a mainframe company, and they moved to DevOps.

David Rizzo is the Vice President of Product Development at Compuware. He led the organization through their transformation to an agile and DevOps company, and at the DevOps Enterprise Summit he shared the story.  This video is 25 mins and worth watching, if you still are curious about DevOps and wonder how a mainframe company moved there.  Or if you prefer to read about what is said in the video, you can read the case study @ IT Revolution./

 


 Here are the main takeaways (You can read them all at ITRevolution) :

 1 — RECOGNIZING WE HAD A PROBLEM 
When we took a look at our company, these were the problems that we identified:

• We had been doing Waterfall for 40 years. 

• We had been a slow-moving development organization.   We were trying to compete in the digital economy, which requires you to be fast, (fast beats slow.) 

• We needed to be innovative, and have lot of new ideas. Ideation is the key to success in the new economy. 

• We needed to maintain quality.  Being a software vendor, quality is number one. So we had to make sure that we were able to measure, maintain, and ultimately improve our quality as we moved through a transformation to a full DevOps organization.

Read more at IT Revolution @ https://itrevolution.com/case-study-compuware-rizzo/

Rizzo ends with: 

5 — HOW DID WE REALLY ACHIEVE THIS?

We’ve been doing this for about three years now, but you might be asking yourself ‘How did we really achieve this? What was the process that we followed?’

What we’ve done is created our 10-Steps to Agile Development and DevOps on the Mainframe.

A CONVERSATION WITH DANIEL ELLSBERG

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25 AT 5:00PM | GENERAL ADMISSION: $10 • LOFT MEMBERS: $8 • WITH POST-SCREENING RECEPTION, INCLUDING LIGHT HORS D’OEUVRES: $25

If you want to go, you can buy tickets at The Loft Cinema or online.

Before Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, there was Daniel Ellsberg. As a central figure in toppling the myths that perpetuated the war in Vietnam, Ellsberg exposed government secrets and lies, and consequently was both vilified and lionized. In the 47 years since the publication of the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg has appeared in films dozens of times – either as a character in fictionalized versions of the story (most recently in Steven Spielberg’s The Post), or as himself in documentary films.

At this very special event, Daniel Ellsberg and The Loft Cinema’s Executive Director Peggy Johnson, a political journalist with Arizona Public Media for 25 years, will discuss the Pentagon Papers and how that event, and Ellsberg himself, have been portrayed in films and how those films inform public knowledge and opinion.

About Daniel Ellsberg

In 1959, Daniel Ellsberg, who earned his Ph.D. in economics at Harvard, became a strategic analyst at the RAND Corporation and consultant to the Defense Department and the White House, specializing in problems of the command and control of nuclear weapons, nuclear war plans, and crisis decision-making. In 1961 he drafted the guidance from Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the operational plans for general nuclear war. He was a member of two working groups reporting to the executive committee of the National Security Council (EXCOM) during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

Ellsberg worked on the top secret McNamara study of U.S. Decision-making in Vietnam, 1945-68, which later came to be known as the Pentagon Papers. In 1969, he photocopied the 7,000 page study and gave it to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; in 1971 he gave it to the New York Times, the Washington Post and 17 other newspapers. On January 3, 1973, Ellsberg was charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 along with other charges of theft and conspiracy, carrying a total maximum sentence of 115 years. His trial was dismissed in 1973 on grounds of governmental misconduct against him.

His recent book, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, a book with his recollections and analysis of a second cache of secret documents related to the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The book stated that US governments documents revealed that President Eisenhower empowered a few top military officers to be able to use nuclear weapons without presidential authorization in case there was incapacitation or no way to contact the president. Ellsberg believes that similar procedures remain in place today – in sharp contrast to what the American public is told about who holds the keys to launch a nuclear attack.

Since the end of the Vietnam War, Ellsberg has been a lecturer, writer and activist on the dangers of the nuclear era. He is a senior fellow of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

Here is how to get tickets.    It will likely sell out.

Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg

On Tuesday, April 24, from 7:00 - 8:30pm. “The Haury Conversation: Daniel Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky Discuss Nuclear War”

Don't miss this once-in-a-lifetime conversation between UA Professor Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg. Daniel Ellsberg, best known as the whistleblower who released the Pentagon Papers, has authored a new book titled The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. The discussion will be moderated by Betsy Reed, the editor-in-chief of The Intercept.

First Look Media, the parent company of The Intercept, will broadcast a free livestream so viewers from around the world can watch. https://chomsky.arizona.edu/livestream.  Click here to be notified on your calendar.

Sinclair's Propoganda

This is example of biased media coverage affecting local news. Trump said all news was fake news, except The Sinclair Group. Why?  They own close to 72% of the local news market and publish fake news that supports Trump.  John Oliver covered this last year, but here is brief update:

 

Have you heard of The Sinclair Group?  

Here is an even better video.  Published first on CNN money (and linked in this article),  Timothy Burke reported this article on Deadspin on 3/31/18.  John Oliver reported his video on 4/1.  How America's Largest Local TV Owner Turned Its News Anchors Into Soldiers In Trump's War On The Media.  The video is priceless, but the links embedded in the article provide more detail on how local news media are upset about the required scripts.

Comments welcome.

The Grim Conclusions of the Largest-Ever Study of Fake News

We now know that 87 million Facebook accounts (including yours) given over to Cambridge Analytica, and that Cambridge Analytica was funded the the Mercer Foundation, a millionaire Trump supporter.  We also know that  Zuckerberg is testifying before skeptical lawmakers wary of Facebook’s power (what took you so long??).  So, a discussion ensued about whether you would know if news was true or fake?

Here is the article I mentioned in class of the "Largest-Ever Study of Fake News", published in Science, but the full details are disclosed in more detail in The Atlantic (with a link to the Science article).   It's really fascinating.   The opening quote motivated me to continue.  I hope you read it, too.

It was hyperbole three centuries ago. But it is a factual description of social media, according to an ambitious and first-of-its-kind study published Thursday in Science. 

The massive new study analyzes every major contested news story in English across the span of Twitter’s existence—some 126,000 stories, tweeted by 3 million users, over more than 10 years—and finds that the truth simply cannot compete with hoax and rumor. By every common metric, falsehood consistently dominates the truth on Twitter, the study finds: Fake news and false rumors reach more people, penetrate deeper into the social network, and spread much faster than accurate stories. 

“It seems to be pretty clear [from our study] that false information outperforms true information,” said Soroush Vosoughi, a data scientist at MIT who has studied fake news since 2013 and who led this study. “And that is not just because of bots. It might have something to do with human nature.”

This new paper looks at nearly the entire lifespan of Twitter: every piece of controversial news that propagated on the service from September 2006 to December 2016. But to do that, Vosoughi and his colleagues had to answer a more preliminary question first: What is truth? And how do we know?

Read on to find out what the study reveals.  Then comment below.

Work and the Loneliness Epidemic

In Section 1, there was a talk about social media. One of the topics was the association of social media and depression. An article in the Depression and Anxiety Journal, published in April, 2016, the authors surveyed 1,787 adults ages 19 to 32 about social media (SM) use and depression and found that SM use was significantly associated with increased depression. The social media platforms analyzed in the questionnaires included Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Vine and LinkedIn. This self-reported data only reveals a strong correlation and the article suggests possible reasons why this is the case.

In the HBR article on Work and Loneliness Epidemic, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy says, 

There is good reason to be concerned about social connection in our current world. Loneliness is a growing health epidemic. We live in the most technologically connected age in the history of civilization, yet rates of loneliness have doubled since the 1980s. Today, over 40% of adults in America report feeling lonely, and research suggests that the real number may well be higher. Additionally, the number of people who report having a close confidante in their lives has been declining over the past few decades. In the workplace, many employees — and half of CEOs — report feeling lonely in their roles.

Chances are, you or someone you know has been struggling with loneliness. According to Dr. Murthy, "loneliness and weak social connections are associated with a reduction in lifespan similar to that caused by smoking 15 cigarettes a day and even greater than that associated with obesity."

But we haven’t focused nearly as much effort on strengthening connections between people as we have on curbing tobacco use or obesity. Loneliness is also associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, depression, and anxiety. At work, loneliness reduces task performance, limits creativity, and impairs other aspects of executive function such as reasoning and decision making. For our health and our work, it is imperative that we address the loneliness epidemic quickly.

What to do? If we are to prioritize our health and the health of our companies, the workplace is one of the most important places to cultivate social connections. Here are some ways mentioned in the article:

• Evaluate the current state of connections in your workplace. Strong social connections are not simply about the number of friends and family members one has; it’s the quality of those connections that matters more. (You can be surrounded by many people and have thousands of connections on LinkedIn or Facebook and still be lonely.)

• Build understanding of high-quality relationships. Strong social connections are characterized by meaningful shared experiences and mutually beneficial two-way relationships, where both individuals give and receive.

• Make strengthening social connections a strategic priority in your organization. Designing and modeling a culture that supports connection is more important than any single program.

• Encourage coworkers to reach out and help others — and accept help when it is offered. Although it may seem counterintuitive to assist others when you are feeling lonely, extending help to others and allowing yourself to receive help builds a connection that is mutually affirming. 

• Create opportunities to learn about your colleagues’ personal lives. The likelihood that authentic social connections will develop is greater when people feel understood and appreciated as individuals with full lives.

                                       
Even with an active college life, the more time you spend on social media, the less time you spend creating social connections. Some questions:

• Do you listen to friends when they talk about their lives, or are you on your phone as you "listen"? 

• When you have a meal with a friend (or friends), do you feel socially connected to them?  Why or why not?  Any examples come to mind?

• How do you build high-quality relationships with friends and family? What do you do together? (Texting is not doing that, no matter what you think.) 

• Consider this: If you go out on a date (or meet a person you don't know well), are you both on your phones because you are bored and don't know what to say to each other, or do you find out about the person to see if this will lead to more dates/a new friendship?

Thoughts? Other examples of making social connections, frustrations about how others behave, or do you prefer to text and find it hard to actually talk to people face-to-face?

Noam Chomsky, "American Exceptionalism: Reconsidered"

Noam Chomsky, one of the most cited scholars in modern history,
to give free lecture at Joel D. Valdez Main Library

He’s considered the founder of modern linguistics, been called one of the most influential public intellectuals in the world and America’s most useful citizen, and authored more than 100 books on topics as wide-ranging as linguistics, war, politics, and mass media.

Now Noam Chomsky will speak at Joel D. Valdez Main Library on Friday, April 13 at 7 pm.

Chomsky will deliver “American Exceptionalism: Reconsidered,” a lecture which is free and open to the public. The lecture will offer a timely and important discussion of some of the ways in which American society has departed from the world, sometimes in extreme and hazardous ways. Included will be a look at gun culture, a topic that has dominated headlines in recent years.  You can find the event link on FB @ https://www.facebook.com/events/180378775932615

Example of State Machine Diagram

As with the Sequence Diagram, the same author provides a partial example of a state diagram.  I hope this video helps to explain the process without having to go into great detail on all parts.

Example of System Sequence Diagram

Here is a video from Udacity explaining the System Sequence Diagram in a way that may make more sense for how it works.   Feel free to ask any questions.

Trusting Strangers

In a discussion on D2L, we will explore The Economy of Trust.  What happens when we've stopped trusting institutions and started trusting strangers?  Here is a video that explores this topic.  The link above reveals many Ted Talks on this topic.

A related topic from Wired in 2014 discusses "How Airbnb and Lyft finally got Americans to trust each other."

The sharing economy has come on so quickly and powerfully that regulators and economists are still grappling to understand its impact. But one consequence is already clear: Many of these companies have us engaging in behaviors that would have seemed unthinkably foolhardy as recently as five years ago. We are hopping into strangers’ cars (Lyft, Sidecar, Uber), welcoming them into our spare rooms (Airbnb), dropping our dogs off at their houses (DogVacay, Rover), and eating food in their dining rooms (Feastly). We are letting them rent our cars (RelayRides, Getaround), our boats (Boatbound), our houses (HomeAway), and our power tools (Zilok). We are entrusting complete strangers with our most valuable possessions, our personal experiences—and our very lives.

We will continue this discussion on D2L, but feel free to comment below on your thoughts about this sharing economy.

Bitcoin Basics

I know we talked about Blockchain, but the question is always asked about why bitcoin prices fluctuate so much.  I found this link helpful to understanding digital currency basics at Coinbase.  You can also ask a question there, if these links are not helpful.

Blockchain

At the talk during the IT Summit, of which many of you participated, I thought I would share with you other events and videos.  A video and articles helps to get your head around this process.

First, here is a brief 2-minute intro to Blockchain.

 

The speaker mentioned the MIT Media Lab.  Of course, there are many labs around the world working on this.  With that said, here is a link to an event on "The Business of Blockchain" at the MIT Media Lab and published (with videos) in the MIT Technology Review.  We can continue the discussion in class, but feel free to comment here, or ask questions.

John Oliver's Attempt to Explain Cryptocurrency

Some of you have posted blogs about Bitcoin, or are interested in the topic.  I'll explore this further on this blog, but John Oliver does a pretty good job explaining it - with irreverent humor - and also Blockchain.  We have read about scams in this field, even though it is a legitimate way of doing business - Blockchain is based on bitcoin, but not quite the same.

Anyway, watch this and comment below.  Provide your own links and opinions, too.

P.S. See the comments below about Brock Peters, EOS guy, and "Why the Cofounder of This Hot Crytocurrency Startup Is Out After John Oliver Criticized Him on 'Last Week Tonight'"

AI, ML, and Big Data at UA

If you saw the video from Lecture 2 of Human, Data and Machines, "Minds of Machines" https://media.azpm.org/master/doc/ua/lectures/ai2.html, you would have noticed that he showed faculty on campus that contributed to AI, ML, and Big Data at UA.

Who do you recognize?  (click on the image for a larger view)

Falcon Heavy Carries SpaceX's Ambition into Orbit

From the same pad where NASA launched rockets that carried astronauts to the moon, a big, new American rocket arced into space on Tuesday. The rocket, the Falcon Heavy, was built by SpaceX, the company founded and run by the billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.

The launch of this turbocharged version of the workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, which has been carrying cargo to space for years, marks an important milestone in spaceflight, the first time a rocket this powerful has been sent into space by a private company rather than a government space agency.

The rocket carried a playful payload: Mr. Musk’s red Roadster, an electric sports car built by his other company, Tesla. Strapped inside the car is a mannequin wearing one of SpaceX’s spacesuits. They are expected to orbit the sun for hundreds of millions of years.

“It’s kind of silly and fun, but silly and fun things are important,” Mr. Musk said.

This happened Tuesday.  Maybe some of you saw it.  Here's the video:

The Follower Factory

New York Times special report on Twitter fake accounts (1/27/18).

Many fake Twitter accounts belong to customers of an obscure American company named Devumi that has collected millions of dollars in a shadowy global marketplace for social media fraud. Devumi sells Twitter followers and retweets to celebrities, businesses and anyone who wants to appear more popular or exert influence online. Drawing on an estimated stock of at least 3.5 million automated accounts, each sold many times over, the company has provided customers with more than 200 million Twitter followers, a New York Times investigation found.

These accounts in the booming economy of online influence, reaching into virtually any industry where a mass audience — or the illusion of it — can be monetized. Fake accounts, deployed by governments, criminals and entrepreneurs, now infest social media networks. By some calculations, as many as 48 million of Twitter’s reported active users — nearly 15 percent — are automated accounts designed to simulate real people, though the company claims that number is far lower.

In November, Facebook disclosed to investors that it had at least twice as many fake users as it previously estimated, indicating that up to 60 million automated accounts may roam the world’s largest social media platform. These fake accounts, known as bots, can help sway advertising audiences and reshape political debates. They can defraud businesses and ruin reputations. Yet their creation and sale fall into a legal gray zone.

The Times reviewed business and court records showing that Devumi has more than 200,000 customers, including reality television stars, professional athletes, comedians, TED speakers, pastors and models. In most cases, the records show, they purchased their own followers. In others, their employees, agents, public relations companies, family members or friends did the buying. For just pennies each — sometimes even less — Devumi offers Twitter followers, views on YouTube, plays on SoundCloud, the music-hosting site, and endorsements on LinkedIn, the professional-networking site.

Read more... I'll post the fallout from this investigation, too.

Would you know if you were following or reading tweets of posts from real people or bots?

Mueller, Memo, and the FISA Court

In one class there is a discussion of FISA and the NSA.  I'm going to assume some of you have at least read headlines about the latest back-and-forth political ping pong on the Mueller investigation, the GOP House roar over an FBI memo that suggests the the bureau and the Justice Department abused their authority to obtain a warrant to spy on a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page

In case you live in a cave, or only care about the latest point spread on the Superbowl game, here's a recap:

On Wednesday,  the FBI was given a day to read the memo and then Christopher A. Wray, the bureau’s director, clashed publicly with President Trump for the first time on Wednesday, condemning a push by House Republicans to release a secret memo that purports to show how the bureau and the Justice Department abused their authority to obtain a warrant to spy on a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page. 

Mr. Trump wants to see the memo released, telling people close to him that he believes it makes the case that F.B.I. and Justice Department officials acted inappropriately when they sought the highly classified warrant in October 2016 on Carter Page. 

The warrant centers on a classified wiretap application the government submitted to a judge in the fall of 2016 that targeted Carter Page, a onetime Trump campaign official who had traveled to Russia in July 2016 and was preparing to return there that December, along with renewal applications. 

The memo has come to the forefront in a string of attempts by Mr. Trump’s allies to shift attention from the special counsel investigation into Russian election meddling and toward the actions of the investigators themselves. Republicans in Congress and in conservative news media have asserted that the memo will show political bias in the early stages of the Russia inquiry.

What does a wiretap have to do with FISA? 
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, signed into law in 1978, requires the government, when eavesdropping on communications on domestic soil for national security purposes, to obtain permission from a judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The judge must agree that the target is probably an agent of a foreign power and will probably use the specific email accounts or phone numbers that the Justice Department wants to wiretap.

What standard must be met to get a FISA wiretap?

To issue a FISA order authorizing investigators to eavesdrop on an American, a judge must agree that there is reason to believe the target was knowingly engaging in clandestine intelligence activities for a foreign power that violate American criminal laws — or is knowingly aiding or conspiring with someone else who is doing that. The article goes on to say that judges rarely deny FISA applications; that the FISA Court is a rubber stamp. Defenders point to the layers of high-level review in the Justice Department

What is in a FISA application?
A typical application ranges from 30 to 100 pages and centers on a factual affidavit by a senior F.B.I. agent working on the investigation at headquarters, which in turn compiles information submitted by other agents in the field. This document primarily explains what evidence the bureau has gathered to establish that a target is probably a foreign agent.

A typical application would also include a legal memorandum by a career Justice Department intelligence lawyer; a certification explaining the purpose and necessity of the requested surveillance and signed by the F.B.I. director; and approval for the broader package signed by a senior, Senate-confirmed Justice Department official — the attorney general, the deputy attorney general or the head of the National Security Division.

Occasionally the package may be supplemented with other materials. For example, it may include a news article to show that an investigation has become public knowledge, which could make it more likely that a target is taking steps to conceal his activities.

If you want to know more about what the Republican memo says, and the political reasons for revealing it, as well as reasons for not revealing government secrets for fear that it undermines national security, then read "How to get a wiretap to spy on Americans, and why that matters now" in the NY Times.  Also read the related articles surrounding this one.  For example, 

• About 25% of Trump’s Re-election Spending Continues to Go to Lawyers FEB 1

• Mueller Zeros In on Story Put Together About Trump Tower Meeting JAN 31

• F.B.I. Condemns Push to Release Secret Republican Memo JAN 31

• The Real Aim of the Nunes Memo Is the Mueller Investigation JAN 30

If you have any questions about this case, or just want to add your opinion, including if you think the NY Times is "fake news," feel free to comment below.

The Essence of Agile

According to Martin Fowler,

It's been over a decade since the developers of agile methods first started to talk about their approaches. In this time agile thinking has changed from a niche activity to an approach that is widely used. However, like any popular technique, agile software development has suffered from semantic diffusion, so much of what we see under the name of agile doesn't bear much resemblance to what the early pioneers were doing. So I think it's important to revisit the essential elements of agile thinking

I've always seen the essence of agile thinking resting on two contrasts with traditional plan-driven software engineering.

Plan-driven engineering expects us to come up with a predictive plan that precedes development. The plan lays out the people, resources and timelines for the overall project. Software design is also done up-front, with implementation expected to conform with this design. Success is measured according to how well development follows this plan. 

Agile plans are a baseline that we use to help us control change. Agile teams plan just as carefully as traditional teams, but the plans are constantly changing to reflect the things we learn during a project. Success is based on value delivered by the software.

Watch the 20-minute video of Martin Fowler explaining the history of software projects with the beginnings of plan-driven engineering (i.e., Waterfall) with agile plans.

Hawaii Missile Mess

This was the message people in Hawaii read and then panic ensued.  Not until 38 minutes after the warning went out did the state issue a correction. Various officials and news organizations beat the state to the “false alarm” message using Twitter and other social media.

Meanwhile, thousands of residents of Hawaii and tourists freaked out.

As the Washington Post reported,  an errant employee actually was working with a drop-down menu on a computer program, from which the official chose the wrong item.   On Monday, state officials released an image of that menu, provided to The Post by Hawaii News Now, and it shed some light on why it might be confusing.

The menu, which triggers alerts, contains a jumble of options, ranging from Amber alerts to Tsunami warnings to road closures. Some of them, such as “High Surf Warning North Shores,” are in plain English.  Others, including the one for a missile attack, “PACOM (CDW)-STATE ONLY,” use shorthand initials. (PACOM refers to the United States Pacific Command based in Hawaii.)
And the menu contained no ballistic missile defense false alarm option — which has now been added at the top of the image, marked up by officials for explanatory purposes.

What's the moral of this story?  Do any of you have any examples of poor interface design (hopefully less catastrophic) that created problems in knowing which button to push, or pushed the wrong one? 

My blog for MIS 441

The purpose of this blog is to:

• Offer links and articles that may benefit some of you in your search for resources (based on your proposal),

• Add more detailed information posted by students' blogs

• Offer posts that I want to blog about, but do not want to clutter your  tech briefing posts on the class blog, 

In short, this blog is tech-related news I found interesting.  You can add your comments here, too.