Author: Idexcel Technologies

Top 10 Must-Read Articles on Internet of Things – IoT 2016

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1. What are the five main markets for IoT?

The Internet of Things (IoT) is accelerating at an impressive speed, forecasters predict 25 billion devices will be online by 2020, creating over $300 billion in opportunities for companies involved1.

Even with this considerable growth coming in the next five years, most enterprise folks still don’t understand or aren’t invested in the IoT revolution. Management consulting firm Bain & Company believe that’s due to misrepresentation on the definition of IoT. [Continue reading..]

2. What’s trending in the IoT space

Our team has been active as investors in the Internet of Things and hardware space over the past two years. We have read pitches from hundreds of companies, met with dozens, read hundreds of research reports and spoken with various experts. We have invested in six IoT/hardware companies from our global seed fund and seven from our startup accelerator.

With this accumulated knowledge, we decided to create an easy to read overview for others to get up to speed on this trending space of IoT. Here is our full report; the following is a summary of what we learned. [Continue reading..]

3. Here’s how the Internet of Things will explode by 2020

The Internet of Things (IoT) has been labeled as “the next Industrial Revolution” because of the way it will change the way people live, work, entertain, and travel, as well as how governments and businesses interact with the world.

In fact, the revolution is already starting.

That brand new car that comes preloaded with a bunch of apps? Internet of Things. Those smart home devices that let you control the thermostat and play music with a few words? Internet of Things. That fitness tracker on your wrist that lets you tell your friends and family how your exercise is going? You get the point.

But this is just the beginning. [Continue reading..]

4. Eight Data And Analytics Capabilities You’ll Need For The IoT

There is widespread agreement that the Internet of Things will be a transformative factor in the business use of information. The prospect of billions of connected devices promises to transform home activities, transportation, industrial operations, and many other aspects of our lives.

The bad news about the IoT is that we have a lot of work to do before we are ready for it. We’ve got to up our games considerably with regard to data management and analytics if we’re going to capture, store, access and analyze all the IoT data that will be flowing around the Internet. The good news (in addition to its potential) is that most organizations have a few years to get better at these capabilities before the real onslaught hits. The sensor devices, IoT data standards, and data management platforms are still in their relatively early stages, and no customer, business partner, or CEO could reasonably expect that you could tame all that IoT data today. [Continue reading..]

5. How does the IoT Evolve? In Fits and Starts

It has been quite a week for IoT in the news. The shutting down of Revolv by Nest became a major news item, covered by everyone from Fortune, CNET, Computerworld, NBC, and Yahoo just to name a few.

As usual, Stacy Higginbotham did a nice job in writing about what could have been done instead to make this all easier.

As background – Revolv was a small start-up in Boulder, Colorado. I know a lot about the team there, and like them a lot, so I admit to some bias up front. They built a smart home hub with seven radios to speak to 10 of the most popular smart home protocols. [Continue reading..]

6. What’s the Connection Between IoT and DevOps?

DevOps is the automation of Agile, using tools and processes that remove the traditional latency from application development. DevOps transformations are systemic to both enterprises and ISVs that I work with these days. Everyone now knows that it’s critical to make the best use of cloud computing, big data, and, now, the Internet of Things (IoT). [Continue reading..]

7. Will IoT Lock Down Your House Or Open The Door To Hackers?

Imagine a time when the transfer of data is fast and seamless, or a world where you control your devices without moving a finger. IoT, or the Internet of Things, looks to push that envelope of convenience and efficiency. IoT devices are becoming increasingly popular among homeowners seeking to make their homes automated and their day-to-day tasks easier. [Continue reading..]

8. New Business Drives Hitachi’s Internet of Things Strategy

We can now count Hitachi among the list of companies that has formed a division to specifically target the Internet of Things (IoT). This is a move that many automation suppliers are finding necessary as they try to better manage the technologies and expertise needed to capture this important market. [Continue reading..]

9. How Internet of Things Customer Data Will Forever Change Marketers’ Jobs

When a mobile app asks you to share personal data with a company, what do you do?
It probably depends on what you expect to get in return. That’s the new data economy consumers and brands are dealing with today: Companies want good user data, and users want good products and experiences. [Continue reading..]

10. How Silicon Valley is botching IoT

The “Internet of things” has been a Silicon Valley buzzword for the last few years, so it’s ironic that we seem to read almost as much tech news coverage about Internet of things hacking. In recent months, for example, VentureBeat has reported that the FBI is warning car makers and owners about vehicle hacking risks, and that IoT devices may be exploited as Trojan horses. And just a few days ago, we heard about a glitch at smart doorbell company Ring that exposed videos of users’ homes to other users. [Continue reading..]

The Many Benefits From A Talent Pipeline – Idexcel Recruiting & Hiring Roundup

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1. The Many Benefits From A Talent Pipeline – And How It Improves Quality Of Hire

If you’re looking for a powerful strategic recruiting approach that has powerful long-term impacts, you really only have two choices: employer branding, and a “recruiting talent pipeline.” While almost every major corporation is investing heavily in building their employer brand, it’s quite rare for one to actually have a high-performing external recruiting talent pipeline. A recruiting talent pipeline approach is known by a variety of names, including a “recruiting prospect inventory,” a “recruiting pool,” or a recruiting network. It is designed to give you a continuous supply of high-quality and interested external recruiting prospects to choose from. It is strategic because it has a long-term talent-supply focus, which means that critical jobs can be filled faster and with higher quality and more interested prospects. [Continue reading…]

2. Why “Employee Engagement” Is The Successories Poster of HR

Employee engagement is one of those perpetual trending topics in HR and recruiting, probably because for years now, pundits and practitioners alike still haven’t figured out how to confront what seems to be a fairly endemic case of malaise and apathy perpetually plaguing our workforce.

I’m not sure why it is that talent leaders and recruiting pros can’t to have a near obsessive fixation on what’s inherently an amorphous and highly ambiguous concept, but I think the primary driver of our engagement fetish is that it seems to be a convenient, categorical catch-all that’s more or less seen as the whipping boy for all of the manifold problems plaguing the HR and recruiting profession today. [Continue reading…]

3. How to Bring Out Talent in Your Team

If you manage other people, the first thing you need to understand is that your success depends on their success. The more you empower your employees, the more they will grow and thrive. Here’s how to get started…

Give employees generous boundaries. Contrary to conventional wisdom, boundaries don’t restrict team members; they empower them. Define the boundaries within which an employee can make his or her own decisions. In doing so, you give them freedom to act. [Continue reading…]

4. 10 Ways Employee Surveys Help Attract and Retain Talent

The war for talent rages on. A 2015 ICIMS study found that 86 percent of the 107 HR professionals surveyed expect hiring to increase or stay the same. However, employers are looking for less conventional means of connecting with job seekers.

Social recruiting remains a popular choice as many companies turn to social media to find strong talent. The Global Recruiting Trends 2016 report found 47 percent of the 3,894 hiring managers surveyed say social media is the most effective employer branding tool, offering multiple outlets that provide unique features that can help with recruiting. [Continue reading…]

5. Use Your Employee Referral Program in Social Recruiting

A strong workplace culture increases business performance by engaging everyone in a united goal, values and vision. It is also essential for helping to attract and retain talent; a key element to achieving business growth. The culture of your workplace has a significant impact on your employer brand and influences the perception of working for you. It is also crucial for staff retention, as employees will look to escape a toxic culture. Furthermore, a good understanding of your current culture will enable you to hire with cultural fit in mind, helping you to find those who will thrive in your organisation and prevent costly recruitment mistakes. So how can you get an accurate picture of your workplace culture, and identify any potential areas for improvement?
[Continue reading…]

Benefits of Cloud Computing – Idexcel Cloud Computing Roundup

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1. Benefits of Cloud Computing

Based on Aberdeen Group’s Computer Intelligence Dataset, there are more than 1.6 billion permutations to choose from when it comes to cloud computing solutions.

So what, on the face of it, appears to be pretty simple is actually both complex and dynamic regardless of whether you’re in the market for networking, storage, servers, telephony, virtualisation or applications.

By making the right choices for your cloud computing technology you stand to benefit from improvements in profitability, improved time to decision, improvements in complete and on-time delivery and reduction in downtime. Read more…

2. The dirty dozen: 12 cloud security threats

Enterprises are no longer sitting on their hands, wondering if they should risk migrating applications and data to the cloud. They’re doing it — but security remains a serious concern.

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The first step in minimizing risk in the cloud is to identify the top security threats. Read more…

3. IoT revenues up 15%; cloud computing a big driver

A new report shows healthy revenues for 21 benchmarked Internet of Things (IoT) companies in the last quarter of 2015, with revenue growing by almost 15% to levels approaching $7 billion. Cloud computing and IT infrastructure are especially potent drivers of IoT revenues, as vendors help companies cope with ever increasing rivers of data. Read more…

4. Why banks are finally cashing in on the public cloud

The financial services industry has avoided entrusting its data to public cloud vendors, even as Amazon Web Services quietly acquired thousands of business users. Banks and insurance firms feared rigorous regulatory scrutiny should their data become compromised in a breach at one of their cloud vendors. Read more…

5. Jay Greene on Cloud Computing May Be Hampering Tech Spending

The transition to cloud computing – at the current snail pace doesn’t warrant ‘transformation’ rhetoric – may be getting a goose because of tightening finances in the corporate world. A time when the purported risks of cloud computing are moderated by companies hungry for cost-cutting. And that may be part of the slow-down in tech spending right now. Read more…

Big Data and Data Visualization

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In recent years, there has been a dramatic rise of unstructured data from different sources such as social media, videos and photos, and businesses are looking for relationships between data which can be viewed from multiple perspectives. This evolution of the way the data is being produced, processed and analysed is bringing drastic changes to the world around us.

Big data is a term describing large volumes of structured and unstructured data that can be analysed to gain business insights. According to Gartner, big data is a high-volume, high-velocity and high-variety information asset that demands cost-effective innovative forms of information processing for enhanced insight and decision making. In simpler terms, big data is lots of data produced rapidly in many different forms. This rapidly growing data could be related to online videos, customer transactional histories, social media interactions, traffic logs, cell phones, flip computers, tablets, cloud computing, Internet of Things, sensors etc., and global traffic is expected to reach more than 100 trillion gigabytes by 2025. Here is a hint what happens approximately in a minute on the internet, and the generated data continues to grow exponentially:
internet-one-minute-infographic

This huge volume of data needs to be parsed to discover useful threads that can uncover endless opportunities, and can be teamed with innovative ideas to decrease costs, improve overall customer satisfaction, increase revenue, and provide customer tailored offerings. The data requires quick analysis and information must be displayed in a meaningful way. It can be analysed for time reductions, cost reductions, smart decision making, optimizing offerings or new product development.

Big Data focuses on finding hidden trends, threads or patterns that might not be immediately or easily visible. The interpretations bring out insights that would otherwise be impossible to observe using traditional methods. This requires latest technologies and skill set to analyse the flow of information and draw results and conclusions. High powered analytics enable businesses to determine root causes of issues, defects and failures in real time, recalculate complete risk portfolios in just minutes, detect fraud, and so on. NASA, U.S.Government, and organisations like Wal-Mart and Amazon are using Big Data to recognize the possibilities that can help them capitalize the gains.

However, this huge volume of rapidly generating big data cannot be handled using traditional reporting process. To reap maximum benefits, data analytics needs to be done in real time instead of batch processing which fails to capture big data’s immediacy. Another challenge in handling big data is the increased availability of mobile devices. This requires decentralization of reports and adoption of cost-effective, faster and more democratized business intelligence model to improve collaboration and speed insights.

Data Visualization Tools

To make sense of the boring raw data and observe interesting patterns, organisations use visualization tools that help them visualize all their data in minutes. Data Visualization places data in the visual context such as trends, patterns and correlations, which helps organisations understand the significance of the data which may go undetected if this data was just text-based. This beneficial visual matter can help companies eliminate loss making products and increase revenue by minimizing waste. Data visualization can help identify areas that require attention or improvement, help understand product placement, clarify factors influencing customer behaviour and can predict sales volume.

Some of these tools are for developers and require coding, while others contain data visualization software products that do not require coding. Here are some of the commonly used data visualization tools:

1. D3.js (Data Driven Documents) uses CSS, HTML and SVG to render diagrams and charts. The tool is open-source, looks good, is packed with helpful features and is interactivity rich.
2. FusionCharts has an exhaustive collection of maps (965) and charts (90) that work across all platforms and devices, and supports browsers starting from IE6. It supports XML and JSON data formats, and can export charts in JPEG, PNG and PDF. For inspiration, there is a good collection of live demos and business dashboards. Although, the tool is slightly highly priced, it has beautiful interactions and is highly customizable.
3. Chart.js is an open source library that supports bar, line, polar, pie, radar and doughnut chart types. The tool is good for smaller hobby projects.
4. Highcharts offers good range of maps and charts right out of the box. It also offers a different feature rich package called Highstock for stock charts. The tool is free for personal and non-commercial use, and users can export charts in JPG, PNG, PDF and SVG formats.
5. Google Charts can render charts in SVG/HTML5 . It offers cross-browser compatibility and cross-platform portability to Android and iPhones.
6. Datawrapper is commonly used by the non-developers to make interactive charts. The tool is easy to use and can generate effective graphics.
7. Tableau Public is one of the most commonly used visualization tool as it supports variety of maps, graphs, charts and other graphics. The tool is free and can be easily embedded in any webpage.

Raw, Timeline JS, Infogram, plotly, and ChartBlocks are some of the additional data visualization tools. Excel, CVS/JSON, GooGle Chart API, Flot, Raphael, and D3 are some of the entry level tools which are good to quickly explore data or create visualization for internal use.

On the other end of spectrum, there are professional data visualization Pro tools that have expensive subscriptions. There are few free alternatives as well with strong communities and support. Some of these tools include R, Weka, and Gephi.

These data based visualization tools are focussed on the front end of the big data that enable businesses to explore the information and gain deeper understanding by interacting directly with the data. On the other hand, Apache Hadoop is an open source software associated with Big Data to support the back-end concerns such as processing and storage. There are several variants of Hadoop such as MapR, Hortonworks, Cloudera and Amazon. Google BigQuery is a cloud-based service.

Businesses seek most cost-effective ways to increase profitability by managing volume, velocity and variety of the data and turning that data into valuable information to better understand business, customers and marketplace. However, volume, velocity and variety are no longer sufficient to describe the challenges of big data, hence more terms such as variability, veracity, value and visualization have been added that broaden the realm of the big data scope. Big Data is exploding with innovative approach and forward thinking, and organisations can exploit this opportunity to gain market advantage and increase profitability.

The Test Expert’s Role in DevOps – Idexcel Testing Roundup

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1. The Test Expert’s Role in DevOps

Is wasn’t long ago that those of us who dedicated our professional careers to helping our organizations deliver better software were asking how we fit into this new world of agile development. While individual companies and the software engineering community continue to adapt and decide whether agile is right for their businesses, there’s already another important advancement in our world: DevOps. Some see this as simply the next evolution of agile.

DevOps is a culture shift that emphasizes collaboration between software developers and other IT professionals while automating software delivery and infrastructure changes. It aims to establish an environment where building, testing, and releasing software can happen more rapidly, frequently, and reliably. Continue reading…

2. How Can Testers Embrace Learning and Keep the Spark Alive?

What you do today can improve all your tomorrows – Ralph Marston

IT field changes; way too fast than some of us would like.

If you are not constantly updating your skills, you could get irrelevant, obsolete and outdated. In a world of lay-off paranoia, it is a good idea to rise above it all, gain immunity and feel secure. The best way to do so is to make learning a habit. Continue reading…

3. Why No One Talks About Agile Testing!

The Agile Zone is brought to you in partnership with DZone Software. Build your own privately managed community, like Stack Overflow, for your team with AnswerHub, a DZone Software product.
When working on digital projects and products, you probably encounter the term “agile” a lot.

The word agile is widely used (and sometimes misused). It refers to the methodology of project management which strives to establish certain principles of collaboration, flexibility and transparency. It emphasizes the importance of feedback throughout the entire development workflow. Continue reading…

4. 7 Practical Software Testing Tips from TestBash Presenters

We gathered some practical software testing tips for you from presenters of TestBash Brighton, the most awesome software testing conference out there! Continue reading…

5. Discussion: How to set up a Software testing process

I have been assigned a task to create a Testing process in the company. Our company uses Agile methodology. The task is to create a generic plan which determines the role of a QA/Tester in the complete agile STLC. Scrum is what we are trying to implement.

We can assume the team of 4 developers and 1 QA. Also please suggest if a separate developer for QA-Automation is required or the same QA with limited knowledge should be hired. Currently we don’t have any automation framework. Everything is being done from scratch.

Your answers are valuable. Contribute to the discussion here!

Big data, marketing and decision-making – what is it all about?

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Last week I got asked if I know about big data and how you use it in digital marketing. Yes, of course, I do. I’ve been using big data for years when analysing numbers from websites and social media.

I’ve also been fortunate to speak at many conferences where some of the speakers are fully trained ‘big data ninjas’, and I’m lucky to know some of them personally.

Big data is complex information, and it feels as overwhelming as a huge waterfall. It’s only if you present big data in a meaningful way it helps you to make better decisions. Continue reading

STAREAST Software Testing Conference – May 1-6, 2016 – Orlando, FL USA

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Date : May 1–6, 2016

Location : Orlando, FL

Venue : Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld®

The Premier Event for Software Testing and QA Professionals

STAREAST is one of the longest-running, and most respected conferences on software testing and quality assurance. The event week features over 100 learning and networking opportunities and covers a wide variety of some of the most in-demand topics.

• Test Management
• Test Techniques
• Test Automation
• Agile Testing
• DevOps & Testing
• Testing the Internet of Things
• Mobile Testing
• Testing Metrics
• Cloud Testing
• Performance Testing

[Know more about the Conference]

Measuring Agile Success

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Agile methodology is an iterative approach typically used in software development as an alternative to the traditional project management. The approach emphasises on building the software incrementally from the beginning instead of delivering everything at the end, and solutions and requirements evolve sequentially. Product is broken down into incremental builds which are provided in iterations. Each iteration lasts typically almost one to three weeks, and requires cross functional teams to work together in different areas such as requirement analysis, planning, coding and testing. After each iteration, a working software build is delivered and working product is shown to all the important stakeholders, including customers. The builds are incremental and the final build consists of all the required features.

In agile model, each project is handled differently, and methods are tailored so that they best suit the requirements of the project. Some of the most popular agile methods include

• Scrum
• Rational Unified Process
• Extreme Programming
• Crystal Clear
• Feature Driven Development
• Adaptive Software Development
• Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM)

Pros of Agile

In agile methodology, a common assumption is that the needs and requirements of the end users are dynamic, and hence, based on the continuous feedback, changes are discussed and features are added, removed or modified accordingly. There is frequent delivery of software, and a lot of emphasis is placed on the face-to-face interactions across teams. There is daily coordination between the developers and business personnel to achieve good design and technical excellence. This makes it much faster to adapt easily and regularly to the changing circumstances, even if these changes are much later in the software lifecycle. As the frequency of new increments is high, the changes can be implemented with minimal cost and time.
Compared with the traditional waterfall approach, stakeholders and developers in agile get more options and time, reducing the risk of reaching a sudden standstill. This also ensures that the end product matches with the customer requirements in a best possible way.
Agile is a very realistic approach which is suitable for the dynamic requirements, promotes cross-training and teamwork, easy to manage, requires little planning and provides flexibility to the developers.

Cons

This model is not suitable for handling complex dependencies. As there is minimum document generation, there is high individual dependency. Lack of documentation also makes the transfer of technology quite challenging. There is also additional risk of sustainability, extensibility and maintainability.

For larger projects, it may be difficult to assess the requirements at the beginning of the SDLC (software development life cycle). Additionally, agile relies heavily on customer interaction and if they are not sure about their exact requirements, the entire team can head in a wrong direction and project can get completely off track. It can also be challenging for the new employees and programmers to take the required decision during the development process.

Measuring agile success

In agile methodology, it is essential to track business metrics, as well as agile metrics. Business metrics help analyse if the solution is meeting the requirements, and agile metrics help in the analysis of the development process. Sound agile metrics help reduce confusion, and can motive team’s progress through the development cycle.

State of Agile Survey provides reports that give the software professionals a deep insight into latest agile trends, lessons learned and best practices. This helps organisations plan for successful agile transformations. In this Survey, 58% of the participating respondents confirmed that they used on-time delivery as a measure of the success of their agile initiative. The measure of on-time is based on the delivery expectations, and the measure of delivery can be assessed from burndown or burnup.

Product quality is another metric to measure agile initiative. There are multiple ways to measure quality, including revenue growth, customer satisfaction, and different technical aspects .The focus is on the speed and built-in quality of the working software. Testing and inspection are integral part of the complete development lifecycle, and there is constant monitoring of build and code health along with the testing trends.

Another metric for measuring agile success is the user or customer satisfaction. The outcome can be measured in terms of sales figures, net promoter score, usage statistics etc. Agile success can also be measured in terms of business value. If there is a contract for work completion, measuring business value becomes quite explicit. However, if market inputs drive the decisions, measuring business value become speculative or prospective.

Some companies also measure their agile success in terms of project visibility. To have transparency requires that the progress at multiple dimensions should be made visible to all the stakeholders. Metrics showing the targeted plan with the overall progress help stakeholders get a better insight.
Velocity trend is the metric used to assess predictability, and it shows the average pace of the work. Wildly fluctuating velocity reflects changing teams, or unpredictable work.

It is evident that a single metric cannot be used to assess the agile success. Each organisation is different, and every software development project is different. Teams need to figure out the best ways to pilot, extend and finally excel at Agile. This methodology requires full participation from all those involved as it is not a quick fix or a fleeting fad.