Sep, 2019 - Post

Inception Workshop | Key Takeaways

Inception exercise is very common in software development, where we gather the business requirements and define the delivery plan for the MVP(Minimum Viable Product) on a shared understanding. There are a set of tools and practices available to define the MVP requirements and its delivery plan. Famous tools are Lean Value Tree, Business Model Canvas, Plane Map, Elevator Pitch, Futurespective, Empathy Maps, Value Proposition Canvas, User Journey Map, Gamestorming, Process Diagram, MoSCoW, Communication Plan, Project Plan etc.

Apr, 2019 - Post

Evolution of Technology and User Interactions

Technology defines our interactions with the ambiance, and the way we want to interact with the ambiance further defines the technology. The evolution of technology and user interactions tightly depends on each other. “Walls have ears!”, is very much true today, and not just that, now the walls can see you, feel your presence and talk to you. In this post, we will discuss how the user interactions evolved with time and what is next!

Apr, 2019 - Post

Can IT modernization lead to revenue loss?

IT Modernization is one of the key factors of today’s digital transformation. Most of the enterprises trying to define digital transformation strategy. IT organizations trying to redesign the organizations to meet the changing business need, and uplift the technology and people. Non-IT organizations are also trying to setup digital department to take care of companies digital assets and modernize them. However, IT modernization does not always result in a profit, it may lead to revenue loss if it does not fit to the organization design.

Mar, 2019 - Post

Embibe purpose and balance in life

I just finished a book “Life’s Amazing Secrets” by Gaur Gopal Das. It covers the topic of balance and purpose in life nicely. Few of the concepts from the book I can very well relate to my current organization’s focus on cultivation and collaboration culture. It’s now more than 6 months of my journey with Thoughtworks, an organization which started as a social experiment more than 25 years ago, and believes in balancing 3 pillars in life ; sustainability, excellence and purpose.

Feb, 2019 - Post

Lessons Learned From Blockchain-Based Development

Blockchain or DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) is getting good traction in the IT world these days. Earlier, this technology was being mostly explored by banks and other finance-related institutions, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Now, it is getting explored for other use cases for building distributed applications. Blockchain technology comes with a decentralized and immutable data structure that maintains a connected block of information. Each block is connected using a hash of the previous block, and every new block on the chain is validated (mined) before adding and replicating it.

Nov, 2018 - Post

Software Development as a Design Process

The book “Agile IT Organization Design - For digital transformation and continuous delivery” by Sriram Narayan explains software development as a design process. Following statement from the book means a lot. “Software development is a design process, and the production environment is the factory where product takes place. IT OPS work to keep the factory running..” It questions the way we traditionally think of operation support, maintenance, production bugs, rework, their costs and budgets and the focus in software development life.

Oct, 2018 - Post

Request Tracing Using Nginx and Spring Boot

Most web applications are hosted behind a load balancer or web-server such as Nginx/HTTPD, which intercepts all the requests and directs dynamic content requests to the application server, such as Tomcat. Correlating requests traversing from the front-end server to the backend servers are general requirements. In this post, we will discuss tracing the request in the simplest way in an Nginx and Spring Boot-based application without using an external heavyweight library like Slueth.

Sep, 2018 - Post

Boost your organisation agility by test-first-pair development

Agile software development methodology is the key selling point for most of the IT organisations, however many of the organisations have gone by the literal meaning of the word “Agile”. They follow agile practices without really being agile. If we go by Manifesto for Agile Software Development, it focus more on human factor (people, interaction, collaboration) which produces working software as per the need of time, than on processes, tools and strict planning.

Aug, 2018 - Post

A Quick Catch up Before Java 11

Java 11’s release candidate is already here, and the industry is still roaming around Java 8. Every six months, we will see a new release. It is good that Java is evolving at a fast speed to catch up the challengers, but at the same time, it is also scary to catch its speed, even the Java ecosystem (build tools, IDE, etc.) is not catching up that fast. It feels like we are losing track.

Aug, 2018 - Post

Accept the change!

The change is inevitable and constant; it is a part of our life. Sooner or later, we have to accept the change. 13 years ago, I joined a small IT organisation of around 100 people, as a developer. I have grown with the organisation; a 40 times growth journey. I really thank the organisation for giving me opportunity, and transforming me, what I am today. Now, the time has come to accept a change, and start a new journey.

Jul, 2018 - Post

5 Hard Lessons From Microservices Development

Microservices-based development is happening all around the industry; more than 70% are trying development of microservice-based software. Microservices simplify integration of the businesses, processes, technology, and people by breaking down the big-bang monolith problem to a smaller set that can be handled independently. However, it also comes with the problem of managing relations between these smaller sets. We used to manage fewer independent units, so there was less operation and planning effort.

Jan, 2018 - Post

Apache Spark on Windows

This article is for the Java developer who wants to learn Apache Spark but don’t know much of Linux, Python, Scala, R, and Hadoop. Around 50% of developers are using Microsoft Windows environment for development, and they don’t need to change their development environment to learn Spark. This is the first article of a series, “Apache Spark on Windows”, which covers a step-by-step guide to start the Apache Spark application on Windows environment with challenges faced and thier resolutions.

Feb, 2017 - Post

IOT 101: A primer on Internet of Things

IOT 101 A Primer on Internet of Things from Kuldeep Singh The IoT can be described as “Connecting the Things to internet”. A comprehensive IoT ecosystem consists of many different parts such as electronic circuitry, sensing and acting capability, embedded systems, edge computing, network protocols, communication networks, cloud computing, big data management and analytics, business rules etcetera. This maze of varied parts can be better classified into 4 broad categories:

Feb, 2017 - Post

Exploring the Smart Glasses

This article describes the fundamentals of light-weight smart glasses such as Google Glass and Vuzix M100 It also explain the development practices with pros and cons of its usage, limitation and future of these glasses in our lives. Google Glass Enterprise Edition Google Glass enterprise edition is a plain Android based smart glass that you can wear and performs operations just like a smartphone and with the use of a small screen located in the front of your right eye can perform a decent range of tasks.

Jan, 2017 - Post

Another IoT Disruption: A Need of Multi-Skilled Devs

Technological evolution causes disruption. It replaces traditional, less optimal, complex, lengthy, and costly technology, people, and processes with economical, innovative, optimal, and simpler alternatives. We have seen disruption by mobile phones, and up next is disruption from IoT, wearables, AR-VR, machine Learning, AI, and other innovations. Software development methodology, tools, and people will also face disruption. I expect that the traditional developer will be replaced by the multi-skilled or full-stack developers.

Dec, 2016 - Post

IoT based insect monitoring concept

Insects are the most diverse species of animals found on earth. While every species is required to maintain the balance of nature, excessive accumulation of any one type can have devastating effects on humans and environment. Insect management relies on the early detection and accuracy of insect population monitoring techniquessensors-12-15801. Integrated data gathering about insect population together with the ecological factors like temperature, humidity, light etc., makes it possible to execute appropriate pest control at the right time in the right place.

Aug, 2016 - Post

5 Steps of the IoT race

The ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) presents tremendous opportunity in all the industry verticals and business domains. Specifically, the ‘Industrial Internet of Things’(IIoT) promises to increase the value proposition by making self-optimizing business processes. As discussed in the post “The Driving Forces Behind IoT”, there are several challenges to be addressed to realize the full IoT potentials, but following steps will help organization to systemically make their products participate in the IoT journey and stay in the IoT race.

Aug, 2016 - Post

Industrial IoT (IIOT) Reference Architecture

The industry has been going through an evolution. Industry 4.0 is the fourth industrial revolution where the key will be on digital transformation. Industry 4.0 creates what has been called a “smart factory”. Within the modular structured smart factories, cyber-physical systems monitor physical processes, create a virtual copy of the physical world and make decentralized decisions. Over the Internet of Things, cyber-physical systems communicate and cooperate with each other and with humans in real time, and via the Internet of Services, both internal and cross-organizational services are offered and used by participants of the value chain.

May, 2016 - Post

Smart bottle IOT concept

The rapid growth of Internet of Things (IoT) and miniature wearable biosensors have generated new opportunities for personalized eHealth and mHealth services. We present a case study of an intelligent cap that can measure the amount of water in the bottle, monitor activity of opening or closing of bottle cap. This paper presents a Proof of Concept implementation for such a connected smart bottle that sends measurements to the IoT Platform.

Apr, 2016 - Post

Building a smart meeting room concept

On a usual day at office, if an employee wishes to book a meeting room, he or she first has to open their outlook account, check the calendar for its availability and then send a booking invitation. If they directly go to a meeting room, they have no way of knowing whether it is booked or not without checking the calendar. Smart Meeting Room is a step forward in automating the availability and booking procedure of a meeting room.