Tech Talk - DevOps

In today's fast-paced environment organizations are adopting new tools and practices that streamline the deployment of applications and services.  With this, a new concept has taken shape and is now in high demand within the technology community: DevOps.  In simple terms, DevOps bridges the gap between developers and their users.  Through the use of Agile methods, DevOps help deliver, maintain, and update hosted applications to adapt with changing workflows.

As more and more services are turning to cloud-based solutions, the demand for DevOps engineers will steadily increase.  According to a post on the website 'The Agile Admin', there are three main roles for a DevOps engineer:

1. Infrastructure Automation
2. Continuous Delivery
3. Site Reliability Engineering

For example, a DevOps Engineer in my department would help with the creation of a new application - working closely with their primary customers and other developers - while also creating and configuring the systems that will host the new application.  Even after "go-live" for the applications, the the DevOps position is in charge of maintaining and updating the application and its hosted system to ensure security and functionality. 

Essentially, there are no pre-defined roles for a DevOps engineer.  They are usually developers who become interested in networking and and deployment operations, or they could be systems administrators who have an interest in scripting and programming.  According to Kelsey Hightower, an operations lead at Puppet, a major software configuration management tool,  “The DevOps engineer encapsulates depth of knowledge and years of hands-on experience,... this person blends the skills of the business analyst with the technical chops to build the solution..."

Questions:

1) Would you be interested in a DevOps position?

2) Whatever your position, how do you think Agile will tie into your daily functions during your career?

Big Data in Healthcare

Big Data in Healthcare

Big data not only allows us to see more of what is in front of us but also understand trends in the environment that may otherwise not be obvious. We now have more information that can be used to help make smarter more effective business decisions. But even with this information, the integration of big data in the healthcare is being slowed down by are patient’s information being kept confidential and secret.

Big data in healthcare provides the opportunity to understand patterns before common signs and symptoms of diseases to help better diagnose patients in the future.  The healthcare industry is so large that many times doctors do not share as much information with doctors at other hospitals as they could. However, if hospitals were about combine all this data that each individual hospital had they would better be able to analyze everything. This steps towards bridging the gaps is a value-based healthcare and is very future and patient focused.

Preventative medicine, medical research, and cost reduction are only a few areas where applications for big data in healthcare. With the integration of big data hospitals could create apps that would help patients understand their symptoms better and know when a patient should seek immediate medical attention or not. A good example of this is Apple teaming up with researchers at Stanford to help determine if Apple Watches could detect atrial fibrillation.

Questions:

1. Would you be willing to share your patient information if it could help change the industry?
2. Do you think some of these tools could be useful?
3. What are your thoughts on how big data could change the healthcare industry?

2

Do you Subscribe to Subscription?

by Joe Adragna and Brennen Herr

The subscription model has been used for many different types of goods for a long time. Our interest in it is sparked by the recent growth of this model in use around the world for items that did not traditionally utilize it. Since 2007, over 35,000 new companies have appeared using this model.

The subscription system has roots in old-time record and magazine sales in the early 20th century. The questions we have are centered around the impact these programs have on consumers, and why they’re so alluring to them. More recently with newspapers and magazines, the idea of taking a product or a service and charging you a recurring fee has exploded in recent years. Visits to the websites of these subscription-based companies increased by 3,000% between 2013 and 2016. There is an almost unlimited number of products that are now being offered this way, from clothes and groceries to things like underwear and dog toys.

Many software companies are also beginning to switch from giving customers one-time products, to giving them “services” that have recurring costs but are continuously supported. Both Adobe Suite and Microsoft 365 are good examples of companies doing this. However, switching to this business model can be dangerous if not handled correctly. The inclusion of recurring costs can drive some customers away. It is important for companies to do market research to increase their profits even with customers leaving. By 2016 13% of companies that had started up with a subscription-based business plan had closed their doors due to this miscalculation.

Questions:

1. Are you subscribed to any physical subscription services?

2. Are you subscribed to any software subscription services?

3. Do you have any thoughts on the subscription-based business model?