fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
An Olive Branch Extended Over the Interstate-80 for Utah’s Cutest Critters
By: Calvin Poole
Tags: Wildlife, Utah, United States Of America, Conservation, Infrastructure

Interstate-80 Highway Crossing | Credit: UDOT

Why did the caribou cross the interstate again?… hmm, never-mind.

A 2008 Federal study estimated between 1–2 million large animal collisions with vehicles annually, resulting often in the untimely demise of some of the United States most imposing animal species. There’s long been a simple design solution to this problem that Utah has employed since the opening of the first wildlife overpass in the 1970’s, a simple concept that’s made an astounding difference.

The I-80 Highway crossing is the largest and newest of six “Critter Bridge” infrastructure projects undertaken by Utah’s Department of Transport (UDOT). The structure is 50 feet wide by 320 feet long spanning all 6 formidable lanes of the interstate highway and allowing safe passage for all kinds of local wildlife from bears to bobcats.

Photo by Matt Nelson on Unsplash

You see, there’s an issue that comes into play when you lay down hundreds of miles of tarmac with thousands of vehicles hurtling up and down it each day straight through the middle of the picturesque Utah wilderness. The I-80 is a prime spot for animal collisions earning it the particularly unnerving nickname “Slaughter Row” with hundreds killed each year making a significant dent in the local populations of some species. In 2018 the $5 Million dollar overpass project was opened to be re-assessed in 3–5 years however the early results are certainly “encouraging” a UDOT spokesperson told Salt Lake Tribune in 2019.

“From what we can tell, the number of accidents there is down dramatically,” “At least initially, it appears the investment in safety is paying off. And we expected it to take several years before the animals got used to using it, so this is great.” John Gleeson (UDOT) -2019

The project has been recently thrust back into the spotlight with a Facebook video shared by Utah’s Division of Wildlife Resources showing a variety of iconic American critters seemingly enjoying a trot across the bridge, even a Puma was seen utilising the man-made structure. The animals early adoption of the new route is credited partially to it’s strategic location along the highway and a 3 mile long cattle fence guiding them across to complete their journey.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

These bridges have become more and more popular in recent years due to their great success. In fact 2021 will mark the opening of the worlds largest wildlife overpass in California over the 101 Freeway used by over 300,000 vehicles per day and spanning 10 lanes of traffic.

“Critter Bridge” serves to remind us we are now a global species that through industrialisation, expansion and infrastructure are slowly but surely terraforming this place we call home on an unimaginable scale. If we want to continue to enjoy all that our marvellous natural world has to offer for generations to come we must insist that through design we integrate and accommodate this natural beauty.
インフラエンジニア日記 #56 2020 12/07 ~ 12/11
By: Wataru Shimoda
Tags: AWS, Infrastructure, Gcp

Kubernetes Self Remediation (AKA Poison Pill)

Everyone is into Kubernetes these days, and everyone wants their applications to run in a highly available manner, but…
Highlights from Peter DeSantis Keynote at re:Invent 2020
By: Eyal Estrin
Tags: Amazon Web Services, AWS, Announcements, Reinvent, Infrastructure

Resilience between AWS and other cloud providers

AWS design its infrastructure in a resilient way, comparing to its competitors.

The fundamental concept Regions (physical location in the world made out of multiple Availability Zones)

AWS definition of Availability zone — “one or more discrete data centers, each with redundant power, networking, and connectivity, housed in separate facilities”.

Google Cloud Platform definition of zone as “a zone usually has power, cooling, networking, and control planes that are isolated from other zones”

References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/latest/aws-overview/global-infrastructure.html

https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/regions-zones#choosing_a_region_and_zone

AWS Hardware announcements in 2020

On 2020, AWS announced the 4th generation of its Nitro architecture, which re-architected the traditional hypervisor crucial components (such as network, storage and even security) from the hypervisor itself, to dedicated set of hardware-based chips and software components.

Examples of Amazon EC2 instances supported by the Nitro architecture, announced on 2020:

Amazon EC2 C5a, Amazon EC2 C5ad, Amazon EC2 G4dn

On 2020, AWS also announced the 2nd generation of its Graviton processors (Graviton2), based on the 64-bit Arm architecture.

Examples on Amazon EC2 instances announced on 2020, based on Graviton2:

Amazon EC2 T4g, Amazon EC2 M6g, Amazon EC2 M6gd, Amazon EC2 C6gd, Amazon EC2 R6gd and even Amazon RDS instances based on Graviton2 — M6g, R6g and C6g.

The Graviton2 processors provides up to 40% better price/performance, as compared to 1st generation of the Graviton processors, enhanced performance for video encoding and hardware acceleration for compression workloads.

Each core of the AWS Graviton2 processor is a single-threaded vCPU, compared to Intel and AMD based EC2 instances where 2 vCPU (2 threads) equals single physical core. This provides more core and more power for running workloads, as shown during the keynote:
Boyan Krosnov, CPO of StorPool, presenting at SREcon20 Americas
By: Kat Temelkova
Tags: Storage Solutions, Kvm, Storage, Infrastructure, Software Defined Storage

SREcon20 Americas was one of the most anticipated technology events this year. The virtual conference gathered IT specialists and experts from around the world from 7 to 9 of December 2020. StorPool Storage had a speaker at the event — Boyan Krosnov who talked about KVM and how to achieve better performance for KVM clouds with the help of a powerful software-defined storage solution.

Talk “Achieving the Ultimate Performance with KVM” by Boyan Krosnov

Many companies build new-age KVM clouds, only to find out that their applications & workloads do not perform well. In his talk on SREcon20 Americas “Achieving the Ultimate Performance with KVM”, Boyan showed the audience how to get the most out of their KVM cloud and how to optimize it for performance. He gave his expert insight into why performance matters and how to measure it properly. Boyan showed how to optimize CPU and memory for ultimate performance and how to tune the storage layer for performance. In the talk, he outlined what are the main components of an efficient new-age cloud and which network components work best. In addition, Boyan showed how to select the right hardware to achieve unmatched performance for new-age cloud and applications.

Find out more about the presentation and stay tuned for its recording!
Free-Tier AWS native CI/CD pipeline for dev using Docker on EC2.
By: Carlos Garcia
Tags: DevOps, Cloud, AWS, Infrastructure, Docker

Lack and constraint of resources is a wonderful thing. It creates a need to make things possible by leveraging limited options; Especially when dealing with startups who want to leverage cloud platforms such as AWS or companies who want to dip their toes in AWS (cloud in general) before considering their options.

Over the weekend I was approached by a family member who was interested in developing a very cool app using AWS as the cloud choice. However, there were no funds and it needed to be hands-off — of course, we know that hands-off really means higher costs unless you leverage open-source tools with a pinch of automation scripting. Lucky for him I had a working concept in my personal environment.

The pipeline is fairly simple and falls within the Free-Tier offered by AWS — Perfect for a DEV environment. Of course, this is considering the usage limit imposed by this tier. Keep in mind that for this scenario, I decided to skip Jenkins or Travis in order to keep the majority of the workflow in favor of AWS native resources.

AWS IAM handles repo access (From dev user and also from the designated serv account used by the EC2 instance — As of 12/20, CodeCommit does not allow API calls to clone/pull based on Role)

Code repository: handled by AWS CodeCommit

Push/Merge actions trigger an AWS Lambda function (AWS CodeBuild runs on $).

The AWS Lambda function parses the information and passes the parameters to AWS Systems Manager (SSM)

SSM does a run command (Shell Script) call to an active t2.nano EC2 amz2 linux (Docker host)

Script cleans local files and processes, pulls repo, and builds a new Docker image which then replaces the old container.

Again, this is a very basic example that jumps through hoops in order to keep things within the AWS Free-Tier. This example is a quick and easy way to setup a CI/CD pipeline for personal / small development projects. I do not recommend doing this architecture for team projects.
10 years down, plus a new deal nearly done.
By: Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District
Tags: Infrastructure, Cleveland, Sustainability, Environment

Traditional anniversaries commemorate 10 years with metal. Modern conventions honor it with diamonds.

We’re marking this particular 10-year anniversary with concrete, greenery, and now, pen to paper.

On Thursday, December 3, we approved a joint agreement with state and federal agencies to amend our Project Clean Lake pollution-control program in this its tenth year, a modification that will enhance plant operations, improve water quality, and save customers money in the long run.

The Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District Board of Trustees approved the agreement with the US Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Justice and the State of Ohio to modify the District’s $3 billion combined sewer overflow consent decree known as Project Clean Lake, an agreement that was approved in 2010 and formally signed in 2011.

The bottom of the main Doan Valley Tunnel construction access shaft, looking up 200 feet towards the surface.

US District Court Judge Nugent approved and signed the modification of our consent decree March 16, making the revised agreement official.

Project Clean Lake is a 25-year endeavor of gray and green projects designed to reduce the amount of combined sewage discharging into local waterways during heavy rain events by billions of gallons.

“In addition to protecting public health and the environment, the Sewer District is focused on cost savings for its customers,” said Kyle Dreyfuss-Wells, Sewer District Chief Executive Officer. “When we began the negotiation process in 2018, it was clear that we could eliminate unnecessary expenditures while maintaining, and, in some cases, improving water quality with these modifications.”
Incredibly well thought out, well written and poignant.
By: American Resistance
Tags: Rural Voters, New Deal, Urban Voters, Infrastructure, Democrats

Incredibly well thought out, well written and poignant. Powerful article. Fortunately, Biden won without such promises…though I agree, it would have helped, possibly in down-ticket races. I see only two weak links: 1) these massive government programs will require at least some Republican support. Based on our election results, I am skeptical at best that those votes can be won and 2) Is the Democratic Party going to grow bigger balls to stand proudly, confidently and assertively to defend and promote such a wide ranging initiative? I’m not feeling that one either. Thanks for the great article none-the-less.
Infrastructure That Does More
By: Bridget Marquis
Tags: Recovery, Parks, Resilience, Cities, Infrastructure

It’s a critical moment for our country and the stakes are high. The pandemic is a public health crisis accelerating social isolation and despair, the economic crisis is devastating communities, and civil unrest has forced a long-overdue reckoning about race and institutional violence. This time of multiple crises has exposed a fundamental truth: America desperately needs to abandon the status quo and invest in new priorities.

We know that the next few months will bring a call for reinvestment in the country’s aging infrastructure as a key component of the nation’s recovery plan. When this call for investment comes, it’s time to make knitting our country back together again a top priority. It’s time to invest in infrastructure that supports our economy, our people and our democracy: the parks, trails, libraries, community centers and public spaces that make up the nation’s long-neglected civic infrastructure.

This set of assets, often seen as “nice to have” amenities, is just as important as highways and bridges. In fact, given our current circumstances, they may be more important to our ultimate ability to recover, rebuild and prosper.

That’s because, while arguments for traditional infrastructure are usually made solely on the grounds of boosting GDP, investments in civic infrastructure help the economy while also delivering so much more. In fact, multiple studies demonstrate the beneficial impacts of our shared public spaces:

Improved physical and mental health. More than a hundred studies have proven that parks and greenspaces are associated with better mental health and lower mortality. People with lower incomes living in communities with greater access to green space have reduced income-related health inequities. Research shows that spending just 20 minutes in nature significantly reduces stress levels.
Instructional Materials For GCP
Tags: Cloud Computing, Dipostarfinance, Google Cloud Platform, Gcp, Infrastructure

In recent years, cloud services have spread rapidly, and among the many public clouds, Google Cloud has received a great deal of attention.

Illustration by Freepik Storyset

Why should we learn GCP?

“You can use the same infrastructures that Google has in-house”

Google Cloud has a high level of security

GCP has a great data analysis tool, BigQuery, the entire organization, not just a few experts, can use the data to develop business strategies and improve operations.

For learning GCP, there are so many free official materials from Google. I will introduce one by one.

Good Materials to learn GCP

GCP official youtube channel

https://www.youtube.com/user/googlecloudplatform

They have contents with the following categories

Getting Started with Google Cloud

AI and Machine Learning with Google Cloud

Identity, Security, and Migration for web applications with Google Cloud

Enterprise Solutions with Google Cloud

This Week in Cloud

Google Cloud Next ’20: OnAir — All Sessions

Google Cloud Events Spotlight

Level Up — Getting Hands-on with GCP

GCP training materials

https://cloud.google.com/training

We can learn the following things with them

Infrastructure modernization

Application modernization

Hybrid and multi-cloud

Smart analytics and data management

Apigee and Business Application Platform

Networking and security

Machine learning and artificial intelligence

Google Cloud for business

Productivity and collaboration

Google official documents

Google Cloud has documents for developers, it must be helpful and good to learn.

Qwiklabs

Qwiklabs is an online learning environment for GCP from Google. You can choose and learn content from several services; as of October 2018, there are a total of 255 labs available.

The nice thing about Qwiklabs is that you can actually try them out in a cloud environment. You get a temporary account and a GCP project so you can start using it from a clean environment. It’s also carefully explained with screen captures and the commands you need can be copied, making it a great option if you know what services you want to use with GCP.
Kubernetes na visão de quem lidera Tecnologia em empresas inovadoras
Tags: DevOps, Kubernetes, Containers, Infrastructure, Docker

Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more

Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore
Google Cloud のブロックストレージの使い方
By: Hawk Yasuhara
Tags: Google Cloud, Persistent Disk, Infrastructure

Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more

Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore
What is terraform and why it is the next thing you should learn
By: Omkar Birade
Tags: Infrastructure As Code, DevOps, Terraform, AWS, Infrastructure

Are you a backend developer? DevOps practitioner? UI developer?

Irrespective of who you are, you might have come across scenarios where you might have realised having knowledge about cloud providers is one essential tool to be carrying around in your quiver.

It proves to be very useful when you are working on a side project or even when you just want to host your own domain for whatever reason.

With the rise of the cloud, no one really remains untouched with it. Every company, startup(big or small) have long moved away from setting up and managing their own infrastructure to using services provided by cloud providers.

Every day the big players AWS, GCP, Azure make to the news on how they have reduced the entire cost of infra setup and significantly increased security.

But with all these benefits come complexities and drawbacks.

Some of these are:

Repetitive tasks to configure resources across environments — dev, staging, UAT, production. Manual setup — resources need to be created, modified, terminated manually one by one. Prone to error — With the complexity of setting up 100s of VPCs, buckets, lambdas, EC2s, there is always a margin for error.

So how to deal with all this?

Every interesting problem has an even interesting solution and vice versa.

That interesting solution, in this case, is Terraform.

Terraform is a tool through which can tame any cloud provider. Having Terraform in your quiver can make your life significantly easy when it comes to managing and provisioning your cloud infrastructure.
インフラエンジニア日記 #55 2020 11/30 ~ 12/04
By: Wataru Shimoda
Tags: AWS, Infrastructure, News, Gcp

What's new in Kubernetes 1.20? | Sysdig

Kubernetes 1.20 is about to be released, and it comes packed with novelties! Where do we begin? As we highlighted in…
Encrypted Data: The Battle for Security and Speed
By: Gleb Keselman
Tags: Security, Encryption, Infrastructure, Platform

As Intuit evolves into an AI-driven expert platform, solving for sensitive data at scale across organizational lines becomes more critical than ever. In this article, we will discuss the evolution of Intuit’s approach to encryption and data protection, as seen from the eyes of the team responsible for those capabilities.

Motivation

Customer Obsession is one of Intuit’s core values, and even though we are an internal team, developing platform capabilities to be used by engineers, it is still very much a guiding principle in everything we do. One method we use to truly understand our customers, their needs and wants is called “Follow Me Home”, a practice in which we simply observe the customers as they interact with our products, in their “natural habitat”. Every source of confusion or frustration, every direction that isn’t evidently clear is something that we take a note of, and make sure to fix going forward.

During our recent sessions with analysts, engineers, and data scientists, we discovered a common obstacle: oftentimes the data they were trying to use was produced by a service outside of their immediate reach and identifying the original data owner was an onerous, manual task, full of tribal knowledge.

At Intuit we take pride in being great stewards of our customers’ data, and we work hard to ensure it is used for the express benefit of powering the prosperity of those customers, which is why there is an approval process for granting access that must be followed by the data owner before a data scientist can have access.

Even after the data owner is identified, and the approval granted, there is an additional hurdle in the way when the data is encrypted, which as you can guess happens quite often. Allowing access to the encryption key protecting this data is another manual operation, ripe with errors and back and forth communication.

We knew we had to do better.

At a high level, this is the step-by-step solution we had in mind:

An analyst finds an interesting dataset, part of which is encrypted. They don’t know who generated it and therefore, who to ask for access or how to decrypt it. They send this encrypted data to a dedicated attribution service that identifies which team encrypted it, which encryption keys were used, and requests access. The identified data owner approves this request, which generates a unique access policy, and provides it back to the analyst. The analyst can now decrypt the data and use it.

Steps 2–4 can and eventually will be automated.
未来城镇发展和冠状病毒对世界经济的冲击
By: Li. Wilhelm, Haojiang
Tags: Economy, China, Infrastructure, Covid, Rural Area

Design/ Manufacturing Consultant based in Vancouver, BC. English, Deutsch, and 中文. See willi.uk
Every Challenge Has a Solution - Anne Rabin
By: Insights Leaders
Tags: Anne Rabin, Infrastructure, Industry Leader, Infra Solve

Photo by Bonneval Sebastien on Unsplash

Problem solving, or finding the solution to a challenge involves various meticulous steps. Each one of these steps is exaggerated and holds even more importance when speaking of a business. There are stakeholders involved, decisions to be made and often large sums of money at risk. Each problem needs to be defined and the cause needs to be determined. Further, identifying, prioritizing and selecting alternatives is key to implementing a good solution.

Having brought numerous complex projects to a close, Anne Rabin is here to share with us how she approaches solving ongoing business challenges. She further delves into how this skill is important in leadership positions and how she manages to handle challenging solutions.

You have been known to bring complex projects to a close and resolve ongoing challenges. These are both extremely valuable qualities for the leadership team of any organization. How do you manage this? What do you think are some important ‘tricks of the trade’ to be able to handle crises / challenging situations?

“I believe that every challenge has a solution. The first step is to ensure the right people are present, who are committed to finding a way forward.

“My time as a board member for the Presidio Parkway Project Company is reflective of this need. I was concerned that the construction of the project was being burdened by significant claims and deteriorating relationships with key stakeholders. This could potentially impact our returns and long-term partnership.

“The Board, along with the California State Department of Transportation (DOT) identified a group of eight to see the project through. As an integral member of that group, I observed that the early discussions were restating our previous perspective and not much progress was being made.

“I noted if we could help the DOT show their commissioners that the additional funds were not reflective of management failures, we could reach a financial settlement. We engaged a government relations professional who had strong ties to the California Transportation Commission to help us map out an approach. This ultimately led to building a consensus and an approval for the additional funding.

“Another important rule I follow in times of crisis, is not to react immediately. I have learnt the value of patience and the importance of asking questions. Waiting for clarity and developing a vision for the future is essential.

“One of my strongest skills is my ability to assess risk and resiliency by drilling down on the specifics of individual assets to determine whether it can withstand shocks and/or its ability to adapt to new patterns of use. It is an important perspective for current times.”

Thank you for sharing, Anne.
インフラエンジニア日記 #53 2020 11/16 ~ 11/20
By: Wataru Shimoda
Tags: AWS, Infrastructure, Gcp

Announcing the GitOps Working Group

The GitOps Working Group's goal is to provide companies and individuals with the skills, knowledge and competency to…
U.S. Needs National Coordination on Water Infrastructure
By: Timothy Little
Tags: State And Local, Water, Cities, Infrastructure, Chicago

The American Water Works Association (AWWA) estimates there are 6.1 million lead‐containing service lines present in community water systems (2016 study).

Drinking lead contaminated water can cause numerous problems: birth defects, development and learning disabilities among children, and cardiovascular and kidney diseases among adults. And these are just some of the problems. High profile contaminated water cases have been brought to national attention in Flint, MI and Newark, NJ, but this is not an isolated problem and needs greater national attention.

Overall, the general response has been to monitor and limit lead contamination in water, but significant reinvestment to replace these service lines is needed. Some states and localities have started to move forward on their own, but greater federal funding and oversight is needed.

Photo by Jouni Rajala on Unsplash

New York’s Clean Water Infrastructure Act of 2017 established a Lead Service Line Replacement Program (LSLRP). The Act determined which municipalities can participate and allows them to coordinate the replacement of lead service lines and submit project related vouchers/invoices to the State for reimbursement.

While New York is moving on its own to prevent a future health crisis, other areas are not as fortunate.

The Chicago Tribune analyzed the city’s drinking water and discovered that 30 percent of 2,797 homes where tap water was sampled had lead concentrations higher than the USDA’s allowable limit in bottled water. There is also a problem in city parks, where the parks department has continuously run fountains to flush out the lead and turned off other fountains. Pro tip -- if you’re in a Chicago park and see a continuously running fountain, don’t drink from it.

Chicago, IL Source: Pixbay

While progress had been made over the years to bring these levels down, the presence of lead contaminated service lines is a national problem. Not to mention that there are too often boil-water advisories across the country for various reasons.

The Biden Infrastructure plan calls for doubling federal investments in clean drinking water and water infrastructure. The plan also calls to reduce the matching funds required of local governments that do not have the taxbase to afford borrowing to repair their water systems.

Investing in water also creates jobs and is a sizable economic opportunity. According to the Brookings Institute,
Bentley Systems Launches $100M Corporate Venture Capital Fund
By: Greg Bergamesco
Tags: Bentley Systems, Venture Capital, Digital Twin, Corporate Venture Capital, Infrastructure

Bentley Systems Launches $100M Corporate Venture Capital Fund

Image: Shutterstock

Touchdown Ventures is proud to announce our ongoing work with Bentley Systems to help manage the company’s Bentley iTwin Ventures corporate venture capital fund. The information below outlines details about the new fund, and Bentley’s official press release can be found here.

What does Bentley Systems do?

Bentley Systems provides innovative software to advance the world’s infrastructure, sustaining both the global economy and environment. Bentley’s industry-leading software solutions are used by organizations of every size for the design, construction, and operation of roads and bridges, rail and transit, water and wastewater networks, electrical utilities, buildings and campuses, and industrial facilities.

What is a “Digital Twin”?

“Digital twins” are digital representations of physical assets, processes or systems, providing opportunities to understand and model performance of real world infrastructure. Digital twins are continuously updated with data from multiple sources, which makes them different from and functionally superior to static, 3D models.

Bentley’s iTwin Services can help designers, engineers, contractors, or owners quickly create living digital twins that aggregate data from multiple sources, visualize data in mixed reality, and apply artificial intelligence or machine learning to underlying data to generate decision-making insights.

What is the focus of the fund?

The new venture fund will invest in start-ups that build applications and solutions to support Bentley’s ecosystem of “digital twin” technology. Examples include: design and simulation, engineering, construction, or asset lifecycle management solutions (e.g., infrastructure IoT; predictive maintenance; resilience analysis) addressing roadways, railways, waterways, bridges, utilities, industrial facilities, and other infrastructure assets.

The fund will focus primarily on seed and early stage opportunities. Initial investments will typically range from $1–5 million each, with reserves for follow-on investments.

How can an investment from Bentley Systems create value?

Portfolio companies will benefit from Bentley’s software development and infrastructure engineering expertise, global distribution and user network, and investment backing as they work to develop, test, and bring to market innovative digital twin solutions. The corporate venture capital fund will also assist portfolio companies with mentorship, assistance in raising capital, recruiting, and commercial introductions.

Interested in learning more?

Touchdown Ventures works closely with Bentley senior executives to help manage all aspects of the Bentley iTwin Ventures fund. Please get in touch with us if you have an investment opportunity in any of our focus areas.

More information is available about Bentley Systems, Bentley iTwin Ventures, and Bentley’s “digital twin” solutions.
25 tips to prepare your IT infrastructure for the holiday season — Cyber Monday & Black Friday.
Tags: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Thanksgiving, Infrastructure, Information Technology

Our remote operation teams have been involved in US holiday season traffic for decades. Black Friday and Cyber Monday drive traffic volumes crazy bringing in 100x traffic increases to company websites and systems. It’s the time when some e-commerce & retail companies make most of their annual revenue within a few days time. And I know One thing for sure — That is Murphy’s Law loves the holiday season. Anything & everything that can go wrong will go wrong during this time, and many companies struggle with their engineering teams off during the holidays.

US Cyber Monday online sales

Our clients, of course, have the luxury of remote teams helping them on preparations as well as continuous 24x7 SRE operations with all tier 1, 2 & 3 support teams fully staffed and operational while the onsite teams enjoy their well deserved time off.

US Black Friday online sales

Even big brand names had their fair share of holiday season downtimes due to various failures and issues. In these few mad rush hours, a downtime of a few minutes could still cost Millions of dollars to the organization. So here we’re focusing on how you could ensure that your IT infrastructure is well prepared for the holiday season. Below list is without any order of importance.
“Education” for the 2020–2021 school year (PART II)
By: Scott Adamson
Tags: Education, Zoom, Technology, Distance Learning, Infrastructure

Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

Distance Learning Technology

The story is part two of my reflections about planning for the summer of 2020. I will focus on the technical considerations we tackled to situate ourselves for the hybrid fall school year’s demands.

As we worked through the summer, the expectations for a remote or hybrid start to the school year were becoming clearer, and we verified that Zoom would still be the platform of choice for the community.

We tested several “appliances” that would tie right into Zoom and give the faculty a familiar interface to work with as they link students’ classrooms with their remote peers. We settled on the Poly Studio X50 system (this includes a control tablet and camera/speaker and microphone bar). Epson Brightlink projectors display the class, students, and work on the screen, and the remote students can see their peers in the room. Faculty connect to the meeting from their device and classroom, and remote students all see the same presented materials. It was not perfect, but provided the best solution for this mixed in-person and remote classroom.

To support the sixty (plus) Zoom Room cameras, we wanted to ensure adequate bandwidth to the internet to guarantee that classes looked and sounded good. Our bandwidth to the internet was 500MBs (up and down) for our primary connection. Using PRTG, I have been monitoring several systems, including our internet pipe. Before installing the Poly Systems, the data did not show upload or download speeds exceeding 350MBs. We wanted to consider the network load of the Zoom Rooms.

Following some discussions, we worked on updating our RCN bandwidth to 2GBs (up and down). The updated speeds give us a lot of room, and with the costs of internet services being so reasonable, the monthly costs were negligible. As of November, the PRTG charts continued to show no greater than 450MBs internet speeds (close to 500MBs). The reports from the classrooms have been good, and no broad or systematic issues.

The increased maximum internet speed required updating our Cisco ASA firewalls to support 1GBs plus internet speeds. All of this work required time, scheduling, adjustments, and some downtime. We coordinated between RCN and our partners to ensure as quick and efficient transition to the increased speeds.

We replaced aging HP network hardware switches for newer Cisco switches providing up to 10GBs fiber between switches and substantially improving the backplane speeds of these current devices.

Infrastructure is critical in assuring the use of the Zoom Room classrooms and the 1000+ devices on the network on a daily basis supporting our faculty, staff, and students.

Infrastructure takeaways. For any deployment at this time, providing the best communication from the endpoints to the internet is critical. Monitor and review the bottlenecks and prepare for the best ways to ensure smooth classroom experiences.
Civil Engineering Market Worth $13.35 Trillion By 2027
By: Gaurav Shah
Tags: Planning, Design, Real Estate, Infrastructure, Construction

The global civil engineering market size is expected to reach USD 13.35 trillion by 2027, according to a new report by Grand View Research Inc. It is projected to exhibit a CAGR of 5.4% during the forecast period. Rising public-private partnership to aid the investment in infrastructure development in emerging economies is expected to bolster the growth.

Increasing adoption of advanced technologies and digitalization is expected to have positive impact on sustainable development of civil engineering value chain across the globe. These trends are expected to strengthen the network of players in the construction value chain and facilitate the digital transformation process, thereby driving the market for civil engineering.

Numerous market players are focusing on the use of green building products owing to the rising significance of eco-friendly products and energy efficiency. Thus, the shift of construction sector from the use conventional construction materials, is expected to heighten of importance of civil engineering for the successful execution of construction projects.

The government, private contractors, and public-private partnerships are the major buyers of civil engineering services for the development of residential and commercial projects, infrastructure projects, and industrial facilities. Rapid rise in service standardization and establishment of regulatory norms among major economies is anticipated to positively influence the market growth.

Click the link below:

https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/civil-engineering-market

Further key findings from the report suggest:
Critical Pipe Fix at Cannonsville
By: Nyc Water Staff
Tags: Watershed, Reservoirs, Drinking Water, Water Supply, Infrastructure

Machinists from the Croton Filtration Plant measured the pipe and pre-fabricated patches from rolled sections of steel. Engineers, watershed maintainers, safety experts and police conjured a plan to pump down the stilling pool outside the chamber and create a dry condition for the repair to be executed. Other staff communicated with neighboring states and downstream stakeholders to make sure they were aware that the West Delaware Release Chamber would be shut down for approximately 12 hours. After the repair, the pipe was pressure tested to ensure that the welding was successful and no leaks were observed! We monitored and planned all the work with the help of health and safety experts and he timing of the repair was coordinated with input from the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the U.S. Geological Survey.
SE Queens Green Infrastructure
By: Nyc Water Staff
Tags: Flooding, Sustainability, Storm Sewers, Stormwater, Infrastructure

To date, more than 4,000 rain gardens have been built within the streets and sidewalks of New York City, with approximately 5,500 more in construction now and thousands more planned for the next several years. The de Blasio Administration is investing $1.9 BILLION to build a comprehensive drainage system and alleviate flooding in neighborhoods throughout southeast Queens. The program is the largest of its kind and consists of 45 sewer projects overall, including 10 that are substantially completed and 11 that are in active construction.
ALTYAPI OTOMASYONU NEDEN GEREKİYOR?
By: Ertan Çiftlik
Tags: Automation, Infrastructure, Digitalization, Infrastructure Automation

Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more

Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore
PARTLY FALSE: These images showing infrastructure development in Uganda are misleading
Tags: Yoweri Museveni, Uganda, Infrastructure

PARTLY FALSE: These images showing infrastructure development in Uganda are misleading

A tweet with multiple images claiming to show infrastructure development in Uganda is PARTLY FALSE.

The tweet shows four images of different infrastructural installations along with a call to vote and secure the future.

Additionally, a campaign hashtag in support of President Yoweri Museveni, a candidate in the forthcoming presidential elections, is also shared in the November 13, 2020 tweet.

However, not all the images in the tweet are from Uganda as claimed in the post.

A Google reverse image search here and here shows that the first image and the third image in the tweet are photographs of sections of Lira, a city in the northern region of Uganda.

A Google reverse image search shows the second image of a stadium was taken in Equatorial Guinea. The image, featured by Competition.dz in December 2014, captures the Mongomo Stadium, which was used during the African Cup of Nations Tournament in 2015.

A Google reverse image search of the last image showing a roundabout and a developed city centre is from Equatorial Guinea’s capital, Malabo, and not Uganda. The image has been featured on multiple blogs including 17QQ, Hongyuan Wealth Network and Travel 24/7 in 2017, all referencing the scene as the capital of the central African country.

PesaCheck has looked into a tweet with multiple images claiming to show infrastructure development in Uganda and finds it to be PARTLY FALSE.
City to receive funding for new traffic signals in southern Dallas and tornado-stricken areas
By: Tristan Hallman
Tags: Press Release, Infrastructure, Dallas

DALLAS — The North Central Texas Council of Governments’ Regional Transportation Council (RTC) has awarded preliminary approval to fund 44 new traffic signals in the city.

Of those, 22 will replace tornado-affected signals in northern Dallas. The other 22 signals will cover the Lancaster Corridor and Hampton Road in southern Dallas.

The Regional Transportation Council will fund the signal improvements with $220,000 from the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program (CMAQ), a $2.1 million local match and $14 million from the Surface Transportation Block Grant Program. The block grant will require the federal government’s final approval, which is expected by next summer.

Mayor Eric Johnson and city staff have also been seeking Federal Highway Administration reimbursement of approximately $14 million for other traffic signals that were damaged during the Oct. 20, 2019, EF-3 tornado.

Mayor Johnson said the RTC funding is welcome news for Dallas.

“This funding will help us tremendously as we recover from the devastating tornado that ripped through our city last year,” Mayor Johnson said. “In addition, it has been clear that we must do more to invest in our aging infrastructure, especially in southern Dallas. With the Regional Transportation Council’s help, we will make much-needed progress and ensure that many of our city’s residents are able to move through Dallas in a safer and more efficient manner for years to come.”

Dallas City Council Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Adam McGough, who the mayor appointed to lead the city’s RTC delegation, represents a part of the city that was hit by the tornado.

“We have so many needs across our city as it relates to improved traffic signals, streets and lights,” said McGough. “I am thankful to the RTC and our partners for this funding to help us address some of those needs as we continue to improve our infrastructure in Dallas.”

The Lancaster Corridor was selected for RTC funding in part because it is home to the Dallas VA Medical Center and the DART Blue Line. Hampton Road is also a high-priority area with aging signals and a high volume of calls for service from Dallas Fire-Rescue.

“The Regional Transportation Council is laser-focused on providing a much-needed boost to the local economy by funding projects that can be implemented quickly,” said Michael Morris, P.E., Director of Transportation for the North Central Texas Council of Governments. “This project will replace aging traffic-signal infrastructure that was also impacted by the tornado, as well as needed improvements in the southern sector. This is also a perfect example of the types of projects the RTC is expediting to help our community recover from the economic impacts of COVID-19.”
เราเรียกว่า “Lottery Day” เบื้องหลังวันหวยออก Powered by KBTG
By: Kris B
Tags: Services, Transactions, Lottery, Backstage, Infrastructure

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年終了，設計師如何談加薪？
By: Chun-Chuan Lin
Tags: Job Hunting, Salary, 薪資, 加薪, Salary Negotiations

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Job Vacancies — Video Interview Platform — Jobs — Best Video Interview Platform in India
Tags: Job Hunting, Job Search, Job Interview, Jobs, Interview

Job Vacancies — Video Interview Platform — Jobs — Best Video Interview Platform in India | MyJobGuru MyJobGuru ·Dec 24, 2020

Job Vacancies — If you want to get Jobs. MyJobGuru is the Best video Interview Platform in India And here you will get a lot of job Vacancies and MyJobGuru is India’s №1 Video Interview Platform Where you can find your favorite jobs with video resume with your dream industry. if you want to get a job according to your skills in the company of your dreams and just click on MyJobGuru.
Video Resume “ Future of Resumes”
Tags: Job Hunting, Job Search, Job Interview, Jobs

Well, The answer here is yes and I will tell you why..

Like from this corona situation nobody was able to go to the office right? At these crisis time the people looking for jobs had a tough time as there was no in office interview as this time video resume was a plus as it gave a more brief introduction and hiring companies can judge well from the video resume like the confidence , communication skill , knowledge and so on

Apart from this the video resume are the future of resumes as
5 essential steps of title search process | Title Search jobs
Tags: Job Hunting, Title Loans, Chennai, Bangalore, Property Search

5 essential steps of title search process | Title Search jobs saravan ·Dec 23, 2020

Learn How to Do a Title Search in 5 Steps!

A title search is the process of going through past deeds, tax records, and other financial transactions linked to a particular piece of property.

The purpose of a title search is to make sure that the person selling you the property is actually the owner so that the property can legally transfer to you without any problems.

Are you Title search professionals? If yes means Lookup on Our Website www.titlefreelancer.com
New Job Postings Report Offers Some Positive News
By: Scholley Bubenik
Tags: Job Hunting, Recruiting, Austin, HR, Jobs

Canva Pro Image

According to the Texas Workforce Commission, Austin, TX had an unemployment rate of 6.4% or 80,800 in September 2020; an increase of 0.9% from the previous month. That is 48,000 more people unemployed this year than the same time last year.

There is hope. According to the recent Austin Job Postings Report released by the Austin Chamber, there were approximately 62,500 available job postings in October 2020. Of those job postings, 40% were new (1st time) job postings.

Occupations in High Demand

The data showed that the majority of job postings were for occupations that served the current need in business and the community. Computer and Mathematical occupations made up 14% of available job postings in October 2020, many of which were for Software Developers-Applications. Some other occupations that saw an increase in demand are:

Personal Care Aides

Driver/Sales Workers

Web Developers

Janitors and Cleaners

Combined Food Preparation and Serving Workers including Fast Food

Laborers and Freight

Stock

Material Movers

Maintenance and Repair Workers

General and Retail Salespersons

The companies that had the most new (1st time) job postings that month were employers such as The University of Texas, Ascension Health, Amazon, IBM, Hospital Corporation of America, Dell, Baylor Scott & White Health, Anthem Blue Cross, HEB, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., The Home Depot Incorporated and the Texas Department of Public Safety. The top 5 new (1st time) job postings were for software developers-applications, sales representatives-wholesale and manufacturing, retail salespersons, registered nurses, and customer service representatives.

Some Good News

The good news is that the job market appears to be rebounding. The chart below shows the monthly ad trends under Available Job Postings in the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos MSA from October 2015 through October 2020.

Source: The Conference Board® Burning Glass® Help Wanted OnLine™ (HWOL)

As you can see in the chart, the monthly ad trend in October 2020 surpassed the pre-COVID-19 high in October 2019. Though it is not a definitive indicator of future success, it is a step in the right direction.

For more information about this topic, visit the Austin Chamber or the Texas Workforce Commission.