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Archive for the ‘environmental’ Category

No matter how carefully you look after the flooring outside your office or factory, there will come a time when areas become damaged and you will need to consider floor repair options.

It is up to you how long you leave the issue, but a problem is only likely to get worse over time. The best tactic is to tackle the spoilage as soon possible, since degradation has a habit of developing faster than you think.

Damage

If an area of exterior flooring is showing significant wear and tear, you should think about the conditions it is exposed to on a day-to-day basis as this will affect the type of material used; although the majority will tend to be epoxy resin or mortar options.

For example, business owners are recommended to use a different product if the area is often damp, very cold or comes under major duress from heavy duty vehicles.

There are plenty more specialist styles of floor repair to suit other specific situations, such as when a hole must be filled in very quickly or when the flooring in question includes a flight of steps.

Cracks

For business owners who notice damage at an early stage, there are a number of options available aimed at fixing cracks and gaps in joints. Again, the type of material you are working with will be a factor.

The main difference between these products and their more serious damage counterparts is that the ones aimed at cracks will tend to come in cartridges, to be used with an appropriate cartridge gun. Many people prefer this method because of the improved manoeuvrability of such tools.

Resurfacing

In many cases it may simply be easier to completely resurface the flooring, since this can create a smooth surface across a wider surface. This type of product can be also be used after heavily damaged areas have been fixed using one of the aforementioned options.

Once issues have been fixed, firms can look forward to an extended period of time when the flooring outside their business property looks as good as new; with such aesthetics contributing to the positive image of the organisation.

World Environment Day, which is commemorated each year on June 5th, is one of the most significant mode through which the United Nations stimulates the global awareness of the environment. It is by this way that the United Nations attract political attention and enhances action to shape a better global environment. Each year the World Environment Day is celebrated in recognition of unique theme. Norway was honored to host International World Environment Day 2007 celebrations in recognition of the theme — ‘Melting Ice – The Hot Topic’. Over a hundred nations across the globe celebrates the World Environment Day with highly relevant theme each year.

The slogan for World Environment Day 2008 is ‘Kick the Habit! Towards a Low Carbon Economy’. With an understanding of the fact that the change in climatic condition is gradually becoming one of the most defining issue of the age, UNEP is requesting the nations, companies and communities to put special focus on the greenhouse gas emissions and to put spare thought over how to reduce them. The World Environment Day 2008 is going to highlight resources and focuses on promoting low carbon economies with a view to shape a better and healthier future. Promoting a low carbon economy involves steps towards improved energy efficiency, alternative energy sources, forest conservation and eco-friendly consumption. The chief international celebration of the World Environment Day 2008 is going to be held in New Zealand.

The Heads of State, Prime Ministers and Ministers of Environment deliver statements and commit themselves to care for this only green planet of the universe. Serious pledges establish sound and non-transitory governmental policies related to environmental management and economic planning. bicycle parades, tree planting , recycling campaigns, clean-up campaigns, street rallies, school level essay and poster competitions etc. are organized all over the world on June 5th to celebrate the World Environment Day.

Here are some information on World Environment Day for the last ten years regarding where the WED celebration was held at and what were the respective themes each year:

Places of celebration:
World Environment Day 2007 – Tromsø, Norway
World Environment Day 2006 – Algiers, Algeria
World Environment Day 2005 – San Francisco, U.S.
World Environment Day 2004 – Barcelona, Spain
World Environment Day 2003 – Beirut, Lebanon
World Environment Day 2002 – Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China
World Environment Day 2001 – Torino, Italy and Havana, Cuba
World Environment Day 2000 – Adelaide, Australia
World Environment Day 1999 – Tokyo, Japan
World Environment Day 1998 – Moscow, Russian Federation

Themes of celebration:
World Environment Day 2007 – Melting Ice – a Hot Topic?
World Environment Day 2006 – Deserts and Desertification – Don’t Desert Drylands!
World Environment Day 2005 – Green Cities – Plan for the Planet!
World Environment Day 2004 – Wanted! Seas and Oceans – Dead or Alive?
World Environment Day 2003 – Water – Two Billion People are Dying for It!
World Environment Day 2002 – Give Earth a Chance
World Environment Day 2001 – Connect with the World Wide Web of Life
World Environment Day 2000 – The Environment Millennium – Time to Act
World Environment Day 1999 – Our Earth – Our Future – Just Save It!
World Environment Day 1998 – For Life on Earth – Save Our Seas

Application or IT Environments Management service will fall under Application Management as defined in ITIL2 (operational guidance) because it contributes to improving the overall quality of IT Software development and support through the lifecycle. Application Environments Management set encompasses a set of best practices proposed to provide an effective, end to end management service for test software platforms or development environments. The software test bed or development environment could consist of a client server application, Relational Database Management System (RDBMS), middleware, interfaces, daemons, customised processes (written in any software programming language), FTP utilities etc.

Functional test phases such as Unit, Integration, Acceptance, all manner of performance or non functional testing and development phases all require Application Environments.

The primary clients of an Application Environments Management service are Software Project and Test teams.

The service will cater for the following;

Manage the creation, build, upgrade and support for all test and development Application Environments.
Clearly defining auditable processes of allocating application environments, multiple bookings or shared usage, code upgrades, service level agreement, support, decommissioning and re-allocation.
Manage data refreshes, collating test data and assist in the anonimising of production or other sensitive data if necessary.
Supply, provision and manage all Application Environment Requirements from the Project and Test teams all through the software development cycle of a project.
Assist the Project in establishing their application environment requirements, provide expert knowledge on the APPLICATION environment’s set up, connectivity and serve as a guide to the projects in using the application environment in the most efficient manner.
Review and contribute to the Project Initiation Document (PID) ensuring that the IT Environments Management function and its deliverables are clearly defined and captured.
Create and maintain project plans to assist in managing all activities required to successfully carry out major code upgrades to all application environments.
Provide reports on usage/utilisation, availability, forward planning and schedules.

Application Environments Management is clearly a new and emerging area which has arisen due to the following reasons:

The increased Application Environment requirements for many companies who have several software projects running at any one time.
The increased levels of interfacing and connectivity between several systems in most organisations also known as spaghetti. For example in some companies more than thirty systems are interfaced or connected with each other exchanging files and data flows etc and has meant that any changes to one system most times could require a change to many others and then require large numbers of test and development  application environments.
Increased awareness and more commitment to carrying out rigorous software testing especially with more companies opting to use the Prince 2 methodology and  ITIL Framework

A typical Application Environments Management tool should be able to provide the following services: environments bookings and allocation, manage multiple bookings and re-curring bookings.  Provide reporting on usage, availability, interconnectivity or interfacing environments, utilisation and conflict reporting etc. It must also serve as a repository of all information on an Application Environment to include Host Server names, Hardware Type, Operating System, IP Address and Interfaces if any.

The ideal background for an Application Environments Management personnel could be Software Development, Application or Technical Support, Infrastructure Project Management, Configuration and Release Management etc but must be

exposed to at least the ITIL Framework, Client – Server development, System Architecture/Design, Networks, TCP/IP and Messaging systems etc.

Terminologies defined & explained:

Application Environment – A single test bed or development platform instance of a software application or system that can also be used for all manner of functional and non functional testing or could be the production instance (production environment). It could also be large, medium or small which normally refers to the size of data the RDBMS will be holding depending on the type of testing it is required for.

Integrated Application environments (also known as stripes): More than one application environment connected to each other also communicating with each other and exchanging files and data flows. Connections could be via Microsoft ODBC, via FTP, TCP/IP, daemons, middleware, defined interfaces and database links etc.

Anonimising of data

Anonimising of data refers to the manipulation or transformation of production data held in the RDBMS such as Oracle, SQL Server, Sybase, Microsoft Access, DB2 etc to be used in a test or development Application Environment ensuring that for example real names, addresses, date of birth, bank account details and other sensitive information or data is transformed to dummy data.

The data is transformed whilst still maintaining its defining characteristics in a Relational Database Management System table such as character length (Char 25 or Varchar 50) etc to ensure its usage in testing or development is not compromised and that the integrity is maintained. For example a valid name such as John Smith defined as Char 10 will now be updated in the table to become possibly a unique character string XXXXXXYYYY (comprising of ten characters including the space between John and Smith).

Pipe cleaning

Pipe cleaning caters for the all the activities required to be carried out before a test or development environment is handed over to the Test or Project team and includes disk clear down, archiving and purging logs, importing test data, killing off rogue processes, resetting passwords, changing environment settings, end to end connectivity or integration tests to make sure everything is working okay.

Depending on the complexity of the system a checklist of activities may be required and ticked off capturing all the checks and tests that have been completed on an environment or an integrated suite of environments prior to its hand over to a Project or Test team.

Smoke Test

A smoke test describes an initial end to end test of all the integrated or even stand alone environments very possibly using dummy data and carried out by the support teams who have created or built the environment or by the test team when the environment is handed over.