Dark Garbage Environment

Archive for the ‘Government Policy’ Category

Fixing problems outdoors is always easier if there is at least a little sunshine beaming out, but the weather has a habit of misbehaving at the worst times.

The summer has now passed but there are a few weeks before the rainy British autumn kicks in properly, giving companies one last chance to get things done and not get soaked. There a huge number of tasks – such as fixing shelves, laying industrial flooring or changing fuses – that can be done come rain or shine, but working outdoors tends to be more enjoyable on a nice day.

No doubt plenty of business owners still have at least one more bit of outside improvement that they are keen to get done this year, but there is one mistake that many people make whether they are trying to fix a hole in the wall or attempting a spot of flat roof repair. The common error is to wait until the day you are going to get the task done to pick up your materials, potentially doubling the amount of time that you need.

As well as making the job seem much less appealing because of how long it will take, there is also the chance that the weather will turn by the time you get back from the shops.

A much more effective method is to plan your task out in full with a professional and pick up all the equipment you need in advance – perhaps even on a rainy day – then wait for a brief period of sunshine during which you or a staff member can head outdoors and get it done.

With the nights beginning to draw in and the leaves soon to go brown, autumn is certainly on its way, but there should be at least a few sunny periods left to help business owners in their quest to sort their offices out before the skies cloud over until next spring.

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.

The Deep Sea Environment In this essay we shall discuss several aspects of the deep sea environment. The main focus will be on the environment below the Mesopelagic Zone that extends down to 2000 meters below sea level with an emphasis on the environment in the Bathypelagic and Abyssalpelagic Zones.

We will examine the sources of evidence for a discussion of this deep sea environment by looking at some of the techniques man uses to gather information there. This will be followed by a description of some of the determining conditions in these regions with a note on geology, sediments , a brief discussion of the deep water masses, a description of marine life to be found in the deep sea environment, its adaptations and challenges with a special note on hydrothermal vents (although at an average depth of 2100 meters they are just within our discussion zone), hydrocarbon seeps and a final conclusion about the overall importance of the deep sea environment for mankind.

Firstly, why study the deep sea environment at all ? The abyssal plains are dark and seem devoid of life or interest but nothing could be further from the truth. Abyssal areas represent over 90% of the benthos and over 80% of ocean lies below 3000 meters. New discoveries are being made and these could greatly influence our future.

The deep sea is a repository of scientific information and resources that can influence us in the fields of medicine, chemistry, physics, biology, feeding the world’s expanding population and conservation. The deep sea is in fact the largest ecosystem on Earth . Let us first examine the methods of evidence collection. The Collection of  Evidence There are many techniques and  devices that have been used to explore the depths and gather information ranging from the days of dropping lead weights (line sounding) over the side of ships, to echo sounding since World War I, to the invention of scuba gear (not useful at our depths under discussion), to the use of Geological Long Range Inclined Asdic (GLORIA). Sidescan sonar and continuos seismic surveying methods do give us a wealth of information.

In addition a range of simple devices give us information such as thermometers, water bottles and current meters for measuring the physical and chemical properties of the water, dredges, corers, heat probes and cameras for studying bottom sediments and bottom life. However, for centuries the only evidence we had of marine life in the deep sea was extremely scarce. The area we are discussing has rarely been visited. Diving using atmospheric suits (JIM) can only cope to around 450 meters currently. We need different equipment to explore the depths we are discussing. In 1964 Alvin made the first successful scientific deep sea manned submersible dive in behalf of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Later updated versions have been able to dive to 6,000 meters.

Alvin was the first to discover hydrothermal vents and explore a small section of the mid oceanic ridge. We will return to this environment later. For depths below this we rely on remote operated vehicles or ROVs. Cutting edge research is being conducted using ROVs by Woods Hole OI and also Monterey bay Aquarium Research Institute.. Man has even visited the lowest point. In January 1960 Piccard and Walsh descended in the Trieste II ( a bathyscaphe) to the deepest known point on Earth, the Mariana Trench at 10,915 meters. Despite the overall paucity of evidence and the fact that the vast majority of the seabed remains to be explored we can discuss the deep water environment in a dynamic way.

New discoveries are being made frequently in this field. Let us now look at the geological basis of the deep sea environment. Geology The Ocean lithosphere is approximately 100 km thick ( therefore significantly thinner than the continental lithosphere) and this refers to the crust and the upper part of the mantle. The lithosphere is composed mainly of peridotite. The upper part of the lithosphere is the crust which is made up mainly of lighter granitic rock. The oceanic crust is thinner and denser than the continental crust and made up mainly of basaltic rock. The entire lithosphere (oceanic and continental) sits on top of the viscous lower layer called the asthenosphere which forms part of the upper mantle.

The lithosphere is composed of 7 major plates and 6 minor ones. New oceanic lithosphere , or at least the oceanic crust,  is formed at constructive plate boundaries. At sea floor spreading ridges the asthenosphere wells up and cools and forms the oceanic floor on either side of the boundary. The Mid Atlantic Ridge is a classical example of this. Destruction of the oceanic lithosphere occurs in the subduction zones. The subducted plate descends into the hot mantle and is destroyed as it melts. The coast of Japan offers an example of this. It should be noted that the environment is dynamic over geological time as the process of subduction destroys the ocean floor. As new ocean floor is formed it pushes the floor on either side away and this may eventually enter a subduction zone and be destroyed. It is possible to date the ocean crust as the plates move apart and spread over the abyssal plain as  they take on the polarity of the Earth’s magnetic field. This work was described by Matthews and Vine.

Also generally speaking the older the ocean crust the further away from the spreading ridges it will be. The denser material also sinks further away from the surface of the sea . Given the age/depth relation the age of the ocean crust can also be estimated. The main “landform”  features of the ocean basins are perhaps a Mid Ocean Ridge with an abyssal plain on either side of this ridge,  constructive plate margins or destructive plate margins with a deep ocean trench at the edges of the deep sea environment with pelagic sediments covering the floor. Naturally there are many variations to this pattern but this brings us to a consideration of sedimentation.

Sediments in the Deep Sea Environment In the true deep sea environment we are really only concerned with deep sea sediments. However, there are two main types of sediment, terragenous and bioclastic and less widespread types of sediment from volcanic and hydrothermal vent activity. Sediments can also be classified as pelagic or deep sea sediments. If we look at terragenous sediments first, these are the result of erosion from continental rocks. The material eroded is deposited on the continental shelves by run off or other physical actions and advances the continental shelf seawards by deposition of sediments. Submarine fans may form e.g. the giant Ganges Fan and currents eventually move sediments off the continental shelf and into the abyssal plain. Therefore this brief discussion of terragenous sediments is useful as they do eventually enter our discussion remit. The ocean shifts the coarser material in turbidity currents and there are occasional sudden movements e.g. 1929 Grand Banks in North America turbidity event. Bioclastic sediments are the result of biological activity and include the dead remains of pelagic plants and animals that have sunk. Pelagic bioclastic sediments are also called oozes and may be composed of calcareous or silaceous materials.

Calcareous ooze is composed of chalky remains of foraminifera and pteropods, and forms the deep ocean red clays. The silaceous material is derived from shells of radiolarians and diatoms and found mainly in tropical and polar seas. The distribution of ooze reflects primary production taking place near the surface. The thickness of the sediments also reflects the age of the ocean crust with thickness increasing as we move away from mid ocean ridges for example. Volcanic ash from eruptions can also travel large distances and end by being deposited on the ocean floor, thus contributing to sediments. Finally around hydrothermal events we have unique sediments with metalliferous muds. It should also be noted that sediments on the abyssal plains are not completely static as currents, earthquakes and tectonic activity can move them. An understanding of sediments in the deep sea environment is vital when we discuss life in this region. Deep Water Conditions Deep water is isolated from the effects of wind below the Ekman spirals which only influence down to 100 meters.

However, changes at the surface can result in the movement of deep water with changes in temperature, density and salinity. Cold, dense water sinks and moves very slowly along the depths of the ocean, requiring many hundreds of years to move through an ocean basin. There is no daily or seasonal variations effectively and this creates a very stable environment.

Below 3,000 meters the area is isothermal effectively except for areas around hydrothermal vents. The regions under discussion in this essay are mainly the Bathypelagic and Abyssalpelagic Zones so here the waters are dark, limited in nutrition, cold and at great pressure. For every 10m increase in depth pressure increases by one atmosphere so we are discussing pressures of 200 to 600 atmospheres or more in our region since the average depth of the deep sea is 4,000 meters and in some cases goes to 11.000 meters in the trenches. A consideration of deep water conditions will be a vital underpinning to our section of life in the deep water environment Life in the Deep Sea Environment Despite the apparent difficulties and challenges of life in the deep sea environment organisms have managed to exploit these regions.

We shall take a look at some of the main groups of inhabitants, some of the difficulties they face and finally some of the adaptations they have evolved to cope with life in the deep sea. Firstly we should discuss briefly the presence of microorganisms in the deep sea. In fact most organisms in the deep sea are microorganisms. These microbes are able to