Understanding mongoDB by comparing it with Oracle RDBMS

When I started working on mongoDB the challenge was to train my team on mongoDB and we had to create a workshop so that people could seamlessly transition to MongoDB. I am going to share few pointers and tools that you can use if you are working on mongoDB.

I assume you are familiar with some RDBMS.If you have worked with Oracle or any other RDBMS then it is not quite difficult to pick a NoSQL database like MongoDB. Oracle is an object-relational database system that comprises of table-column-row (TCR) structure. The data in oracle database is stored logically in tables. These tables are then logically grouped in table-spaces. Oracle database physically stores data in data files. Table-spaces contain segments. These segments are made of one or more extents. An extent is the collection of contiguous data blocks. Thus data blocks are basic units of data storage in Oracle.

In comparison to Oracle mongoDB is a NoSQL document-oriented database. It is basically a class and object (CO) structured database. mongoDB contains multiple databases. Each database comprises of collections. A collection is formed of one or more documents. These documents contain fields where data is stored in the form of key-value pair.

I have shared a quick reference table to relate Oracle/RDBMS and mongoDB. In the next post I will share some sample code to understand how data is accessed in mongoDB as compared to RDBMS and it is quite different  from the plsql code you have been used to.

Root Cause Analysis - Everybody should be able to do it!

I begin with a favorite quote from a man I hugely respect.

“Every defect is a treasure, if the company can uncover its cause

and work to prevent it across the corporation.”

– Kilchiro Toyoda, founder of Toyota

When we want to excute a project we create a plan.
While you excute the plan things may not go according to the plan so we monitor the plan execution at reguar intervals.
Assuming something goes wrong during execution of the plan we should do 'Root Cause Analysis' to find

• What is the problem & What is the frequency of occurance
• Why did problem occur or what is the trigger or cause of the problem 
• When does the problem occur, is it a recurring problem
• How to fix the problem, What is the best solution
• How to improve existing processes to avoid reoccurance of the problem. 

There are many diffrent techniques to conduct Root Cause Analysis. When I started working as a software engineer I was not familiar with tools and process to do Root Cause Analysis and I had to do study the resources on intenet to learn the various techniques. Later on when I started working for a MNC  I had access to company's own customized training on Root Cause Analysis. The training was one fo the optional training, meaning it was not mandatory for all software developers and I had tried to convince our HR to make the training mandatory for all employees because problem solving is an essential skill and one should know about the ideal process and the tools available for Root Cause Analysis.

Anyway what surprises me is that even today when I meet some manager from diffrent industried I find many of them are not familiar with Root Cause Analysis (RCA) technique & tools. There are many different RCA techniques and you can follow any well defined technique. Manager should know that RCA is not some elite training and it is a essential skill. Unless every team member is trained to do Root Cause Analysis, the enterprise will not be able to know the real reasons for a problem, won't be able to fix problems or will take longer time to fix them and the impact to the enterprise is huge in terms of quality, efficiency and productivity.


Here is a self explanatory  Root Cause Analysis excel template that you can customize or use it as it is.
(Link)

And here is a picture to summarize the  Root Cause analysis  process steps. there are many free trainings on RCA and I would recommend following the Sig Sigma DMAIC strategy for conducting Root Cause Analysis. DMAIC as you may be aware is acronym for five interconnected phases: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control.


The above image is from Tayor Enterprise Inc

Good Read - Crisis preparedness trends 2019 - A PWC Report

Good Read - Crisis preparedness trends 2019 - A PWC Report

Sharing a PWC Report that I find interesting. Read the last section in particular.

https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/ceo-survey/2019/Theme-assets/reports/crisis-preparedness-report-2019.pdf

Copyright https://www.pwc.com/

Will Digital War Be Alternative To Nuclear War?

Countries with nuclear weapons and those without nuclear weapons is how the world is classified now. Not by size of the army but the size of the nuclear arsenal. I wonder if we will  even know who has how much nuclear capability and which country is just bluffing about their nuclear capability. I seriously doubt our neighbor country when they claim to have a nuclear weapon. A country could not manufacture a single motorcycle in 70yrs claims to have built a nuclear weapon sounds hollow .Hell  I would claim I have couple of nuclear weapons in my garage!

We are living in a connected world.

• Everything talks to everything - Man talk to machine, machine talk to machine, machine talk to data
• Evert action is an event, all events are being recorded & stored in a connected databases
• Events can be analyzed in real time and valuable actionable insights can be extracted 
• AI is being used to teach machines WHAT we could not have programmed otherwise
• Programming a drone or a car was an impossibility but AI has made it possible today
• Defense industry has been in the fore front to embrace revolutionary technologies like AI 
• A war in 2020 is going to be much different from the past wars
• Operation Neptune Spear that eliminated Osama - identify, eliminate & retreat was a mere glimpse of gadgets of modern war fare that leveraged data analytics & AI
• Real time AI (Artificial Intelligence) Driven War will be the new Nuclear.
• Digital War will be fought on land, air and water so an integrated defense force command will be required on the lines of Chief of Defense

In short Satellite imagery, Sensor devices, Internet, Massive Parallel Processing, Video & Predictive Analytics, Natural Language Processing, Big Data & AI are real and everything under the sun is under the scanner.How do these technology advances impact modern warfare?

1. Satellites can have your entire country covered and create huge amount of information every second. 
2. The new generation instrumentation and information technology are able to process data at 10X speed
3. Analytics software are processing data and predicting events in real time with high precision
4. Artificial Intelligence is making machines capable of performing intelligent tasks like human beings, 
5. NLP is enabling machine understand and learn languages like a human by observing human interaction
6. AI & ML solutions are really working. Their error rate is lower than that of trained  humans

Now visualize a war zone scenario and apply these technologies to build solution for warfare

1. Any object that moves is being observed by the satellites, radars and sensors
2. Visualize an octagonal central war room is showing satellite feeds from 8 borders on 8 walls
3. Satellite feed is being analyzed in real time (on the fly) and analysis is being projected on screens
4. 8 different teams of Indian Army Command are monitoring 8 screens displaying activity on borders
5. Every movement of enemy is captured and analyzed in real time
6. 1st movement of enemy is being matched with potential Enemy Strategy and helpful alerts are flashed on the Indian Army Command room screens.
7. Even before enemy can make the 2nd move Predictive Analysis is predicting  the potential next move of the enemy
8. A self learning supercomputer , let's call it 'Supercomputer Maneckshaw' is matching event patterns with 'Strategy Database', predicting next strategic move of enemy & projecting actionable inputs on the screen
9. By the time the enemy completes its 2nd move Indian Army, Navy & Air-force have taken positions and Army Command Center issues instructions for counter move to Army/Navy/Air-force based on suggestion by  Supercomputer Maneckshaw
10. By the time the enemy makes a 3rd move Army Command Center has identified the compete Enemy Strategy & suggestion counter strategy for Indian forces to the Chief of Defense of Armed forces by sending a notification on their mobile devices
11. Chief of Defense views action suggested by Supercomputer Maneckshaw, conducts a secured online conference with 3 chiefs & gives orders. 
12. Humans soldiers have unlimited memory but limited RAM but super computer has found references of identified enemy strategy to a war strategy from 1939 (German Invasion of Poland)
13. Supercomputer Maneckshaw can map events, identify potential strategies but it still takes a human to read the mind of current Pakistani general. So final decision rests with the 3 chiefs and the supreme commander

In summary AI Warfare or 'Real Time AI Warfare' as I call it

• The AI Warfare will be 95% super computer intelligence and 5% human intelligence. 
• The AI warfare will be definitive than Nuclear War because we will be able to read the mind of enemy in real time as the enemy makes its moves and as the enemy changes its mind.
• AI warfare will be cost effective because the resources would be used optimally and deployment would be managed in real time.
• AI warfare will always be preemptive because it will be driven by predictive intelligence driven by all the past wars that have been fought in the world history and it will be unpredictive because the super computer system will evolve continuously!

Good Read - Forrester Report on The Future Of IT

Sharing a good read The Future Of IT by  Forrester