My Software Upgrade is Stuck

~ Danny Kwok ~ Leave a comment

Software upgrade in mobile phone is a bliss with automated updates. You can even schedule the upgrades when you are asleep. All these are so ubiquitous that we take little note of it. The agony comes when your upgrade is stuck. This is where you are required to either not upgrade or change your existing mobile phone. Sounds familiar? These are common options faced in all applications.

Do Not Upgrade

Unfortunately, the option not to upgrade have an expiry duration. The period that you are not required for upgrade is likely last two years or so. After this duration, existing applications cannot support the older version. You may also realise your application cannot work for older version. In some case, the software upgrade is not supported in your older mobile phone. An example is Internet Explorer (IE) where you need to switch. Other risks are security patches and audit concerns for applications.

Fix the Root Cause

The root cause for stuck upgrade is a tough process. Standard support requested are logs from your mobile. You may find these root cause are mostly unresolved. Thus, typical resolution is to upgrade your hardware or mobile phone. Another form of resolution is the removal of customisation. The efforts to find the root cause for stuck upgrade will be a long waiting process. This stuck will end up as critical task.

Automatic software upgrade is envisioned for the future. However, it gets sticky if your upgrades are stuck. The options taken are standard for all applications. You can either forgo upgrade or find the root cause. The root cause is a time consuming process and you need to take account the wait time.

Being Positive in Project

~ Danny Kwok ~ Leave a comment

Project implementation have its ups and downs. For many, you will get your usual freeloaders and NATO (No Action Talk Only) members. In worst case, you may even get a self proclaimed project manager who is actually a project admin. The key is to ask yourself what you aim to achieve. This is also why you must stay positive in your project.

Why Stay Positive

If you are familiar with project implementation, you will realise that each ending provides better beginning. We tend to focus on negativity and grumble on how the project should be run. As you gained exposure, you will look back and realise staying positive is a better option. Being positive improves your oversight and gives you clear direction in the project.

Moving On

It is wise to stay positive and move on to the next project. There are some who cannot shake off negative energy from previous project. Some may even have PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) from project. The right approach is learning to be positive and moving on with the correct learning. Of course, you may encounter good mentor who advocate positives. Steer clear of negative people and team members as they do not help in your project learning.

Project implementation can be fun and mentally challenging. I find it enriching to be positive in every project. Of course, I have also been to the dark side. You should also start to move on with positivity and leave your baggage behind.

COP26 and Sustainability

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Sustainability was in the news lately for COP26 (Conference of the Parties) summit. Singapore have pledged to phase out unabated coal power by 2025. That is some good news from a little nation moving towards sustainable energy sources. However, it is newsworthy to note that the top coal consumers have not made similar pledges.

Missing Players for Sustainability

The key missing players of coals consumers to phase out coal is a worrying concern. It signifies the ongoing concern to balance economic growth with sustainability. Afterall, we are trying to restore the damages done. The constant delays from these countries to commit are setback for the rest of the world. The good news are more and more countries are ready to pledge to Carbon free commitments.

Long Road to Sustainability

The journey to Carbon free or net zero carbon emission will be long and tough. From each summit, the major players remains non committal. Sometimes, there are lack of targets shown. It will not be easy to remove entrenched economies tied to fossil fuels. As end consumer, we need to play our part to ensure minimum carbon footprint.

Sustainability summit is like show and tell with missing key players again. It is like watching a soccer match with no star players. Hopefully, we get to see all stars lineup for the summit making the same pledges. Meanwhile, we have to settle for sneak preview!

Content Creation

~ Danny Kwok ~ Leave a comment

A content creator is one of the sought after role in the year 2020s. Original ideas and thoughts can now be reach to greater audience all over the world. Explosions of social media have also fuelled the content creation to individual level. So, how do we get started?

Create What You Like

You are likely to start creating contents that you like. There are many social media who provided the platforms for content creation. There are also different media types like video or photos. While it is tempted to create content accordingly to trend, you may lose purpose as time passes. Thus, the best way to create content is to create what you like.

Be Yourself

As time goes by, you will be tempted and shaped by different environmental factors. Some could be sponsors that wanted you to promote certain products. You may also be compelled by comments and feedbacks. Although these can be negative or positive, the effects could shift your initial purpose of content creation. It is wise to be yourself and stay true to your content creation vision.

Content creation will be common task in near future. The content creation platform make it easy for anyone to submit original content. There will be temptations to deviate from your creation vision.However, you must create what you like and stay true to be yourself.

CORS 101

~ Danny Kwok ~ 1 Comment

CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) configuration will be a standard feature in many Cloud products. Most of the online applications required embedded links or AJAX calls in their web pages. By default, CORS is mainly blocked unless you enabled it. It is one of the most headache issue if you are deploying loosely coupled architecture. This are some common things that you need to take note for CORS.

Using CORS

Common CORS implementation involves REST API calls, embedded iFrames, cross linking of services or sharing of data like location, scripts and stylesheets. CORS is necessary because you will be sharing data like location for your application. Sometimes, there is a need to subscribe to cloud services using REST API. Majority of modern applications utilise REST API calls or AJAX. Thus, CORS is one of the most common security issues to encounter during implementation.

Enabling CORS

The CORS implementation can happen at a few layers. These are the common issues that you can check if you run into CORS errors. You will need to enable CORS if you are doing these implementations. The areas that you must check and enable CORS are usually browser and application. Luckily, many modern browsers are now CORS friendly.

If you are new to web or cloud development, one of the earliest security lessons will be CORS. Browsers are now attuned to CORS unless in the past. Many cloud setup or REST also include CORS in their configuration. Do take note to enable CORS carefully to allow your application to run smoothly.

Co-creation 101

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Have you tried Co-creation process with your consumer or contractor? It is a form of collaborative method where two or more parties work to contribute to the product development. Open source software is a good example of this approach. With Cloud platform, you can also adopt this method to actively digital transform and create your knowledge capabilities in-house.

Why Co-creation?

Self-service and satisfaction are the major push for co-creation. The need of self-service allows users to create products with closer fit to their expectations and requirements. This brings increase satisfaction and commitment to the success of the product. Co-creation also allows greater participation throughout the product lifecycle. It is best aligned with agile process to adapt to changes.

Setting Ground Rules

The approach to implement co-creation depends on your needs. It is important to set ground rules if you wanted to engage your users or contractors for co-creation process. Some of these ground rules involves the level of control or access the co-creation can cover. Other forms of collaboration involves the communication and risk entails by the participants. The most important portion is to ensure information transparency among the collaborators.

Co-creation approach works well with Agile for Cloud. It is the best middle ground approach between outsourcing and insourcing model. You can gain internal capabilities and ensure better satisfaction for your users with self-service technologies. However, do take note to set ground rules before you embark on your first co-creation project.

How to Handle OTM Model

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OTM (Oracle Transportation Management) is a product for transportation management usage. However, its usage can varies for different organisations. Knowledge of OTM does not mean you can instantly create a solution based on your past experiences. It only helps you to understand OTM terminology. On the contrary, you may end up fixated with your own mental model of OTM and neglect the model in current organisations.

Adopt a Flexi Mindset

The tricky part of OTM is the ability to create many transportation model. It is easy to fall into the mind trap of a particular design with OTM model. Thus, you must acquire a flexi mindset. This will help you learn the different model being adopted within the same organisation. Your past experiences with OTM is to help you quickly spot the differences and approach being used in the OTM model.

OTM is Process Driven

OTM is a process driven tool. Many will relate OTM as a technology tool and go straight into then OTM configuration. This is a basic elementary mistake by all noob OTM. You must always find out the current process before jumping into OTM solution. Time have shown that OTM configuration is easiest when process flow is provided.

OTM allows fluid design of different transportation model. You need to have a flexible mindset to study. Do note that OTM is process driven. Thus, the OTM model should be driven by process and not technical features.

Cloud EA

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EA (Enterprise Architecture) will be seeing a revival with Cloud. Many knew TOGAF as the de facto EA from our pre Cloud days. It was an uphill task to implement EA in the past. This was because infrastructures were physically difficult to change once implemented. Perhaps it is time that we relook EA from a Cloud perspective ie. Cloud EA.

Cloud EA Vision

Cloud EA will be emerging as a standard template as the competitive cloud market aim to differentiate against each other. For now, let us have a quick look at what the vision of Cloud EA will be. Some characteristic of Cloud EA are:

  • Ubiquitous deployment of applications based on cost and business needs.
  • Automatic selection of Cloud EA like fault tolerance or high availability.
  • Standardised default security setup for Cloud EA
  • Business driven artefacts and information.
Current State

In reality, Cloud EA may take a few more years to mature. The alignment of business and technology in Cloud remains holistic in nature. This means Cloud EA existed as initiative or vision like its predecessor EA. However, it is optimistic for Cloud EA. Cloud providers will introduce Cloud EA models that can be readily deployed.

Cloud EA will be the next generation model for cloud providers. There will be a demand for customers to have control over their EA to align to market needs. Thus, this can easily translate to Cloud implementation as EA level.

ODA Chatbot Skills

~ Danny Kwok ~ Leave a comment

ODA (Oracle Digital Assistant) Chatbot Skills are like modules or features in applications. They help to group your chatbot for specific purpose. It is like discussion of a particular topic. The topic is what you can relate this to a skill. A collection of skills are then called be Digital Assistant. I find that there is two approach to plan and group your skills. The first approach is to define skill as a task with a goal. The second approach is role based skill.

Skills as Task Oriented Design

You can design skill to be task oriented. This means each skill have a final goal in mind. The good part is that this method allows reuse of skills when you group them in Digital Assistant. You will realise that you may have many skills that are loosely coupled. This give complexity for users to and use different skills. Example, customer who wants to order a book and make payment will be two different skills and goals.

Role Based Skills

To handle the seamless flow across skills, I realise that you can design skills to be role based. This will group different skills for a role. The key advantage of this approach is the ease of managing the conversation within the role. For instance, a customer who wants to order book and make payment will be group as customer skill.

The standard approach to use skills is task driven. However, this lends complexity to make the conversation flows across skills. Thus, you can consider designing role based skills to manage all the activities for the role.

OTM Upgrade Journey

~ Danny Kwok ~ Leave a comment

OTM (Oracle Transportation Management) upgrades are a challenge on its own. It is expected that majority of on premise OTM should move to Cloud by 202x. This push factor is spurred by the end of support of on premise enhancements. However, the switch to Cloud is met with resistance and lack of clarity on how Cloud can cater to customisation of OTM aka CEMLI. Finally, it seems that an extension is given with the release of OTM version 6.5.x. The question is what’s next? Should you continue with on premise?

Message from OTM 6.5.x

The release of OTM 6.5.x give a sign of relief for organisations who are still using on premise OTM. The push to Cloud remains and the vision to innovate OTM Cloud is still the key objective. It is likely the feature gap between 6.5.x and OTM Cloud widen to the extent that it is no longer advantageous to remain with on premise version.

Flipping the Switch to Cloud

Migration to Cloud will always be a painful process. It is a matter of time before you need to flip that switch to Cloud. There are many case studies on migration to Cloud for OTM with lesser customisation. However, it is unclear on how heavily customised OTM shall proceed with the switch. What are the type of approach available? How can we make the switch with minimum disruption to operations?

OTM upgrade remains a long marathon for on premise. Time has shown that OTM Cloud will be the de facto platform. It is estimated that on premise upgrade journey may end in 5 years time. Who knows? Maybe, there will be OTM 6.6.x.