How Bluemix and IDS can help in a Natural Disaster

© 2015 IBM Corporation

IBM Cloud

How can Bluemix, IDS and Open Source Help in a Natural Disaster?

Kyle Brown and Marc-Arthur Pierre-Louis

IBM Cloud

© 2015 IBM Corporation2

Outline

What do people Need in a Natural Disaster?– Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Who are our customers in a Natural Disaster?

What is Bluemix and the Bluemix Ecosystem?– Bluemix, IOT Foundation, DevOps Services

Advantages of Bluemix in a Natural Disaster

Application Concepts– Food & Shelter– Safety– Community– Self-Esteem

Architectural assumptions

Support for Teams

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What do I mean by a Natural Disaster?

Natural disasters are unexpected occurrences caused by natural processes that incur damage to property, or cause injury or death

Can be fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, etc.

The key is that they are unexpected – but you can plan for them regardless of the fact that you may have little warning of when they occur.

In a great TEDx Boston talk from 2012, Caitria and Morgan O’Neill give a wonderful list of things you can do to help in any Natural disaster – these form a template for us to discover ways in which Bluemix can help the victims of these disasters

– Plan for recovery before disaster strikes– Care for yourself and your family first– Get online as soon as possible– Find ways to organize people– Find ways to log and record EVERYTHING– Find ways to train others to respond

http://www.ted.com/talks/caitria_and_morgan_o_neill_how_to_step_up_in_the_face_of_disaster?language=en

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What do you need in a Natural Disaster?

In 1943 Psychologist Abraham Maslow developed a framework for what motivates people and keeps them physically and psychologically healthy

His “Hierarchy of Needs” has become common in sociological and psychological research and training.

It’s very useful as a way to view what people need in when they are affected by a Natural Disaster

– Gives you a way to organize the different capabilities and help that can be provided in such emergencies

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Who are our customers in a Natural Disaster?

The first question in understanding how at technology or set of technologies can help you with a problem is to understand who the customers of the technology would be. In our case, these could include:

– Victims of the Natural Disaster– First Responders– Family, Friends and Loved Ones of those affected– Utility Companies, Insurance Companies, Transport companies

The next set of questions come after you’ve identifiedyour customers

– How does this concept help them?– Will they be able to use it effectively?– How is it better than existing approaches?

So what is Bluemix?

6

Bluemix is an open-standards, cloud-based platform for building, running, and managing applications.Build your apps, your wayUse the most prominent compute technologies to power your app: Cloud Foundry, Docker, OpenStack.

Extend apps with servicesA catalog of IBM, third party, and open source services allow the developer to stitch an application together quickly.

Scale more than just instancesDevelopment, monitoring, deployment, and logging tools allow the developer to run and manage the entire application.

Layered SecurityIBM secures the platform and infrastructure and provides you with the tools to secure your apps.

Deploy and manage hybrid apps seamlesslyGet a seamless dev and management experience across a number of hybrid implementations options.

Flexible Pricing Try compute options and services for free and, when you’re ready, pay only for what you use. Pay as you go and subscription models offer choice and flexibility.

Coming Summer 2015

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IBM Internet of Things Foundation allows you to easily compose IoT solutions

Visually define logic flows

Select from a growing list of device recipes

Visualize real-time data stream

Mix with other services in Bluemix to create apps

Simply connect & “recognize” device types

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Advantages of Bluemix in a Natural Disaster

Location – the Bluemix datacenters are physically distant from the area of the natural disaster and applications can keep running even when power and telecommunications are disrupted.

On demand pricing – you only pay for the application as it’s used.

Autoscaling – applications designed for Bluemix can automatically scale to adjust to the number of users they are experiencing

Support for distributed team development – you won’t be tied to inaccessible physical build and deployment servers if you hit a bug at exactly the wrong time

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Application Concepts – Food and Shelter

How do you avoid the long lines for basic necessities (Food, Water, Gasoline)?

How do you find shelter when your home is uninhabitable or unreachable?– One possibility is a set of applications that crowdsource availability and convenience of

different options– For example: a Java application that runs on Cloudant using Google Maps that allows

people to enter location data when they find available shelters (or stores with bottled water, or gasoline, etc…). DataWorks can automatically cleanse address data.

How can you protect your family and home?– Application can use small-grained weather data (within a zipcode) to alert a smart home

and its occupants to protect themselves

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Application Concepts – Health and Safety

Reporting floods and downed power lines is a major information management issue– NHTSA reports almost 400 people drown in vehicles each year in the US– Additional fatalities are caused by contact with downed power lines

Applications can crowd-source the reporting of downed lines and flooded roads– Coordinate with data from governmental agencies and Utility companies– Automatically submit reports to utilities and first responders– Automatically work with existing apps to reroute traffic around those areas

Flood-prone areas can use water sensors that give warning when water begins rising in plenty of time to respond

– Maps of flooded sensors – predicting the most likely path of rising water from historical and hydrological data

Sensing drones for first responders– Applications for drone cameras to stitch together composites and low-level maps for

damage assessment and rescue efforts– Heat sensing robot for fires

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First Responder Assistance Concept: Data-Driven Disaster Response Robot

Temp / Humidity

> Threshold

Activate Responder

F

irst R

esponders

Site S

ecurity

Send Critical Warning alert Via SMS and E-mail

Identify fire location using pre-calculated floor mapping

Constantly send temperature alert to First responders.

Create entry and exit routes for first responders. Create event report based on collected data

using IBM Embeddable Reporting

Hardware: Arduino Micro-controller, DHT11 Temperature &

Humidity Sensor.

API: IOT Foundation to process device data Alchemy API to analyze and identify survivors. Watson Text to Speech to enable trapped

victims to communicate with first responders via text .

IBM Embeddable Reporting to generate fast report sheet that can be analyzed to confirm the causes of the disaster.

Detector monitors room Temp. & Humidity, connects to Bluemix via Wifi

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Application Concepts - Community

Applications to aid in helping locate missing family members– Lots of available libraries for Node.JS for implementing pop-up sites like Wikis– Language translation with Watson can be helpful for displaced persons whose first

language is not English– Twilio can integrate into SMS messaging and VOIP phone networks

Applications to help locate lost pets and locate shelters that will house pets– Analyze Twitter streams to find others who are in the same situation and who are looking

for or have found lost pets

Applications to help share resources with those that need them– Plugshare for mobile phones (e.g. Katrina)

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Application Concepts – Giving and Self-Esteem

Applications for targeted contributions to those having specific needs (like YouFundMe)– Coordination with charities to make sure donated money is sent to the right places– In many cases, that’s a big data import problem – store data in SQL DB, cleanse it with

DataWorks– BigInsights allows you to use Apache Hadoop to manage large-scale data analysis tasks

Applications gathering together and coordinating volunteer opportunities– Tons of Website code available for PHP to start up sites like this– Simple, Fast response from IBM Cloudant

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Architectural Assumptions for applications

You can assume you still have some level of telecommunications capability for Disaster victims, first responders, etc.

– Even through Katrina and Sandy, some cellular phone coverage remained available, albeit, possibly not immediately, at a reduced capacity and with coverage gaps

– This is a known issue, and other mechanisms (Mark-Arthur…) can deal with that problem– Bandwidth will be at a premium (Videos teaching people what to do DURING the crisis are

not appropriate)– Shared internet connections may be used when service is disrupted

You will have reduced power availability from mobile devices and laptops– Always-on, heavily connected GUI-driven applications will drain batteries– Consider notifications, SMS, and lower-power consumption interaction mechanisms

You have to plan for the possibility of the failure of remote application components – and of the Bluemix infrastructure itself

– What if Dallas was the scene of the disaster?

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Downstream - OpenBTS-Bluemix Integration

Remote Bluemix Center

● OpenBTS fully functional Emergency GSM Mobile Network● Exposes Bluemix service (new) via OpenBTS APIs● OpenBTS Optimizer (new)

● Optimizes data going through fragile GSM network● Might use compression and other optimizing

techniques● Data sent to remote Bluemix

● Communicates with optional Local Bluemix● IBM DevOps Services used in conjunction with Bluemix

● Development and Deployment of situational applications● Any composition of disaster-related applications

http://openbts.org - Opensourcehttp://www.rangenetworks.com - Commercial

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Bluemix DR capability

For several reasons (including the possibility of a natural disaster in Dallas – remember the hailstorms of 2012 and 1995, the tornado outbreak of 1955…) you want to always make sure that your application can run in more than one location – for Bluemix today that means both London and Dallas

deploy

CF CF

IBM DevOpsServices

CloudantReplication

App App

CloudantCloudant

deployDallas London

External DNS

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IBM DevOps Services

Provides an end-to-end development solution for teams writing applications for IBM Bluemix

Agile planning and tracking tools for assigning tasks

Support for Web IDE, Eclipse or Command-line tooling

Source code hosting for Jazz and Git projects (including on Github)

Continuous Build and Integration with the Devops Pipeline

Integration Testing tools (Bluemix Labs) coming available

Load testing and performance monitoring tools

• Integration test, System test, Production all united and consistent

• Automation ensures the same procedure in each environment

• Fully hosted, managed, and integrated in the cloud for the cloud

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Support for Development teams (and others!)

• Track and Plan is a hosted tool to plan, track and manage tasks, backlogs and deliverables focused on individual and team productivity Enables development planning

Action views for Individuals and Teams

Sprint Planning & Backlog management

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Usage Context

Upstream– Before disaster strikes use for development and deployment of Bluemix apps

Downstream– After disaster strikes use for support of Bluemix apps

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Upstream – Track and Plan

Track and plan– Track project work trough work items

– Ex. write a defect work item for bug found in project code– Work item management

– Create work items– Work item states– Work item display options– Filter work items– View and organize work items– Triage work items

– Plan work for a team– Review the team's progress

For uniformity ODDR Hackathon team suggests using IDS Track and Plan feature

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Upstream – Source Control

Source Control Options– Git integration

– Can link Git repository with IDS• Use the IDS Web IDE• Many Git commands available

– Work items and Git intercation– Create Project– Set Github hook– Use work item to test hooks

– Local client and Git interaction– Access Git repository from IDS project

• IDS cmd line or EGIT Eclipse plugin– Connect Track & Plan feature to Rational Team Concert– Develop with Bluemix Live Sync and Node.js– Develop with IBM Eclipse Tools

– Eclipse client and Jazz SCM– Use RTC Eclipse client

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Upstream – Build and Deploy

Build and Deploy– Also known as pipeline– Provides continous deployment of apps and changes– Stages

– Organize• Jobs• Inputs

– Code• Built• Tested• Deployed

– Jobs– Execution units within stages– Build jobs prepare/compile code for deployment

– End result– Code built and deployed automatically to Bluemix

The ODDR Hackathon team suggests using IDS build & deploy feature

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Some IDS Web IDE Tips

Git icon IDS command line Edit code, Track & Plan, Build and Deploy

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Editing, Saving and Committing

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Editing Node.js

After edit completes• File->Save or ctrl-s• Go to Git interface to commit to the Git repository

• Click on the button

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Committing

Committing to the Git repository Check/uncheck files to be committed Click on Commit on upper right hand (as circled) Click on Push (as circled)

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Deploy button Deploys appl from workspace to Bluemix

Launch button Starts a new browser window with the application URL

IDS retrieves URL from manifest.yml and inserts into a launch configuration

Stop button Stops the running Bluemix application

Interacting with a Bluemix application

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Sync changes to a running Cloud Foundry application

Sync changes from Bluemix web ide or local (laptop) files

Changes made in the developer workspace are immediately reflected in the running Cloud Foundry application

Dramatically improves developer productivity by debugging directly in the cloud

Insert breakpoints into the running Cloud Foundry application

IBM Bluemix Live Edit

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Live Edit – How to enable

To Enable Live Edit Create new new launch configuration

Used to launch live edit version of application

Production application still running Live edit version independent

Can be edited without affecting production application

After changes made and tested Commit to repository Redeploy production application

For a tutorial visit: http://ibm.co/1dUujTw

http://ibm.co/1dUujTw

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Collaborative Remote Development with DevOps Services

1. Bug reported

In MQA2. Task Assigned to developer

In Track and Plan

3. Code fixed

Locally in Eclipse

4. Changes pushed to GitHub

5. DevOps Pipeline Builds App, Runs Automated Tests

6. New Production version pushed to Bluemix

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Summary

We’ve seen– What people need in a Natural Disaster– How you can use the services in Bluemix to build applications that can help– How Bluemix and the Bluemix ecosystem provides support for distributed team

development that frees you from the constraints of a single development site – in case your development team is the one that suffers the disaster

Engineering

How Bluemix and IDS can help in a Natural Disaster