Site reliability engineering (SRE) is a discipline in the field of software engineering and IT infrastructure support that monitors and improves the availability and performance of deployed software systems and large software services (which are expected to deliver reliable response times across events such as new software deployments, hardware failures, and cybersecurity attacks). There is typically a focus on automation and an infrastructure as code methodology. SRE uses elements of software engineering, IT infrastructure, web development, and operations to assist with reliability. It is similar to DevOps as they both aim to improve the reliability and availability of deployed software systems. == History == Site Reliability Engineering originated at Google with Benjamin Treynor Sloss, who founded SRE team in 2003. The concept expanded within the software development industry, leading various companies to employ site reliability engineers. By March 2016, Google had more than 1,000 site reliability engineers on staff. Dedicated SRE teams are common at larger web development companies. In middle-sized and smaller companies, DevOps teams sometimes perform SRE, as well. Organizations that have adopted the concept include Airbnb, Dropbox, IBM, LinkedIn, Netflix, and Wikimedia. == Definition == Site reliability engineers (SREs) are responsible for a combination of system availability, latency, performance, efficiency, change management, monitoring, emergency response, and capacity planning. SREs often have backgrounds in software engineering, systems engineering, and/or system administration. The focuses of SRE include automation, system design, and improvements to system resilience. SRE is considered a specific implementation of DevOps; focusing specifically on building reliable systems, whereas DevOps covers a broader scope of operations. Despite having different focuses, some companies have rebranded their operations teams to SRE teams. == Principles and practices == Common definitions of the practices include (but are not limited to): Automation of repetitive tasks for cost-effectiveness. Defining reliability goals to prevent endless effort. Design of systems with a goal to reduce risks to availability, latency, and efficiency. Observability, the ability to ask arbitrary questions about a system without having to know ahead of time what to ask. Common definitions of the principles include (but are not limited to): Toil management, the implementation of the first principle outlined above. Defining and measuring reliability goals—SLIs, SLOs, and error budgets. Non-Abstract Large Scale Systems Design (NALSD) with a focus on reliability. Designing for and implementing observability. Defining, testing, and running an incident management process. Capacity planning. Change and release management, including CI/CD. Chaos engineering. == Deployment == SRE teams collaborate with other departments within organizations to guide the implementation of the mentioned principles. Below is an overview of common practices: === Kitchen Sink === Kitchen Sink refers to the expansive and often unbounded scope of services and workflows that SRE teams oversee. Unlike traditional roles with clearly defined boundaries, SREs are tasked with various responsibilities, including system performance optimization, incident management, and automation. This approach allows SREs to address multiple challenges, ensuring that systems run efficiently and evolve in response to changing demands and complexities. === Infrastructure === Infrastructure SRE teams focus on maintaining and improving the reliability of systems that support other teams' workflows. While they sometimes collaborate with platform engineering teams, their primary responsibility is ensuring up-time, performance, and efficiency. Platform teams, on the other hand, primarily develop the software and systems used across the organization. While reliability is a goal for both, platform teams prioritize creating and maintaining the tools and services used by internal stakeholders, whereas Infrastructure SRE teams are tasked with ensuring those systems run smoothly and meet reliability standards. === Tools === SRE teams utilize a variety of tools with the aim of measuring, maintaining, and enhancing system reliability. These tools play a role in monitoring performance, identifying issues, and facilitating proactive maintenance. For instance, Nagios Core is commonly employed for system monitoring and alerting, while Prometheus (software) is frequently used for collecting and querying metrics in cloud-native environments. === Product or Application === SRE teams dedicated to specific products or applications are common in large organizations. These teams are responsible for ensuring the reliability, scalability, and performance of key services. In larger companies, it's typical to have multiple SRE teams, each focusing on different products or applications, ensuring that each area receives specialized attention to meet performance and availability targets. === Embedded === In an embedded model, individual SREs or small SRE pairs are integrated within software engineering teams. These SREs collaborate with developers, applying core SRE principles—such as automation, monitoring, and incident response—directly to the software development lifecycle. This approach aims to enhance reliability, performance, and collaboration between SREs and developers. === Consulting === Consulting SRE teams specialize in advising organizations on the implementation of SRE principles and practices. Typically composed of seasoned SREs with a history across various implementations, these teams provide insights and guidance for specific organizational needs. When working directly with clients, these SREs are often referred to as 'Customer Reliability Engineers.' In large organizations that have adopted SRE, a hybrid model is common. This model includes various implementations, such as multiple Product/Application SRE teams dedicated to addressing the specific reliability needs of different products. An Infrastructure SRE team may collaborate with a Platform engineering group to achieve shared reliability goals for a unified platform that supports all products and applications. == Industry == Since 2014, the USENIX organization has hosted the annual SREcon conference, bringing together site reliability engineers from various industries. This conference is a platform for professionals to share knowledge, explore effective practices, and discuss trends in site reliability engineering.
Caffe (software)
Caffe (Convolutional Architecture for Fast Feature Embedding) is a deep learning framework, originally developed at University of California, Berkeley. It is open source, under a BSD license. It is written in C++, with a Python interface. == History == Yangqing Jia created the Caffe project during his PhD at UC Berkeley, while working the lab of Trevor Darrell. The first version, called "DeCAF", made its first appearance in Spring 2013 when it was used for the ILSVRC challenge (later called ImageNet). The library was named Caffe and released to the public in December 2013. It reached end-of-support in 2018. It is hosted on GitHub. == Features == Caffe supports many different types of deep learning architectures geared towards image classification and image segmentation. It supports CNN, RCNN, LSTM and fully-connected neural network designs. Caffe supports GPU- and CPU-based acceleration computational kernel libraries such as Nvidia cuDNN and Intel MKL. == Applications == Caffe is being used in academic research projects, startup prototypes, and even large-scale industrial applications in vision, speech, and multimedia. Yahoo! has also integrated Caffe with Apache Spark to create CaffeOnSpark, a distributed deep learning framework. == Caffe2 == In April 2017, Facebook announced Caffe2, which included new features such as recurrent neural network (RNN). At the end of March 2018, Caffe2 was merged into PyTorch.
Tertiary source
A tertiary source is an index or textual consolidation of already published primary and secondary sources that does not provide additional interpretations or analysis of the sources. Some tertiary sources can be used as an aid to find key (seminal) sources, key terms, general common knowledge and established mainstream science on a topic. The exact definition of tertiary varies by academic field. Academic research standards generally do not accept tertiary sources such as encyclopedias as citations, although survey articles are frequently cited rather than the original publication. == Overlap with secondary sources == As is also the case with distinguishing primary and secondary sources in some disciplines, there is not always a clear distinguishing line between secondary and tertiary sources. Depending on the topic of research, a scholar may use a bibliography, dictionary, or encyclopedia as either a tertiary or a secondary source. This causes some difficulty in defining many sources as either one type or the other. In some academic disciplines, the differentiation between a secondary and tertiary source is relative. In the United Nations International Scientific Information System (UNISIST) model, a secondary source is a bibliography, whereas a tertiary source is a synthesis of primary sources. == Types of tertiary sources == Tertiary sources can come in book form or as an online resource. Tertiary sources in book form are frequently organised in alphabetical order, whereas an online tertiary source may be searchable by keyword. Examples of tertiary sources include; reference books, encyclopedias, dictionaries, some textbooks, abstracts, directories, factbooks, handbooks, manuals and compendia. Indexes, bibliographies, concordances, and databases are aggregates of primary and secondary sources and therefore often considered tertiary sources. They may also serve as a point of access to the full or partial text of primary and secondary sources. Almanacs, travel guides, field guides, and timelines are also examples of tertiary sources. Tertiary sources attempt to summarize, collect, and consolidate the source materials into an overview without adding analysis and synthesis of new conclusions. Wikipedia is a tertiary source.
Pol.is
Polis (or Pol.is) is wiki survey software designed for large group collaborations. As a civic technology, Polis allows people to share their opinions and ideas, and its algorithm is intended to elevate ideas that can facilitate better decision-making, especially when there are lots of participants. Polis has been credited for assisting the passage of legislation in Taiwan. Pol.is has been used by governments in the United States, Canada, Singapore, Philippines, Finland, Spain and elsewhere. == History == Pol.is was founded by Colin Megill, Christopher Small, and Michael Bjorkegren after the Occupy Wall Street and Arab Spring movements. In Taiwan, pol.is has been "one of the key parts" of vTaiwan's suite of open-source tools for its citizen engagement efforts arising out of the Sunflower Student Movement. vTaiwan claims that of the 26 national issues related to technology discussed on the platform, 80% led to government action. Pol.is is also utilized by "Join," a national platform for online deliberation run by the Taiwanese government. In 2022, Wired reported that Polis was an influence on the Community Notes project at Twitter. In 2023, Megill advised OpenAI on how to facilitate deliberation at scale in a way that was more efficient than Polis, which still required significant human labor and analysis at the time. He helped to award $1 million in grants to teams working on solving the problem of deliberation at scale. In 2023, Anthropic was also exploring steering model behavior using Polis. In 2025, it helped the county that includes Bowling Green, Kentucky make a 25 year plan by facilitating the collection and review of ideas from thousands of residents, representing 10% of the county. 2,370 of 3,940 unique ideas were agreed-upon by over 80% of survey respondents. Ideas were screened by volunteers if they were redundant to an existing idea, off-topic or obscene. == How it works == Pol.is participants are anonymous and cannot reply directly to others posts, in an effort to avoid personal attacks for users. Its algorithms are designed not for engagement and scrolling, but to find areas of agreement to better understand the nuances of a wide range of opinions. Participants are prompted for ideas and vote on other participants' ideas. == Reception == Andrew Leonard, The Financial Times, and VentureBeat describe Pol.is as a possible antidote to the divisiveness of traditional internet discourse by gamifying consensus. Audrey Tang agreed saying, "Polis is quite well known in that it's a kind of social media that instead of polarizing people to drive so called engagement or addiction or attention, it automatically drives bridge making narratives and statements. So only the ideas that speak to both sides or to multiple sides will gain prominence in Polis." Niall Ferguson argues that the approach to utilize tools like Pol.is and Join in Taiwan empowers ordinary people instead of the elite and protects individual freedoms, providing a contrast to the AI-enhanced panopticon model seen in China. Carl Miller praised the technology as having "gamified finding consensus." Darshana Narayanan, in an op-ed in the Economist, argues that open-source machine-learning-based tools like Polis can help to bypass the influence of special interests or experts. Jamie Susskind cited polis and vTaiwan as a model for democracies, particularly around digital policy issues.
Skyline operator
The skyline operator is the subject of an optimization problem and computes the Pareto optimum on tuples with multiple dimensions. This operator is an extension to SQL proposed by Börzsönyi et al. to filter results from a database to keep only those objects that are not dominated by any other point on all dimensions. The name skyline comes from the view on Manhattan from the Hudson River, where those buildings can be seen that are not hidden by any other. A building is visible if it is not dominated by a building that is taller or closer to the river (two dimensions, distance to the river minimized, height maximized). Another application of the skyline operator involves selecting a hotel for a holiday. The user wants the hotel to be both cheap and close to the beach. However, hotels that are close to the beach may also be expensive. In this case, the skyline operator would only present those hotels that are not worse than any other hotel in both price and distance to the beach. == Formal specification == The skyline operator returns tuples that are not dominated by any other tuple. A tuple dominates another if it is at least as good in all dimensions and better in at least one dimension. Formally, we can think of each tuple as a vector p , q ∈ R n {\displaystyle p,q\in \mathbb {R} ^{n}} . p {\displaystyle p} dominates q {\displaystyle q} (written: p ≻ q {\displaystyle p\succ q} ) if p {\displaystyle p} is at least as good as q {\displaystyle q} in every dimension, and superior in at least one: p ≻ q ⇔ ∀ i ∈ [ n ] . p [ i ] ⪰ q [ i ] ∧ ∃ j ∈ [ n ] . p [ j ] ≻ q [ j ] . {\displaystyle p\succ q\Leftrightarrow \forall i\in [n].p[i]\succeq q[i]\wedge \exists j\in [n].p[j]\succ q[j].} Dominance ( p ≻ q {\displaystyle p\succ q} ) can be defined as any strict partial ordering, for example greater (with ≻:=> {\displaystyle \succ :=>} and ⪰:=≥ {\displaystyle \succeq :=\geq } ) or less (with ≻:=< {\displaystyle \succ :=<} and ⪰:=≤ {\displaystyle \succeq :=\leq } ). Assuming two dimensions and defining dominance in both dimensions as greater, we can compute the skyline in SQL-92 as follows: == Proposed syntax == As an extension to SQL, Börzsönyi et al. proposed the following syntax for the skyline operator: where d1, ... dm denote the dimensions of the skyline and MIN, MAX and DIFF specify whether the value in that dimension should be minimised, maximised or simply be different. Without an SQL extension, the SQL query requires an antijoin with not exists: == Implementation == The skyline operator can be implemented directly in SQL using current SQL constructs, but this has been shown to be very slow in disk-based database systems. Other algorithms have been proposed that make use of divide and conquer, indices, MapReduce and general-purpose computing on graphics cards. Skyline queries on data streams (i.e. continuous skyline queries) have been studied in the context of parallel query processing on multicores, owing to their wide diffusion in real-time decision making problems and data streaming analytics. Exasol features a native implementation.
Avid Free DV
Avid Free DV is a non-linear editing video editing software application developed by Avid Technology. Avid introduced Free DV in January 2003 at the 2003 MacWorld Expo; the company discontinued it in September 2007. Free DV was intended to give editors a sample of the Avid interface to use in deciding whether or not to purchase Avid software, so when compared with other Avid products its features were relatively minimal. When it was available it was not limited by time or watermarking, so it could be used as a non-linear editor for as long as desired. == Comparisons == When compared with other consumer-end non-linear editors such as iMovie and Windows Movie Maker, it sported more powerful video processing tools, but lacked the ease-of-use and shallow learning curve emphasized in similar programs because it had the full interface of the professional Avid system. However, Avid did offer a number of flash-based tutorials to help new users learn how to use the program for capturing, editing, clipping, processing, and outputting audio/video, among other things. == Limitations == The limitations of Avid Free DV included that it allowed only two video and audio tracks, had fewer editing tools than other Avid products, had few import and export formats, and allowed capture and output of standard-definition DV only, via FireWire. Avid Free DV projects and media were not compatible with other Avid systems. As the name implied, Avid Free DV was available as a free download, although users were required to complete a short survey on the Avid website before they were given a download link and key. In addition to using Free DV to evaluate Avid prior to purchase, it could also act as a stepping stone for people wishing to learn to use Avid's other editing products, such as Xpress Pro, Media Composer and Symphony. While additional skills and techniques are necessary to use these professionally geared systems, the basic operation remains the same. == Operating systems == Avid Free DV was available for Windows XP and Mac OS X. The officially supported Mac OS X versions were Panther versions up to 10.3.5, and Tiger versions up to 10.4.3 only. == Supported formats == Avid Free DV supported QuickTime (MOV) and DV AVIs. == Reception == John P. Mello Jr. of The Boston Globe gave Free DV a negative review, finding the user interface obfuscatory and the process of ingesting video error-prone. He summarized: "Professional video editors who use an Avid competitor may jump at the chance to take a free look at how Avid does things. But for the merely curious, this software is a nightmare". Video Systems's Steve Mullen opined that its lack of interoperability with Avid's professional editing software contracted Avid's stated goal to entice budding video editors into buying into the company's software ecosystem.
Information logistics
Information Logistics (IL) deals with the flow of information between human or machine actors within or between any number of organizations that in turn form a value creating network (see, e.g.). IL is closely related to information management, information operations and information technology. == Definition == The term Information Logistics (IL) may be used in either of two ways: Firstly, it can be defined as "managing and controlling information handling processes optimally with respect to time (flow time and capacity), storage, distribution and presentation in such a way that it contributes to company results in concurrence with the costs of capturing (creation, searching, maintenance etc)." (Petri,2017) Thus IL utilizes logistic principles to optimize information handling. Secondly, IL can be seen as a concept using information technology to optimize logistics. A term which is closely related to the first meaning of Information Logistics is Data Logistics, a concept used in Computer Networking. "The study of solutions to problems in Computer Systems that flexibly span resources and services relating to Data Movement, Data Storage and Data Processing." [ref?] Systems that support general Data Logistics solutions thus must span the traditionally separate fields of Networking, File/Database Systems and Process Management. Data Logistics is a more general form of the term Logistical Networking, used as the name of a particular network storage architecture and software stack. == Goal == The goal of Information Logistics is to deliver the right product, consisting of the right information element, in the right format, at the right place at the right time for the right people at the right price and all of this is customer demand driven. If this goal is to be achieved, knowledge workers are best equipped with information for the task at hand for improved interaction with its customers and machines are enabled to respond automatically to meaningful information. Methods for achieving the goal are: the analysis of information demand intelligent information storage the optimization of the flow of information maintaining both security and organizational flexibility integrated information and billing solutions The expression was formed by the Indian mathematician and librarian S. R. Ranganathan . The supply of a product is part of the discipline Logistics. The purpose of this discipline is described as follows: Logistics is the teachings of the plans and the effective and efficient run of supply. The contemporary logistics focuses on the organization, planning, control and implementation of the flow of goods, money, information and people. Information Logistics focusses on information. Information (from Latin informare: "shape, shapes, instruct") means in a general sense everything that adds knowledge and thus reduce ignorance or lack of precision. In a stricter sense, raw data only becomes information to those who can interpret it. Interpreting relevant, related information produces insight that either leads to existing, or eventually builds new, knowledge. == Information element == An information element (IE) is an information component that is located in the organizational value chain. The combination of certain IEs leads to an information product (IP), which is any final product in the form of information that a person needs to have. When a higher number of different IEs are required, it often results in more planning problems in capacity and inherently leads to a non-delivery of the IP. To illustrate the concept of an IP, an example is shown of a bottleneck analysis in HR (by J. Willems 2008). Here, the illustration shows how the information elements (e.g. qualifications) build up the information product (e.g. HR file). == Data logistics == Data logistics is a concept that developed independently of information logistics in the 1990s, in response to the explosion of Internet content and traffic due to the invention of the World Wide Web (WWW). Some motivations for the emergence of interest in Data Logistics included: The incorporation of network hyperlinks into content encoded in HTML encouraged users to freely dereference those links without regard to, or in many cases without even having any knowledge of, the identity (much less the geographical or network topological location of) the target Web server. The growth in the volume of Web hits, combined with the steady increase in the size of Web-delivered objects such as images, audio and video clips resulted in the localized overloading of the bandwidth and processing resources of the local and/or wide area network and/or the Web server infrastructure. The resulting Internet bottleneck can cause Web clients to experience poor performance or complete denial of access to servers that host high volume sites (the so-called Slashdot effect). The growth in all Internet traffic, especially across international telecommunication links, resulted in stress to institutional infrastructure and high costs on networks that billed Internet traffic on a per-use basis. Much of this traffic was redundant, the results of repeated requests by many independent users to access the same stored files and content. Large files and content retrieved from distant Web servers was often delayed due to high delays experienced over long and complex Internet paths. These factors led to interest in the use of large scale storage (and to a lesser extent, processing) resources to cache the response to network requests, first at the Internet endpoint using a Web browser cache and later at intermediate network locations using shared network caches. This line of development also gave rise to Web server replication and other techniques for offloading and distributing the work of delivering large volume Web services to widely dispersed client communities, ultimately resulting in the creation of modern Content delivery networks. At the same time, research efforts in server replication and content delivery gave rise to a number of related projects and strategies, including Logistical Networking (LN). The name LN was intended as an analogy to physical supply chain logistics, in which goods are not only carried from source to destination on networks of roads, but are also stored at warehouses located throughout the transportation infrastructure. This led to a nomenclature in which LN network storage resources are termed "storage depots". The principles that underpin LN have been abstracted into the more general study of scheduling and optimization across the traditional infrastructure silos of Storage, Networking and Processing which was named Data Logistics. === Illustrative examples of data logistics === Data Caching and Replication are classic examples of Data Logistics solutions to problems in Computer Systems and Networking with high data access latencies or data transfer resource limitations. It works mainly across the areas of data transfer and data storage. Dynamic Compression in data transfer is another example which uses computational resources to minimize the bandwidth requirements of data transfer.