senecaglobal e-newsletter sharegyaanq1 issue feb 2019 · Ÿ open source frameworks – robot...

SenecaGlobal E-Newsletter

Q1 issue Feb 2019

SHAREGYAAN

Theme of the Quarter - “Leaps & Bounds”

Index

Friday Corner 02

Know your Colleague – Interview Zach 03

Tech-Talk 04

Talent Corner 07

Quality Corner 08

Tech-Tips 09

Theme of the Quarter 10

Associate Well-Being 15

Extra Mile Walk 16

Celebrations 17

SenecaGlobal in News 20

Listening and Collaboration 21

Think Tank 22

Thoughts 23

EHS 25

Newsletter Committee Members

Editor

Anupama Panduru

Content Reviewers

Mukul Chourey, Zach Szofer, Babita Sangras, Trishna

Tilwani

Portfolio Owners

Sarma Manthravadi, Torrey Grogan, Srinivasu Jogi, Nick

Pleitt, Krishnamraju Mandapati, Sachin Naik, Ajay Mali,

Pavani Bujala, Jerry Thomas, Sripradha Gulla, Srivisali

Nandanavanam, Harini Prava

Creative Designers

Ashish Kulkarni, Jayendhra Nallanagula

SenecaGlobal E-Newsletter - Q1 | Feb 2019 | Page 1


Tech Talk

You have donned many hats professionally – writer,

designer, director, actor, event manager, client researcher,

accounts executive. Which of these roles is your favorite?

Why?

You forgot New York restaurant manager! I’ve enjoyed all

of my professional history for different reasons. While I

certainly miss some of the excitement of the

entertainment and hospitality industries, I am very happy

to have a more stable situation (working nights and

weekends gets rough). Also, being an Account Executive

allows me to consistently solve problems and build on my

experience, strengthening my skills and career.

You are known to have a flair for theatrics. We also know

how you are successfully bringing in prospective clients for

SenecaGlobal . How do you manage with such

diametrically opposite skills?

I actually don’t think they’re opposite. Being successful in

sales (in such a competitive environment) requires

creativity and persistence. I regularly need to tap into my

former skills, as I have to “act” like I fully understand the

complex tasks our hardworking developers are

performing on a daily basis J. Further, my time in theatre

has given me something of a fearlessness around other

people—a group of IT executives is not as intimidating as

an audience of 300!

You have undergone training in ‘Stage Combat’ techniques.

Tell us what exactly is that and if any of those learnings

have been useful in the IT sector J?

So far, I have not had to employ any use of broadsword or

dagger. Now that you mention it though, it may make for

a powerful negotiation tactic…

Tell us about the challenges you face when researching for

prospective clients for us.

Researching itself is not one of the more challenging

aspects—the tools and processes we use for this are

always improving. The greatest challenge is getting

through to prospects and being able to tell them about

the great work we’ve been doing at SenecaGlobal for

the last 11 years. As I said, it’s very competitive, so

finding a way in is crucial.

What do you look for in a client before zeroing in on

them to be our prospective client?

Beyond the standard criteria (company size,

revenue, technology stack), the best thing to

look for in a prospect is a key event in the

business, such as leadership change,

acquisitions, or upcoming projects.

Our associates are eager to know what your weekends

look like. Are you a family guy? Are you into sports?

I spend just about all of my free time with my lovely

wife—no kids just yet! We’ve got a fair amount of friends

we like to see here in Chicago, but often go to see my

parents and my sister’s family as well. I’m not especially

into sports (see the theatre history above), but I do go to

the movies quite often—I remember being very

impressed by the IMAX at Prasads (I saw the final Harry

Potter movie there back in 2011). Other side hobbies

include photo and film editing, cooking, baking, gaming,

and racquetball.

Monday mornings are tough. How do you motivate

yourself to get out of bed on Mondays?

Every day I wake up earlier than I need to so that I can

make a full breakfast and relax for a bit before

work—maybe throw on a Seinfeld rerun. Starting this

way always makes it easier to begin the week.

What, according to you, is the best thing about our

founders – Rao, Ed and Mani?

Well one is my father, so you’re really putting me on the

spot! Honestly though, I feel very lucky to have the

leadership that we do. Not every organization has an

executive team that’s so willing to quickly address the

questions and needs of its staff. I have never felt a barrier

between myself and the founders, and that’s unique.

What according to you to makes SenecaGlobal a Great

Place to Work?

It’s a bit simple, but I think the main thing that makes

SenecaGlobal a great place to work is that it wants to be a

great place to work. I know that various levels of the

executive leadership are constantly working to improve

our corporate culture, to focus on its employees, and to

give back to its community. If an organization is

constantly asking itself “How can we be better?”, it is

bound to succeed!

Where do you see SenecaGlobal in the next 5

years?

I see SenecaGlobal being very similar from a

cultural perspect ive, but as a more

established and recognizable name in the

tech industry. As we continue to grow and

improve ourselves, word will spread and

SenecaGlobal will be considered one of the

highest-quality firms of its kind.

Interview by Babita Sangras,

Trishna Tilwani

KNOW YOUR COLLEAGUE - Zach Szofer

Zach Szofer

Associate Engagement Program


Creating an encouraging environment and motivating

associates with short moral stories is the objective of an

initiative called Friday Corner. Every Friday, HR (Human

Resources) shares a concise moral story across the

organization and to alumni associates with an intent of

motivating them and also building a value system of

wellbeing. These stories are curated from opensource

and we thank all wonderful authors out there who have

made our initiative possible. It’s been 2 successful years

of this implementation and we are sure it has impacted

few associates positively.

Here is, for your read, one recent thought-provoking

snippet:

“One windy March day the Mayor of the town decided to

take a stroll across the park. He ran into a small boy who

was flying the biggest and most beautiful kite he had ever

seen.

It soared high and gently across the sky that the mayor

was sure it could be seen in the next city. This little town

didn’t have many things that were spectacular, so the

Mayor decided to award a “key to the city” to the one

responsible for such a beautiful thing.

“Who is responsible for flying this kite?” the Mayor asked.

“I am,” said the little boy holding with all his might to the

beautiful big kite. He said, “I made this huge kite myself,

with my own hands. I painted all of the colorful pictures

on it, and I fly it!”

“I am,” said the wind. “It is my breeze that keeps it in the air

flying so big and beautiful. Unless I blow on it, it will not fly

at all. I fly it!”

“Not so,” claimed the kite’s tail. “I make it sail and give it

stability against the wind’s blowing gusts. Without me the

kite would spin out of control and not even the boy could

save it from crashing to the earth. I fly the kite!”

So, who flies the kite?

They all do, don’t they?

In the day-to-day hustle and bustle of work it is easy to

forget that everyone flies the kite. Without the team, the

leader would never be successful. Without a good leader,

the team would fail. Both need each other. And each

person on the team needs one another as well. They all fly

it!

What kite are you flying?”

Friday Corner


Tech Talk

Role of Automation

Evolving technology, engaging consumers with new

features and staying ahead in the competition are the

highest essentialities of any software product. As a result,

fortnightly/monthly releases are the way forward for

clients and service providers to stay on the top using agile

methodologies. And, the challenge here is to ensure the

utmost quality of the software while meeting the client or

the business needs in a limited timeframe. Hence, quality

assurance teams can no longer assume that they have

the luxury of time and resources. Organizations need to

scale up their pace of for quality delivery. An ‘automation’

approach is clearly the solution for quality delivery under

such demanding timelines.

Evolution of Test Automation

Over the years, test automation tools, processes, and

frameworks have evolved simplifying the development

process of test automation scripts and developing

reliable scripts. It is crucial for us to understand the

evolution of test automation before we migrate our tests

to automation.

Record and Playback: This is the first generation of test

automation mainly used for Regression testing. While

this approach required minimal coding, the scripts were

unstable - any minor change or error in the application or

the data caused the automation to break.

Use and Reuse of Functions: This is the second

generation of Automation where the key is building a

maintainable system reusing code. The whole process of

test script developing has become time-consuming and

dependent on tool and technology.

Data and Scripts segregation: Data-driven frameworks

address problems relating to Test Coverage and Script

maintenance by separating test automation scripts from

the test data of the application under test. This process

helps the test script developers to expand the test

coverage by running the same test scripts with different

data-sets. On the contrary, it leads to the creation of a

lengthy test automation code that demands lots of time

and effort for script maintenance.

Action Keyword Scripts: The fourth generation of

Automation try to offer all

the advantages of previous

frameworks. The test runs

with the keywords and not

w i t h s c r i p t s . W h e n a

sequence of l ines gets

executed, the tool goes

through the scripts specified

by the keyword. It is easier

for non-programmers to

design and execute the

tests. But it still requires

so me amo unt o f code

development and regular

code maintenance when the

UI of the application under

test changes.

Codeless Test Automation:

When working on large or complex projects or even small

projects with monthly releases (sometimes bi-weekly

release cycles), creating test environments and test-

artifacts consume a tremendous amount of time and

resources. Codeless testing is an ideal solution to this

problem. The primary objective of codeless testing is to

develop a framework that eases the process of initial set-

up, and no coding knowledge or efforts are required to

develop a test automation script.

Tools & Frameworks

Expertise at SenecaGlobal is not limited to one tool or

technology but is spread across different tools and

frameworks. As the technology, tool or automation

framework evolves, we step our foot into these new tools

and frameworks.

Ÿ Design and develop test automation framework using

any programming language. TestSG is an home-

developed automation framework using Selenium

and Java.

Ÿ Open source frameworks – Robot Framework &

Serenity Framework.

Ÿ Protractor and WebdriverIO test automation

frameworks for NodeJS/AngularJS applications.

Ÿ Cucumber tool for Behaviour Driven Development.

Ÿ Appium for Mobile Applications.

Ÿ AutoIT for windows applications.

Ÿ Rest Assured Framework for Web-Serv ices

Automation.

Know Your Colleague


Tech Talk

Case Studies

Case Study I

About the Client

The Client provides a platform which empowers business

users to quickly create their own custom software to

improve day-to-day operations and get things done

faster. This platform is the best way to manage data and

automate processes, so the end customer accomplishes

more.

Business need/challenge

Ÿ Build an automated smoke test suite, regression test

suite and API test suite.

Ÿ Execute automated test suits as part of CI & CD

Implemented solution

Adapt and enhance existing customized test framework

using Selenium. Build automated test scripts using

framework patterns.

Test framework specific patterns:

1.Page objects patterns

Ÿ Instantiate page objects rather than using static

classes to run on multi-threaded (multi-browser)

environment.

Ÿ Keep Page Objects (PO) as independent as possible

like “Models” in MVC

Ÿ Helper methods to invoke Pos

Ÿ PO should have generic methods for interacting with

forms, etc.

Ÿ Web-Elements on PO should be projected but not

public

Ÿ If a test reuses a template, then it should be a

component instead of a standalone PO

2.Setup

Ÿ Leverage APIs as much as possible for setup

Ÿ APIs should be used to setup things so that UI tests are

faster and not browser dependent

3.API services

Ÿ Just like for setup, these API Services can be used for

other modifications, authentication purposes.

4.State management

Ÿ Try to avoid reusing states in between tests as much as

possible.

Ÿ Create a BeforeTest that resets the test to a particular

known location

Ÿ Clean-up should always happen regardless of test

states.

5.Error handling

Ÿ Let Exceptions bubble up to the top rather than

catching them, except in the unusual case that there is

a workaround to recover from the exception and

continue the test.

6.Data provider pattern

Ÿ We try to specify the tests with programmatic data

providers wherever possible.

Ÿ These data-providers could be reusable

Achieved results

Ÿ A common test framework for different automation

test suits (UI, API, Regression, Reports, Charts, etc.)

Ÿ Test suits are part of nightly build process.

Ÿ Release servers are smoke tested before release

branch deployment.

Ÿ Easy to enhance and is integrated with SauceLabs.

Ÿ Able to execute tests with multiple browsers and OS

combination.

Case Study II

About the Client

The client is a leader in healthcare technology, providing a

broad suite of innovative ‘administrative’ and ‘clinical

process-based’ workflow products to hospitals, home

health care agencies, hospice and other healthcare

providers throughout the U.S.

Business Need - I

Test automation that benefits the organization to build

better applications with less effort aiming more

regression automation and Faster Delivery.

Problem: With shorter durations of patch releases and

planned feature releases for application, regression suite

is growing more prominent, which in turn is increasing

the length of the QA cycle.


Tech Talk

Implemented Solution:

We are using Cucumber as a test framework to automate

the test suites. Alongside Cucumber we are using

Selenium WebDriver java bindings to automate UI

interactions.

Framework Flow:

Benefits of Cucumber framework.

Ÿ Simpler framework structure

Ÿ Implemented with Page Factory Design pattern

Ÿ Easy procedure to add new test cases

Ÿ Open source reporting tools integration

Ÿ Rich plug-in system to integrate with CI Tools

Ÿ Good support over blogs and communities

Business Need – II

Ÿ Build a customized framework in line with the product

or application that would ease the test automation

development.

Ÿ Automate more regression tests and perform

regression automation at an early stage.

Implemented Solution:

Ÿ A Common Automation framework implemented

using Java and integrated with Maven for automating

web application functionalities.

Ÿ Cross-platform/Cross Browser Execution

Ÿ Integrated with TestNG for Grouping and Sequencing

based on Release mgmt. and regression cycles

Ÿ Integrated with Maven for Build management

Ÿ Implementation CI tools like (TeamCity/GitLab CI Tool)

for Continues Integration and to maintain integrity.

Ÿ Integrated with Test Link for executing the Test cases

on specific Build of Test plan.

Ÿ Customized as well as TestNG generated result report

for analysis.

Ÿ POI and DB implementation for achieving Data Driven

Execution.

Ÿ API and Mobile validation.

Case Study III

About the Client

A leading media, information and Entertainment

Company that executes and delivers direct marketing

solutions coast-to-coast operates from seven full-service

regional facilities strategically located in key cities across

the USA.

Business need/challenge:

Ÿ Every month QA team needs to test and confirm a

monthly job provided by the client.

Ÿ Doing manual testing and verifying the data takes

around 8 - 10 hours per day per user.

Implemented solution:

Ÿ The business need is accomplished by automating the

tasks.

Ÿ Create a text file to capture the execution results.

Ÿ Team implemented automation script using

technologies: JAVA 8.0 & Selenium Web Drivers, JXL Jar

( plug-in)

Achieved results

Ÿ The automated results are more accurate compared

to manual test results.

Ÿ Overall, automation for 40 users took half of the

manual testing time.

Ÿ Able to capture the execution results in a console or

text file to share with client.

Ÿ Even in the absence of QA resource, a developer can

run the above automation in their local machine and

provide the status to the client.

By Pradeep Godi


Talent Corner

Ashish Kulkarni has clicked this amazing shot of Kanyakumari Town from Vivekananda Memorial Rock. This picture

beautifully captures the afternoon laze of the town in the beginning of the monsoons with the different ranges of

mountains still clearly visible under the clouds already making significant presence.

This is another picturesque view from the Kanyakumari Town tip taken from the Sunset Point – the West view. On the

cloudy early monsoon evening, the shades of pink from the setting sun poetically plays on the waves of the sea.


Global Delivery Management: Collaborative

Engineering

Software solution development in a distributed and

collaborative engineering environment focuses on

decomposition of the scope of the engagement into

solution packages for delivery by independent teams. The

product/solution architectural framework, associated

engineering activities, and the developed work

components have critical dependencies that directly

impact the software solution integration and delivery. Let

us examine some of the critical aspects of collaborative

engineering per role.

The solution architect plays a vital role in decomposition

of scope of the engagement into work packages to form

‘part’ solutions. These work packages may have

interdependencies that could impact the integration of

the ‘part’ solutions to form the final ‘whole’ solution.

The Business Requirements Analyst ensures that unique

requirements are derived from customer requirements

and allocated to work packages and there are no

duplicate or overlapping requirements across them. It is

necessary to ensure that unique requirements when

integrated, meet the defined software solution

requirements.

The Technical Architects, Designers and Developers

design, and develop the ‘part’ solution assigned to a

project. The design and the developed solution of a

project may have dependencies on other projects. They

have to be tested and reviewed to verify conformance to

unique requirements assigned to that ‘part’ solution. The

‘part’ solutions are integrated and built in to a final ’whole’

solution and the same is tested to verify conformance to

scope of the engagement and corresponding

requirements specified by the customer.

It is important to note that the ‘part’ - ‘whole’

dependencies that impact the software solution being

developed include software interfaces (external and

internal), functional flows (application functions and

workflows, data and process linkages), database and data

management, application and user security, solution

performance and scalability, hardware, system software,

middleware and services, etc.

The complexity of these dependencies and their

interrelationships has to be successfully managed during

collaborative engineering of the software solution. Some

Quality Corner

of the key practices that aid in effective engineering

collaboration are:

Ÿ Unified engineering process– I terat ive and

incremental solution development process that

depicts the process to be adhered to by the individual

projects, their interfaces, and process (outcome)

dependencies with other projects. The process should

promote natural compliance (be agile) and enable

q u a n t i t a t i v e m a n a g e m e n t o f e n g i n e e r i n g

performance (be measurable). It should mandate

periodic and continuous integration of ‘part’ solutions

for formation of ‘whole’ solution.

Ÿ Common set of engineering tools – Usage of common

development, testing and staging environment

(hardware and software) to enable effective and

optimal product development.

Ÿ Focused Engineering Teams – Formation of focused

engineering teams drawn across all projects that

develop ‘part solution’ to collaborate and perform

engineering reviews.

Ÿ Formal Documentation – Appropriate tools to be used

to maintain formal documentation of software

artifacts such as requirements, design, tests, etc. of

the ‘part’ solutions, associated dependencies, and the

final ‘Whole’ solution. They need to be version

controlled and managed for changes. They need to be

accessible to all concerned associates of the projects.

Ÿ Common Vocabulary – Usage of common vocabulary

(domain, technology, software engineering,

organizational terminology) to ensure effective

communication among the members of the project

for completeness and correctness of software

artifacts documentation.

Ÿ Innovative Engineering – Synergize the development

of ‘part’ solutions such that when they are integrated

to form the final ‘whole’ solution, it delivers superior

business value to customer (2 plus 2 giving 6 effect).

Ÿ First Time Right Development – Specify requirements

thrice (functional requirements, usage scenarios of

users, acceptance tests of requirements, and non-

functional requirements). Specify design twice

(software objects and services design, test cases to

software design conformance). Code once. Review

and Test continuously. Refactor software design and

code.

Ÿ Focus on producing high-maturity software

conforming to the following characteristics as per the

business needs of the software product:

Ÿ Functionality (Accuracy, Suitability, Compliance)

Ÿ Usabil ity (Understandabil ity, Learnabil ity,

Operability, Attractiveness)


Tech Tips

Dockerizing the applications

Many times we face an issue that the same code is

working in the developer's machine but not in the

production. Many times this is because of the difference

in the environment and the versions installed on

production and development.

The simplest way to manage this is by Dockerizing the

application. The first thing you need to do in this is to

create the Dockerfile, .dockerignore and docker-

compose files in the project.

Dockerfile is the most important file which defines the

Docker image and instructs Docker on how to build it.

When you run docker build ., the docker daemon refers

the Dockerfile to see what should happen during the

process.

Ÿ Efficiency (Resource utilization behavior, Time

behavior, Scalability)

Ÿ Maintainability (Analyzability, Changeability,

Stability, Testability, Reusability)

Ÿ P o r t a b i l i t y ( I n s t a l l a b i l i t y , C o - e x i s t e n c e ,

Replaceability)

Ÿ Security (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability)

Ÿ Compatibility (Interoperability)

Ÿ Productive development – Distributed engineering

teams are globally positioned such that they work

continuously (Nearly 24 hours 5 days a week). The

distributed teams need to work towards faster and

better development through usage of pre-built

domain frameworks and design patterns and code

components to reduce development time, thereby

reducing wastage and associated rework. Engineering

dependencies (requirements, design, code, test,

integration, release, and deployment) among software

artifacts being built by distributed projects teams need

to be well understood and managed. Common

engineering reviews of software artifacts by focused

engineering teams is essential. Religious adherence to

quick turnaround time by engineering teams for

resolution of issues, problems, and defects is required.

Ÿ C o n fi g u r a t i o n a n d c h a n g e m a n a g e m e n t -

Configuration and change control of the software

artifacts and access to them needs to be managed

such that solution integrity is not compromised.

By Sarma Manthravadi

The .dockerignore file is used to specify certain files and

folders that need you to want to exclude in the built. It is

similar to the .gitignore in GIT.

The docker-compose fi le s impl ifies the loca l

development. This can be configured for your

dependencies such as Redis, Postgres, Mysql, Rabbitmq

etc. This allows you to spin up containers for those

dependencies, without the manual management of

installing that software on your machine. If there is any

new member in the team simply by running docker-

compose up would set up the required environment for

him.

With Docker, we can deploy on any server without any

hassle.

By Sachin Naik


Theme of the Quarter

SenecaGlobal has been growing by leaps and bounds

over the two recent quarters and here are some

highlights.

SenecaGlobal Achieves Oracle Gold Partner Status

Congratulations to Sri Gullapalli and team for earning for

our company official Gold Partner status with Oracle!

This is a great achievement and the one that we should all

be proud of.

Company’s Expertise Affirmed in Helping Oracle-Centric

Businesses Leverage Cloud Services with E-Business Suite

Managed Services Expertise

SenecaGlobal, a leader in outsourced software product

development and cloud services, today celebrated the

recent launch of its Oracle Practice to help organizations

better manage the complexities of global business

environments by announcing its Gold Partner Status with

Oracle.

The Oracle Gold Partner designation rewards

SenecaGlobal’s commitment to delivering outstanding

customer experience and recognizes the company’s

ongoing dedication to deepen its cloud-centric

applications expertise.

By Leaps and Bounds

“Just like SenecaGlobal, Oracle is helping customers

migrate to the cloud,” said Haranath Pinnamaneni,

SenecaGlobal Senior Vice President, India. “As trusted

t e a m m a t e s , w e m a k e o u r c u s t o m e r s ’ c l o u d

transformations successful with next-generation

services on Oracle Cloud and our proprietary Cloud

Journey methodology ensuring that we deliver a smooth,

drama-free, successful conversion on time and on

budget.”

Led by Sri Gullapalli, SenecaGlobal Vice President,

Technology and Delivery, the Oracle practice provides

on-premise Oracle EBS services and cloud application

services (ERP, CRM, HCM) including technical advisory

services, upgrades, and cloud migrations.

According to Gullapalli, “SenecaGlobal helps enterprise

clients stay ahead in a very complex, competitive

landscape. Our track record speaks for itself with

experts in Fusion Middleware, Oracle Fusion

Applications, and Cloud Services. We leverage SOA and

Cloud integration tools to ensure seamless operations.”

“And with this new Gold Partner designation,

SenecaGlobal is positioned to deliver even more

sophisticated capabilities through higher specialization

and innovative co-developed solutions.”

SenecaGlobal’s Oracle practice includes:

Ÿ Oracle e-Business Suite Support Services

Ÿ Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne & Peoplesoft

Applications Support Services

Ÿ Oracle EBS Mobility

Ÿ O r a c l e C l o u d A p p s C u s t o m i z a t i o n s a n d

Implementations

Ÿ Oracle Cloud Extensions / Migrations

Ÿ Integration with 3rd party Vendors / Legacy Systems

Ÿ Staffing Augmentation and Testing Services

Ÿ Managed and On-Demand Support, Managed

Hosting.

SenecaGlobal and Device42 Partnership

We are very pleased to announce that through the great

work of Eric Crump, Vice President Global Cloud &

Managed Services, SenecaGlobal has entered into a

p a r t n e r s h i p w i t h D e v i c e 4 2

(https://www.device42.com/).

Device42 Inc. is a leader in the Configuration

M a n a g e m e n t D a t a b a s e ( C M D B ) , A p p l i c a t i o n

Dependency Mapping (ADM) and DCIM Software



Marketplace, and provides a ‘Single Pane of Glass for an

organization’s IT Infrastructure’.

Our press release explains the nuances of this

partnership in more detail:

‘Guiding companies on their cloud journeys with

discovery & asset inventory management technology,

tools and processes’

SenecaGlobal announced today the availability of a new

Cloud Strategy & Economics Workshop. The Workshop

offers companies a finite and structured format for

evaluating cloud strategies and reviewing progress

related to cloud initiatives.

“Over and over, we hear from clients that they are eager

to get their cloud migration started but many are hesitant

because of a lack of solid strategy or initial business case”

says Eric Crump, VP, Global Cloud and Managed Services,

SenecaGlobal. “In this Workshop, cloud experts will lead

client teams through a strategic process to access and

analyze their data specifically to address those big

questions.”

Customized Workshop engagements wi l l help

organizations:

Ÿ Clear through the market confusion around true cost

and economic value of enterprise cloud solutions

based on specific environments and IT assets;

Ÿ Determine how to assess IT real estate and

understand how “cloud ready” the assets are;

Ÿ Establish the best approach to rapidly, cost effectively,

and safely implement new technology initiatives and

services, and

Ÿ Run through a defined test case simulating a complete

journey to the cloud

The Cloud Strategy and Economics Workshop harnesses

SenecaGlobal’s enterprise cloud experience and

proprietary Cloud Journey methodology and rapid

rationalization approach powered by Device42’s proven

and industry leading discovery technology. “The Journey

to Cloud starts with the ‘You are here’ dot on the map.

Device42 provides an automated, accurate, and detailed

view of your application infrastructure.” Says Raj Jalan,

CEO of Device42. “That situational awareness, in the

expert hands of SenecaGlobal, enables customers to

transform their operations with confidence.”

Organizations that participate in a Cloud Strategy &

Economics Workshop will focus on achieving three

milestones:

1. Instrument & data collection on up to 300 servers

2. Unique and custom analysis

3. Specific and strategic execution plan

The typical Workshop is two to four weeks depending on

the environment and data required. Instrumentation

rapidly deployed begins collecting data immediately.

Once the data is collected and evaluated, the project

culminates in a 2-day workshop at the client site where

the results and recommendations are presented,

showing the clients strategic cloud journey, proposed

cloud architecture, TCO and economic business case. The

simulation illustrates the full cloud journey for a

particular set of IT assets.

The Cloud Strategy and Economics Workshop also

provides a foundation for future state architecture,

including economics and plans. For now, this service is

offered on a fixed cost basis and participating companies

may apply the investment to a future cloud project with

SenecaGlobal. A more detai led description of

SenecaGlobal’s industry leading approach to the Cloud,

with its proprietary Client Cloud Journey, can be found on

our website.

“Top 50 Great Mid-Size Workplaces” by Great Place To

Work - India

SenecaGlobal announces that the Great Place to Work

Institute recently conducted a culture and trust audit of

SenecaGlobal in the ‘Mid-Size Organization Category’ and

certified SenecaGlobal as a “Great Place to Work”.

Specifically, SenecaGlobal has achieved a ranking of 49th

across all industries in India.



“SenecaGlobal strongly believes that strength of

character and competitiveness of an organization is

founded in its culture driven by core values. We aim to

build a culture of trust where we do more than being able

to attract, retain and engage great talent. Our talent

thrives in an environment that fosters learning, teaming

and collaboration for successfully serving the clients.”,

states Rao Tummalapalli, SenecaGlobal Managing

Director. “We are very proud of all of our associates in

helping us achieve this designation and are confident it

will help us continue to service our clients at the highest

levels.”

“SenecaGlobal has adopted ‘The Great Place to Work®

Trust Model©’ built on 30 years of research and data

collected through Trust Index© Employee Survey. Every

year, thousands of organizations worldwide use this as a

framework to benchmark their cultural practices.”, says

Sarma Manthravadi, SenecaGlobal Senior Vice President,

Operations. “These qualities are built right into our

culture and provide the basis for future growth and

continuous improvement.”

Great Place to Work® is the global authority on building,

sustaining, and recognizing high-trust, and high-

performing workplace cultures. In the United States,

Great Place to Work® produces the annual Fortune 100

Best Companies to Work For® list and over a dozen other

Best Workplaces lists in partnership with Fortune

including the Best Workplaces for Millennials, Women,

Diversity, Small and Medium Companies, as well as for

many different industries.

10 Best Technology Solution Providers of 2018

And, we have saved the best for the last! Industry Era

Names SenecaGlobal ‘A 2018 Top Ten Technology

Solution Provider’

SenecaGlobal is making news again earning a top spot as

one of the ten best technology solutions providers in the

country according to the digital magazine, Industry Era, an

interactive, community destination for C-level executives

and other high-level IT executives in North America and

Asia.

“Eleven years ago, SenecaGlobal opened its doors to

offer smart, cost-effective IT expertise to clients that

exceeded their expectations in a straightforward way,”

said President and Co-Founder Ed Szofer. “Our plan was,

and continues to be simple: Match the right strategic

business experts with highly motivated technologists

and satisfy clients by meeting their needs, on time and on

budget.”

SenecaGlobal, a leading information technology

consulting firm, provides end-to-end product/software

development solutions, with specialization in the

following areas:

SmartSourcing Services

SenecaGlobal manages the entire process for our

clients– from mission critical to daily maintenance –

delivering services to meet current needs and applying

leading edge solutions to meet new challenges.

Ÿ Enterprise Cloud and Managed Services – supporting

client’s digital transformation and cloud journey

Ÿ Software Product Development – to help our clients

create innovative products at a significantly lower

cost.

Ÿ Application Software Development - for enterprise,

departmental, web, and mobile applications

development using latest technologies in Java Open

System, Microsoft and Enterprise mobility areas.

Ÿ IBM i (AS400) Solutions - for maintenance, integration,

and modernization.

Ÿ Software Quality Assurance and Testing - utilizing

established standards and proven automation tools

and processes.

Ÿ Technology Advisory Services - helping real-time

businesses ship innovative products at significantly

lower costs.

Ÿ IT Support and Help Desk - 24x7 helpdesk and

technical support; customizable for cl ient’s

organization e.g. choice between a dedicated team or

shared services

Technical

Ÿ Microsoft .NET Technologies`©#, ASP.NET Core, etc.)

Ÿ Java and Open Source (Java, Spring Boot, Python,

Angular, React, NodeJS, etc.)

Ÿ Cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud)



Ÿ IBM i

Ÿ Enterprise Mobility (Android, iOS, ReactNative)

Ÿ Manual and Automated Testing

Functional

Ÿ Strategy and Technology Advisory Services

Ÿ Design & Architecture

Ÿ Product and Application Development

Ÿ Testing

Ÿ Support and Maintenance

Ÿ 24/7 Helpdesk Support (Level 1-3)

Industry

Ÿ Healthcare IT

Ÿ Financial Services

Ÿ Independent Software Vendors

Ÿ Technology

Ÿ Manufacturing/Distribution/Retail

Ÿ Financial Services

Ÿ Testing

Ÿ Education

SenecaGlobal works closely with our clients to assemble

the right project team for their specific needs. We have

extensive educational programs to keep our staff current

on the latest developments in each area, and we are

continuously using this knowledge to develop best

practices for our clients.

“Reinvesting profits into the company, especially into the

people, in terms of skills development, career

enhancement opportunities and talent acquisition

helped us create a healthy culture that differentiates

SenecaGlobal from the large, traditional, IT outsourcing

firms,” added Managing Director and Co-founder, Rao

Tummalapalli. “Our employees are client-centric, and we

are employee-focused, which results in the motivated

teams that are agile and able to respond to challenging

requirements. Our organic growth demonstrates the

proof of our model.”


Associate Well-Being

Work–life balance(WLB) is to balance an individual need

between time allocated for work and other aspects of life.

Areas of life other than work-life need not be limited to

personal interests but also family and social or leisure

activities. Spending long hours at work due to

"inflexibility, shifting in work requirements, overtime or

evening work duties" could lead to an imbalance between

work and family duties. SenecaGlobal demonstrates

"that time spent at work positively correlate with both

work interference with family and family interference

with work.

Activities done so far

Ÿ Identified and listed the activities/policies which

contribute towards maintaining WLB. White boards

were used to collect the points from Associates.

Ÿ Conducted an awareness session on 4 WLB activities.

Ÿ Gathered list of activities which could contribute

towards maintaining WLB.

Ÿ Invited Dr Fitness organization to our office. They

conducted a session related to fitness, specifically in

relation to Airtel Marathon event.

Ÿ As a token of encouragement, distributed water

bottles to all runners who participated in Airtel

Marathon event.

Associate Well-Being

Crea�vity & HobbiesPhotography Corner *

Pain�ng Corner *Music Corner *

SenecaGlobal Crea�vity Week *

Career & Development* Quarterly Development based review* Competency and role-based learning * Holis�c Learning on Technology exper�se* Project centered & Associate centered Learning * Transparent Career Advancement evalua�on

Recrea�on & Fun

Bonding over Food (Pot-luck) *Joy at Work *

Burn Out Resiliency awareness *

Financial Wellness* Salary Advance pay* Know your finances – Periodic Help-Desks* Tax Computa�on Support Help-Desks

Altruism

Contribu�on to CSR *Volunteering and Giving *

(Refer CSR)

Health & Fitness* Seasonal Health – Preven�ve Measures mailers * On-Premises Doctor Consulta�ons* Partnership with NIN* Par�cipa�on in Marathons* Annual Health Check-up* We Work Out* Fitness @ Office interven�ons* Nutri�on Talks

SafetyPersonal Safety

* Food Safety

* Children's Eye Safety & Swimming pool safety

* Playground safety guide for parents

* Electrical safety for children

* Road safety

Workplace Safety

* Fire safety

* Emergency Exits & Safe Assembly Area

Social LifeKids @ Office Day *

Celebra�ng Family Achievements of associates *Creche Support *

Lead by Example – Stories of Balance *Annual Family Ou�ng *

Ride Share * Margadarshak support *

External Personal Branding *Sick Leave Dona�on *

We for all (Peer to Peer support) *


One of our project achievements is faster and cost-

efficient item onboarding process-improvement that the

team has gone extra mile for.

Purpose: Building a scalable and reliable system to enable

faster and cost-efficient onboarding of items into Client.

Process Owner: Srinivas Vemula

Kaizen Team: Anupama Gajjala, Sasi Evuri,

Thrideep Gona, Dushyant Shukla, Durga Veluru

Process: FastCapture Category: Business solution

1.Performance Issues

Ÿ A faster and scalable item onboarding

Ÿ Logistics cost involved in acquiring items for the

onboarding process.

Ÿ Cost involved in item conversion process

Ÿ Network interruptions and need for human

intervention while working on product images during

image editing, data extraction and QA reviews etc.

2.Kaizen Action Plan

Research, design and prototyping

Ÿ Implementing FastCapture mobile interface for

capturing item data and images using Apple iPads,

thus supplanting the BAC studio setup.

Ÿ Developing FastCapture web platform for data-

extraction and image-editing scheduling purposes.

Ÿ Developing micro-services to power FastCapture web

platform and interact with Dropbox API.

Ÿ Quality assurance on all three applications

Ÿ Developing back-end batch jobs to perform

scheduling activities for image editing and data

extraction and adding edited and original images to

items in Clients database (IMDB).

Design and implementation plan

Ÿ FastCapture mobile application (iOS)

Ÿ FastCapture user and admin web platforms (Angular)

Ÿ FastCapture microservices (Springboot, Spring

Statemachine, Dropbox API)

Ÿ Testing mobile and web platforms.

Ÿ FastCapture server side batch-jobs(Springboot,

FastCapture microservice, Client Legacy APIs)

3.Key Inputs

Ÿ Item onboarding process through BAC workflow.

Ÿ Image editing and data extraction workflows.

Ÿ Dropbox mobile applications

Extra Mile Walk

Ÿ Dropbox API and reference documents

Ÿ Dropbox Java SDK

Ÿ Customer feedback

4.Performance Improvement Achieved

Performance Indicator

Time : Time to capture item/product details

Cost: Labor/human resource cost

Performance After Kaizen

Time :50% reduction

Cost:50% reduction

5.Key Outcomes/Deliverables

The new business solution has resulted in faster

onboarding of items into Client. Below are the highlights:

Ÿ The Brand Activation Center (BAC) associates can now

go to the consumer-packaged-goods (CPG)

warehouses and collect item images and data using

FastCapture iOS app on iPads/tablets at the

warehouse location itself. Thus, saving the cost

involved in logistics and acquiring the items.

Ÿ Use of iPads for capturing high grade images also

supplants the studio infrastructure necessary at the

BAC locations. Thus, saving both time and money.

Ÿ FastCapture web app has streamlined the back and

forth movement of images among various stack

holders suring image editing and data extraction from

the captured images.

The knowledge and the skills acquired while working with

Dropbox products can be applied to other projects

SenecaGlobal as and when necessary.

6.Value Addition/Benefits

Client:

Ÿ Client signed a deal with one of their clients to on-

board 30,000 items within two months. FastCapture

enabled Client to fulfill the agreement.

Ÿ Reduced operational cost of item onboarding as the

items are no longer required to be shipped to BAC

centers. Client employees can now visit warehouses

and capture item images and images using iOS

application on iPads. Thus, preventing the logistics

cost involved in the shiping and purchasing of the

items for bringing them to the BAC locations.

Ÿ The use of iPads/tablets to capture high-grade images

of the items supplants the studio infrastructure at the

BAC locations.

Ÿ Reliable and user-friendly system for operations team

and outsourcers for back and forth movement of item

Continued in page 22...


Celebrations

“The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more

there is in life to celebrate.” - Oprah Winfrey

SenecaGlobal Great Place to Work Celebrating team

initiated “Celebrations” with an aim to encourage an

atmosphere of fun and camaraderie with unique and

distinctive events and to promote a culture of celebrating

successes.

Focus of celebrations -

Ÿ Organizational Successes

Ÿ Individual Associates Successes Relating to Business

Goals such as critical professional certifications,

Winning Complex awards, and so on

Ÿ Individual personal successes relating to business

goals

Ÿ Individual personal successes of family members that

the associate is proud of

Below is a quick run through of the various achievements

under these categories that this team has celebrated.

When we celebrate, it is no more an individual story, it

becomes a proud moment for all associates as we all take

part in the same.

Celebrations Event 1:

Marathon Felicitation to Rao and Sunitha

Rao Tummalapalli, MD, SenecaGlobal, has completed all

the six world marathon majors – Berlin, Chicago, New

York, Tokyo, Boston and London. In fact, he completed all

the six marathons in less than 20 months and ran five of

them in the last seven months. Sunita Tummalapalli, his

better half, had completed these six majors earlier this

year and became the first person from Telugu speaking

states to achieve this. Rao and Sunita are also the first

couple from India to complete the world majors.

Having completed marathons on all seven continents in

2015, Sunita is also the only person from India in

possession of both these special medals - seven

continents medal and the six star world marathon majors

medal. A mother of 3 kids, Sunita’s is a remarkable

journey from a shy rural village girl to an International

Marathon runner. She has faced and overcome a lot of

obstacles in her journey of running. She has also co-

authored a book on the same topic.


CII-National Kaizen Awards

SenecaGlobal team has participated in the CII NATIONAL

KAIZEN CIRCLE COMPETITION 2018 conducted during 22-

23 May 2018 at New Delhi and presented 4 nominations

in the various ‘Innovation Categories (Proactive Kaizen,

Reactive Kaizen, Innovative Kaizen). In the Small and

Medium Companies category there were about 160

nominations from 40 other companies across different

industry sectors. The best 2 nominations are selected for

award in each innovation category.

We feel privileged to share this delightful news that

SenecaGlobal teams have won 2 Golds and 1 Silver:

Proactive category - Gold - Improving Business

Communication - Anupama P

Reactive category - Gold - Reduce deployment time and

minimize human errors - Subba K and Ramakrishna

Vaddi

Innovative category - Silver - Artificial Intelligence

Password Reset Call Support - Sasidhara D

This is an important citation for our focus on innovation

and continual improvement to deliver business value to

our clients.


Celebrations

The participants received the award from Sh. Ram Mohan

Mishra , Addi t ional Secretary & Development

Commissioner, Ministry of MSME, Government of India.

Other Panel dignitaries were:

Mr. Shreekant Somany, Chairman, CII- Centre of

Excellence for Competitiveness for SMEs and Chairman &

Managing Director, Somany Ceramics Limited

Mr. Arun Sharma, Managing Director, Leakless Gasket

India Pvt. Ltd

Mr. Pikender Pal Singh, Sr. Director, Confederation of

Indian Industry and Head, CII- Centre of Excellence for

Competitiveness for SMEs

When SenecaGlobal was announced as the Gold winner,

all participants went to receive the award.


Wonderful Beginning with New Partners

SenecaGlobal celebrated our new statuses of being the

“Oracle Gold Partner” and “Amazon Webservices Partner

Network – Advanced Consulting Partner”

More on this in this edition’s ‘Theme of the Quarter’

section!


Inspiring Youngster & a proud father

Our associate Mukul Chourey’s daughter, Rishita

Chourey lead the team that got the Runners Up at the TiE-

TYE Summer Business Plan competition.

Rishita attended TiE – TYE (The Young Entrepreneur)

S u m m e r p r o g r a m , w h i c h a i m e d a t t e a c h i n g

entrepreneurship to high school students and helping

them discover the rewards and challenges of becoming

an entrepreneur. It was a one-month intensive program,

d e t a i l s o f w h i c h a r e g i v e n i n t h e l i n k

https://hyderabad.tie.org/tyesummer/

The whole batch was divided into multiple teams and

were asked to come-up with an idea, prepare a model

prototype and convert it into a sustainable business plan.

Rishita’s team came with a product "Orome", to provide a

solution to simplify the process of bringing organic

produce from farms to plates - 100% organic meal kits.

The program ended with a grand finale at Cyber

Convention yesterday. It was a mega event attended by

some of the renowned entrepreneurs of Hyderabad.

Teams were required to pitch their idea in front of a three-

member panel and a large audience.

Rishita led her team ‘OROME’ to the runner-up place for

the TiE-TYE Summer Business Plan competition. The

event was well covered in today’s media.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:64

12162096947134464/

https://startupsuccessstories.in/myfo-wins-tie-tye-

summer-innovation-2018-challenge-team-orome-

declared-runners-up/

https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-

ians/tie-tye-summer-business-plan-competition-

winners-announced-118061000455_1.html


SCSC (Society for Cyberabad Security Council) Awards

SenecaGlobal “The Most Active Company of the Year

2017-18”

SCSC is a registered not-for-profit body founded in the

year 2006 and operates in tandem with Cyberabad Police

to promote safety & security in the Cyberabad IT corridor,

empowered by the IT industry to attend the security

needs of IT companies. It provides safety from

information theft, fire, health & personnel safety, guard

against sabotage operations of vital installations and

thwarts terrorist attacks. The representatives from IT

companies will be the members of the council and the

funding will flow from these companies. The Cyberabad

Police Commissioner will be officiating as Honorary

Chairman of the Council and 3 representatives from

member companies will be the office bearers.

The Council gives high priority to the Personal safety,

particularly Women safety, IT infrastructure safety, Traffic

safety, Cyber safety and Information security, so that the

business continuity takes place in healthy living

environment. Our Margadarshaks, Sripradha Gulla,

Kartheek Mandavalli, Anupama Panduru, Pavani Bujala

and our Traffic Volunteers, Kalyan Penumutchu have


significantly contributed to enhancing safety and security

aspects in the IT corridor.

SenecaGlobal has been awarded as “The Most Active

Member of SCSC” for the FY 2017-18 in small and medium

size enterprise during the SCSC Annual General Body

meeting held on 29-Jun-2018 at Westin Hotel, Hyderabad.

A special recognition to Sripradha Gulla by the Chairman

of SCSC, V C Sajjanar, IPS, General Secretary Bharani K

Aroll and Women’s Safety Form Leader, Vishnu Priya

Saxena for active participation in Margadarshak, Tactical

training, Hostel visits and other activities hosted by SCSC.


“SenecaGlobal makes it to the TOP 50 Great Mid-size

Workplaces”

We are very excited to announce that our firm has been

certified by the Great Place To Work Institute as the 49th

best mid-sized firm to work for in all of India (across all

industries)! We are very proud of all our associates in

achieving this award -- and it confirms the great culture,

talent and service we are able to bring to our clients.


Celebrating Successes on Annual Family Outing day

Ÿ We have received prominent recognition for the

work we are doing! A leading trade magazine,

Industry Era, has named SenecaGlobal a 2018 Top

Ten Technology Solution Provider. Here is a link to

the press release on our site:

https://www.senecaglobal.com/resource/industryera

Ÿ Ashish Kulkarni participated in Design challenge

organized by the Government of Telangana. He was

the finalist. His design has been selected for further

use by the department of Tourism, Telangana.

However, he was not able to win the competition as he

was a single designer and the eligibility criteria needed

a team.

Ÿ Jayendhra Nallanagula’s wife completed her MBA in

flying colors. Her tenacity in continuing her education

and staying relevant in the workforce is laudable

despite having the choice to stay back at home.

Ÿ Mukkamala Karthikeya (Manoj Mukkamala’s son) of

1st grade (class) got second place in Zig Zag running

race at the Scholars Sports Meet 2018 – 2019.

Ÿ Sreepal Gurrala’s wife has started a boutique shop of

her own. She is a first-time entrepreneur in her family.

Ÿ Our associate Mr. Kalyan Penumutchu has been

recognized as one of the top performers in the last

quarter by SCSC under traffic volunteering.

Ÿ Dushyant Shukla has completed AWS developer

certification in spite of hectic work in his project.

Ÿ Baby Ameya Sirigiri, daughter of Harish Sirigiri was a

part of Guinness Book of record in the category of

Singing (108 days continuous singing and dancing with

5000 artists).

Ÿ Balaji Gorrela’s daughter Jenica is just 4.5 yrs old now

and she did her Arangetrem in Classical dance at such

young age.

Ÿ Samyuktha, daughter of Krishnamraju Mandapati

won gold medal in Handball interschool competition.

Ÿ Our colleague Sujith Gangaraju’s brother Mr. Ashwin

Gangaraju has debuted as a director with a movie “

Aakasamantha” which is in pre-production stage. He

was a former assistant with Mr. Raja Mouli for the

movies “ Eega and Bahubali”.

Ÿ Keerthana, daughter of Jyotsna Bandi secured second

place in Kho Kho competition in interschool fest.

Ÿ Advaith, son of Ajay Mali hosted a show on “Khushi” TV.

Advaith has also cleared SIP ABACUS at state Level and

has attended the National Level on 2-Dec’18.

Ÿ Raja Nama’s Daughter Jayathi won a gold medal in

Inter School singing competition. She also won Inter

house competitions in singing, dancing and craft.

Celebrations


SenecaGlobal In NEWS


SCSC recognition for Traffic Volunteering

Our associate Mr. Kalyan Penumutchu has been honored

and felicitated by SCSC as top 4th most active traffic

volunteer. He has raised 1041 traffic violation challans in

a span of 4 months in a half-yearly window.

One of the key announcement for the past period was

SenecaGlobal being named “one of the ten best

technology solutions providers” in the country, according

to the digital magazine Industry Era. This is a

tremendous recognition of our excellence, expertise, and

leadership in the IT services space - - and one that we

should all be very proud of.

Our key focus now is on plans for 2019. Specifically, we

are looking to increase our marketing presence through

the following means:

Ÿ Updates to the website

Ÿ Blog posts

Ÿ Press releases

Ÿ Case studies

Ÿ White papers

Ÿ Newsletters

Ÿ Signage for events

Ÿ Sponsor AWS Summits

Ÿ Sponsor AWS re:Invent

Ÿ Support practice area campaigns

Ÿ Support geographic area campaigns

Ÿ Support direct sales campaignsŸ

Marketing is working closely with our practice groups,

sales and SenecaGlobal leadership to make sure we are

well coordinated. Overall, we are on track to have a great

2019!


Listening and Collaboration

“The most basic of all human needs is to understand and

be understood. The best way to understand people is to

listen to them.” Ralph Nichols

“None of us, including me, ever do great things. But we

can all do small things, with great love, and together we

can do something wonderful." – Mother Teresa

SenecaGlobal Great Place to Work Listening and

Collaboration team has been working with the above

inspiration and an aim to encourage an atmosphere

transparency, trust and synergy.

Listening and Collaboration Team:

Jayendhra Nallanagula, Krishnamraju Mandapati,

Sasidhara Datla, Sreeya Machineni, Trishna Tilwani

Focus

Ÿ Leaders respond to employee questions when

relevant to company’s goal; make themselves

accessible in a variety of ways to encourage people to

ask questions, express concerns or offer criticisms.

Ÿ Solicit suggestions when deemed important to

improve productivity

Ÿ Proactively solicit suggestions to encourage and

incorporate employee creativity

Ÿ Create systems to enable employees to have an input

on decisions that impact their jobs

Below is a quick run-through of the various initiatives that

this team has achieved.

Anonymous Box: Open to conversations that matter

We understand everyone has a different comfort zone

when giving / receiving feedback, concerns, ideas and

suggestions. Hence, SenecaGlobal has carefully designed

numerous platforms listening and including associates’

voice into decision making. In addition to

these, the team has launched the

“Anonymous Box” which is the

avenue for associates opting to keep

their names out. This feedback box

c a n b e u s e d t o b r i n g l i g h t t o

problems/suggestions that you want

to do from the comfort of being

anonymous!

We are Listening.. We are Acting...

The team also met all associates in short cohorts and

conducted a focused session to understand current

needs. After multiple meetings and discussions, the

Listening and Collaboration team has identified actions

for the feedback received from the Anonymous Box and

the inputs from the associates during our meetings.

These have been published in SenecaGlobal

Wiki: https://tinyurl.com/wiki-landc

Think Tank


Jumble Letters Puzzle

Unscramble the following five Jumbles, one letter to each

square.

POTERCJ

NMEITEGS

MDTACVANENE

SEUTEQR

TMLENIISE

Now arrange the circled letters to find the surprise

answer.

Not delayed, hopefully.

Defective Balls Puzzle

There are 10 boxes numbered 1 to 10. Box no.1 has 1 ball,

Box no.2 has 2 balls, box no.3 has 3 balls and so on up to

box no.10. Each ball weighs 10gms, however one box has

defective balls weighing only 9gms each. You are given an

electronic weighing scale and only one chance at it. How

will you find out which box has the defective balls?

THINK TANK: Back to School GK Quiz

Which gas is used to fill party balloons that float in the air?

Which star is closest to the Earth?

How many teeth does an adult have?

Sachin Tendulkar hit his 100th international century

against team?

Which mountain range runs through Rajasthan?

THINK TANK: MATH SQUARE PUZZLE

Think Tank

images during image editing and data extraction

process. With Dropbox, the sync between local

workstations and cloud happens whenever the

network is available without any human intervention.

Thus, preventing the need for constant monitoring

and retrials while syncing images.

Appreciations from Client:

Fantastic job on Fast Capture to you and your teams!

Really awesome. Very fun to see what you have delivered

in such a short time period. Congrats, thanks and have a

great 4th!

– Co- Founder, Client.

Srini V, Congratulations to you and the SenecaGlobal

team. Wonderful.

- CTO, Client

Continuation of Extra Mile page 16


Thoughts

Microservice Integration issues

Microservices are preferred to monolithic applications as

they help developers to modularize the application by

dividing them into different individual pieces. Each piece

may be developed independently in a language of choice.

In addition to that, scaling the application is easier as we

can scale the part which takes up the most load.

Challenges

Microservice architectural pattern comes with its own set

of challenges. One of the major issues faced by BAC

applications in ItemMaster is handling error in

communication between services. Suppose service A

depends on service B to complete an operation. Service B

may be down or there is an error in the operation in B. In

this case, the changes in service A need to be reverted to

ensure that the data is consistent.

Currently, microservices in ItemMaster talk to each other

by means of rest clients. For example, if resolver service

wants to create opportunities in Salesforce, it makes use

of Salesforce rest client and creates opportunities. We

can put these operations as part of a transaction. That is,

if the opportunity creation in Salesforce fails, the

modifications in resolver service can be reverted. This

ensures that the data is consistent in resolver service and

Salesforce.

Now consider another complex scenario - We need to

resolve orders which requires updating order in resolver

service, Salesforce, item-service and integration service.

There is no issue when the operation in each service

succeeds. The issue arises when we update item in item-

service, integration-service, resolver-service but update

fails in Salesforce. We can retry the operation couple of

times, but if it still does not succeed then we need to

revert the changes in other services. As failure can occur

in any of the steps, and unless we have a generic solution

this becomes very difficult to manage.

Possible solutions

Using queues for microservice interaction

To ensure messages are not lost when microservices

interact with one another, message brokers such as

ActiveMQ, Apache Kafka can be made use of. When used,

message brokers guarantee the delivery of messages.

This will be particularly useful when the message receiver

is down.

The message will stay in the queue until the service is up

as the messages will persist until they reach the

destination. The limitation of this approach is that if there

are more than one service involved, then there is no way

to handle the failure of one of the services. The data may

be in inconsistent state.

Using architectural pattern Saga

Saga is the recommended architectural pattern for

communication between microservices, and to ensure

data consistency. Most importantly, every operation

should have corresponding undo operation, which is

needed to revert the changes in case of dependent

operations failing to complete. Basically, one needs to

define the workflow to define the steps of the

transaction.

With the help of this pattern, we can solve the

communication issue in ItemMaster as follows -

Basically, a workflow is created which specifies the

sequence of actions to be performed in each service. It

also specifies the cancel operation for each service. If

failure occurs in any of the services, it triggers the series of

undo operations in all the services in which action is

successful.

There are a few out-of-box Saga frameworks such as

Camunda and Eventuate. Camunda is a BPMN workflow

engine using which we can convert a transaction, which

spans multiple microservices, into a workflow. Eventuate

tram is another Saga framework which is based on Kafka.

While both of these solutions help us implement

distributed transactions, they are heavy-height

components and it requires effort to deploy and maintain

them within cloud such as AWS.

By Ganesh Kumar


Essay on Destruction of Forests

Nowadays we see untimely rains and massive heat in

winter days as well for the past ten years. Even the

temperature is staying around 40 to 45 deg C, and we are

feeling the very high heat. The issue is because of

increased hydrogen in the atmosphere and less

percentage of oxygen. The effect is due to deforestation,

and every year the temperature is rising.

Forests covered by more than 35% of the land area on this

planet. Trees produce required oxygen to other spices

and animals and provide homes for people and wildlife.

95% of the people rely on benefits forests offer, including,

wood, fruits, food, fresh water, clothes, medicine and

shelter and 80% of endangered animals lives in forests.

But al l the forests are under threat from the

deforestation, which is causing jeopardizing these

benefits. Deforestation is happening in following forms,

fires, cutting for agriculture, development for housing,

logging for timber, and degradation due to climate

change. It is impacting human’s livelihoods and threatens

a wide range of plant and animal species. We’re losing

20.2 million acres of forests annually, equivalent to 37

cricket fields every minute.

As per our Vedic texts, we need to preserve and protect

natural resources like water, air, land, fire, and sky from

pollution and reducing side effects on the world.

These five natural resources mostly depend on Forests

and are utmost important to humankind. We, as humans,

need to maintain right balance in the environment, so

they provide shelters and habitats to millions of species.

But, the resources are deducing rapid rate as we are

selflessly utilizing trees for fuel, building homes, paper

making, and for our endless needs. It means self-

destruction of human beings itself.

So, we need to educate all kinds of people and societies to

reduce the deforestation with below points:

Ÿ Bring legislation to prohibit destruction of Forests

Ÿ Change the villager's habit of cooking

Ÿ Provide petroleum gas connections to cold countries

for warming up their hours

Ÿ Prohibit of cultivation near to forests

Ÿ Population control so we can reduce dependency on

wood

Ÿ Grow trees wherever wasteland available so that small

forests can build.

Thoughts

Deforestation results in below side effects on the earth:

Ÿ Loss of animal home in forests

Ÿ Environment and seasonal changes

Ÿ Increasing temperature and raise in environmental

heat,

Ÿ Global warming and increase in greenhouse gas effect

Ÿ Melting ice caps and glaciers and rise in sea levels

Ÿ Weakening and hole in ozone layer,

Ÿ Increasing risks of the natural disaster like storm,

cyclone, typhoon, flood, and drought,

The Deforestation is cutting down trees on a very high

level for fulfilling requirements of growing population.

Forests provide much-needed oxygen for Earth’s animals

and trees.

Deforestation is causing side effects like loss of animal

homes in forests, environment change, seasonal change,

increasing temperature, rising environmental heat, global

warming, increasing greenhouse gas effect, melting ice

caps and glaciers, increasing seas levels, weakening

ozone layer, hole in the ozone layer, sea animal dying,

natural disaster like cyclones, typhoons, floods, droughts,

and many more negative changes which are enough to

last the existence of life on the earth.

Forests and trees are vital for every living being as it’s a

primary source of life and supports future growth. Food

and shelter are not only crucial for us, but most of the

terrestrial species of animals, plants, and insects depend

on the forest for their survival.

Global warming is known to be a significant threat to

humankind and trees play a crucial role to absorb the

harmful gases in the air and release oxygen into the

atmosphere. Because of this, we are already facing global

warming and its side effects like extreme weather and rise

of sea level.

Besides, forests act as a vital source of fresh water supply.

The researchers have found that cutting down trees in

alarming phase reduces the amount of rain that falls in

that area. Hence there is a decrease in the water supply.

The signals that our Earth is giving the warning that rapid

depletion of the forest is causing significant changes in

the environment which involves humanity self-

destruction. We need to stop exploiting our ecosystem

immediately. Otherwise, it may become impossible to

repair it.

By Srinivasu Jogi


EHS

What is the E, H, and S in EHS?

Let’s start by looking at those three letters E, H, and S and

determining what they mean.

E stands for Environment. We’re talking about things like

air, water here.

H stands for Health. We’re talking about things that can

make us ill here, ergonomics, muscular skeletal dis

orders

S stands for Safety. We’re talking about things that can

cause injuries here, such as road safety, home safety

Why Is EHS Important?

The primary benefit of EHS, and workplace EHS

programs, is preventing incidents such as injuries,

illnesses, and harmful environmental releases.

In addition, EHS programs at work also show associates

that SG care about their well-being. If we have an active

EHS culture, this will make our associates feel safer and

more valued. This will have a positive effect on associate

morale and productivity.

Aim:

There has been immense progress in the activities and

the difference since the revival. Special focus has been

levied on a five-pronged intervention:

Ÿ Informative seminars- Knowledge sharing

Ÿ Follow up Awareness Communication

Ÿ Implementation Support – Associate Level

Ÿ Implementation Support – Organization Level

Ÿ Culture/Environment

Focus:

Through personal care and relevant interventions, we

have been able to

Ÿ support our fellow associates in times of their

personal and family emergencies

Ÿ shows a sincere interest in associate as a person, not

just an employee, by addressing family need related

awareness and support

Ÿ provide “special and unique benefits in terms of

screening opportunities (listed below), discounted

consultation at Apollo Cradle clinics, etc.”

Ÿ create an overall culture where associates care about

each other

Activities done so far:

Environment:

Ÿ Checking the air quality in the premises

Ÿ Checking drinking water quality

Ÿ Providing recycled water in wash room

Ÿ Checking earth connection quarterly

Health:

Ÿ Associate Health and Well-Being Program with NIN

Ÿ Focus group discussion with Leadership team on

health and wellbeing of associates in July 2018

Ÿ Consultation with NIN team - check associates’ reports

to suggest diet and exercises

Ÿ Pediatric Allergy & Asthma on Aug 17, 2018

Ÿ Talk on Demystifying Nutrition by NIN on Aug 20, 2018

Ÿ National Nutrition Month, September 2018: EAT to be

FIT – Let us design a POSTER as a team

Ÿ Importance on Physical Activity on Dec 13, 2018

Ÿ Blood donation campaign on Dec 20, 2018

Ÿ Onsite Gynecologist Consultation on Jan 10, 2019

Safety:

Ÿ Discussion on keeping food safe at home and

choosing wisely while eating out on Oct 25, 2018

Ÿ General awareness mail on Fire safety

Ÿ Swimming pool safety tips

Ÿ Awareness mail in road safety

Ÿ Children's Eye Safety awareness mail

Ÿ Playground safety guide for parents

Ÿ Electrical safety for children

Next Steps:

Ÿ Consultation with different specialty doctors including

stress consultation and counselling (bi monthly)

Ÿ Tracking journeys through NIN

Ÿ Appreciation to spouse for making their spouses

healthy

Ÿ Survey on work related musculoskeletal discorders

SenecaGlobal E-Newsletter - Q1 Issue Feb 2019

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