Based on mathematics and statistics, simulation and machine learning are powerful techniques that can help us better understand the world around us and build better IT systems. Machine learning and simulation differ drastically and perform different goals. Despite their differences, simulation, and machine learning don’t have to be used in isolation – they can be combined to achieve much better results than either method alone. However, to understand how exactly the combination of ML and simulation might work, we need to understand what they are and what they aren’t ..read more

In previous blog posts, we explored various simulation approaches, including continuous and discrete-event simulation (DES). Today, our focus is on discrete-time simulation (DTS) – a simulation technique extremely popular in a wide range of industries, from business to the military. Choosing the suitable simulation model for a given task is paramount to the success of simulation studies. While some projects can be done with any model, some algorithms are better for specific tasks and entirely unsuitable for others ..read more

Simulation studies can be beneficial for gaining insight into real-world phenomena or even designing new products or systems. However, the success of simulation can be highly reliant on careful planning and implementation. Simulation studies not only need to be implemented correctly from a technical point of view, but they must also be error-free. They must be able to perform their business objectives. To ensure these goals, simulation teams need to deeply understand their study’s purpose and be ready to scrutinize the outcomes they achieve carefully ..read more

Since the pre-industrial era, greenhouse gas emissions have increased significantly worldwide. Between 1970 and the 2010s, CO2 emissions increased by about 90%. Seventy-eight percent of this figure is attributed to fossil fuel combustion and emissions from industrial processes. Longer, more intense heat waves, sea ice loss, and accelerated sea level rise are just some of the effects of increased greenhouse gas production. Reassuringly, tackling climate change is on the agendas of many governments and leading corporations worldwide ..read more

Software design is an invaluable tool in the early stages of software development. With software design, teams can flesh out the technical aspects of their projects, communicate their ideas to stakeholders, and build products that have business value. Excellent software design is instrumental in the success of any software product, so it’s essential to get it right. Fortunately, any business can design top-notch software systems and applications in this day and age of tech ..read more

“Testing leads to failure and failure leads to understanding” – Burt Rutan GitLab’s worldwide 2021 survey of DevOps teams revealed that inefficient testing was the main reason for software release delays in 2021. More and more teams have fully automated software tests, but testing still remains a big bottleneck in software delivery. Understandably, many businesses haven’t automated their software testing workflows yet. Automating manual tests is an extremely challenging process that requires careful planning, standardizing code, and designing repeatable test cases ..read more

In today’s fast-paced market, the team can forget about business success if the team cannot quickly react to customer preferences shifts. Customers expect deep personalization and a seamless user experience – if the team can’t provide these, competitors will do that instead. Being able to detect issues in software products and roll out fixes quickly is one of the keys to continued customer satisfaction and business success. But the team has serious problems if the software delivery process is riddled with inefficiencies and if it takes days or weeks for an update to be pushed to production ..read more

Cloud computing has made data center-grade hardware accessible to pretty much any business. No matter how large or small, any organization can now use the computing resources of companies like AWS or Google to accelerate their IT workflows. Furthermore, cloud computing resources are available at different tiers of abstraction, ranging from customizable low-level infrastructure to cloud applications that are ready for use immediately. “Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e ..read more

Deployment speed and frequency are paramount to the success of modern businesses. As technology develops and the ties between customers and businesses deepen, businesses need to become more reactive to changes in their industries to survive and stay competitive. This applies to software firms and any company that uses software to connect with its customers. Figure 1: Continuous Innovation Framework [Source: Fitzgerald and Stol, 2014, p.5).] That’s where continuous integration (CI), continuous delivery (CDE), and continuous deployment (CD) – collectively called CI/CDE/CD (Bobrovskis and Jurenok ..read more

Organizations juggle 400 unique data sources for business intelligence and analytics on average (IBM Corporation, 2021). While more data is typically better for business growth, handling hundreds of different data sources can become a nightmare without specialized tools. One of the solutions that businesses can use to streamline data management is data warehousing software. Data warehouses can significantly simplify data handling from numerous distinct data sources. They typically support data sources in the cloud and on-premises and can provide seamless access to them via a centralized interf ..read more