Data Solutions

Gawad Kalasag Management and Information Systems Hand Over

Strengthening Disaster Resilience: Catholic Relief Services hands over Gawad Kalasag Management and Information System to Office of Civil Defense, Powered by Exist Software Labs

Strengthening Disaster Resilience: Catholic Relief Services hands over Gawad Kalasag Management and Information System to Office of Civil Defense, Powered by Exist Software Labs 1300 972 Exist Software Labs

Exist present at the Office of Civil Defense last Nov. 21, 2023

Gawad Kalasag Managemement and Information Systems Hand Over

 In photo (L-R): Exist Director, Tech Services Dennis de Vera, Exist VP-Operations Jonas Lim, OCD Asec. Bernardo Rafaelito, OCD OIC-PDPS Dir. Harry Barber, USAID-BHA Humanitarian Assistance Officer Rachelle Gallagher, CRS Country Head Jonas Tetangco and CRS Marcelle Rubis.

QUEZON CITY – The Catholic Relief Services together with USAID formally handed over the Gawad Kalasag Management and Information System (GKMIS) – Web Application Development to the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) last Tuesday, 21 November 2023. 

The GKMIS aims to help the OCD consolidate data from LGUs into one platform to help implement their disaster risk reduction programs, projects and concerns efficiently. The platform enables the OCD, in particular the National GK Secretariat, the Validation and Selection Committee, and the National GK Committee to encode evaluation scores and generate assessment results in a data visualization dashboard. The National GK Secretariat is expected to use the system for database-related tasks. 

The GKMIS web application will be hosted on a cloud platform, utilizing Amazon Web Services (AWS) as the designated service provider and boasts of high availability and scalability. It features a public page and navigation to different modules and has a preview map of the Philippines with data from Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (LDRRMO) Assessment and tables and charts from the LDRRMF and LDRRMP data. This groundbreaking project has been made possible in collaboration with Exist Software Labs and marks a significant stride towards enhancing public services. 


Ceremonial Handover

The handover took place at the Office of Civil Defense in Quezon City, Philippines. 

CRS Country Representative, Mr. Jonas Tetangco together with USAID’s Humanitarian Assistance Officer, Ms. Rachelle Gallagher and OCD’s Asec. Bernardo Rafaelito and Dir. Jose Harry Barber, together with Exist Software Labs Vice President for Technology, Mr. Jonas Lim and Tech Services Director, Mr. Dennis De Vera, came together to symbolize the transfer of responsibilities and expertise. The handover featured speeches from key stakeholders, expressing gratitude for partnership and emphasizing the shared commitment to strengthening the nation’s resilience against natural disasters.

Gawad Kalasag Managemement and Information Systems Hand Over

About Gawad KALASAG (GK) Search for Excellence in Disaster Risk Reduction and Management and Humanitarian Assistance

GK is the nation’s highest honor for excellence in disaster risk reduction and management. It has played a pivotal role in highlighting and elevating the standard of disaster resilience programs. This prestigious prize gains a technological edge from the use of a customized management system, which streamlines the collection, processing and distribution of information.

Role of Exist Software Labs

Gawad Kalasag Managemement and Information Systems Hand Over The Office of Civil Defense chose Exist Software Labs Inc for its capability to deliver all features in terms of their reference and cost efficiency.  Exist will implement a comprehensive management information system solution designed to streamline various aspects of governance, from citizen services to internal operations. The project encompasses a range of innovative technologies that are poised to elevate the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the local administration.

Moving Forward

The event closed with a significant handshake from representatives as a new era in disaster resilience technology is being brought in with the GKMIS. This collaboration of technology innovation, political control, and humanitarian commitment paves the way for a time when communities are better equipped to deal with natural calamities.

The GKMIS Web App Database System powered by Exist Software Labs will provide the infrastructure needed to store, manage, organize and utilize data effectively in the context of disaster risk reduction and management. Start your data management journey with us and become a data-driven organization.

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Sun Life Event: Spark Innovation Series- Cloud and Data Federation, Cloud & Data Federation, Data Solutions Philippines, Exist Data Solutions

Exist Software Labs discusses Cloud and Data Federation at Sun Life Global Solutions’ Spark Innovation Series

Exist Software Labs discusses Cloud and Data Federation at Sun Life Global Solutions’ Spark Innovation Series 650 486 Exist Software Labs

Cloud adoption has become increasingly essential for businesses looking to enhance their operations, improve scalability, and drive innovation. It allows organizations to leverage the power of cloud computing services to store, process, and analyze large volumes of data with ease.

On Aug 29, 2023, technology experts and IT professionals converged at the Sun Life Centre, in Bonifacio Global City, Philippines. Exist Software Labs graced Sun Life Global Solutions’ Spark Innovation Series, which discussed, for that session, Cloud & Data Federation. The Exist Team shared their insights and experiences as a technology company, focusing on the importance of Cloud and Data Federation in an organization’s Data Maturity Journey.

Cloud Adoption 3.0

In today’s digital age, the adoption of cloud technology has become increasingly important for businesses. Cloud Adoption 3.0, the next phase of cloud adoption, is an innovation where organizations are not only leveraging the power of the cloud, but also embracing data federation.

Sun Life Event: Spark Innovation Series- Cloud & Data Federation, Data Solutions Philippines, Java Developer Philippines, Cloud and Data Federation

Exist Director of Tech Services Dennis De Vera focused his presentation on the implications, benefits, and uses of Cloud Adoption; including increased flexibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. Cloud adoption allows companies to store and access data from anywhere in the world, enabling remote work and collaboration.

With the growing amount of data being generated by organizations, managing and analyzing this data becomes a challenge. According to De Vera, “This is where data federation comes into play. Data federation involves integrating and combining data from multiple sources or clouds into a unified view.”

Cloud and Data Federation Strategies

By adopting cloud & data federation strategies, businesses can unlock even more value from their cloud investments. They can gain deeper insights from their data by analyzing it holistically rather than in silos. This enables better decision-making, improved customer experiences, and enhanced operational efficiency.

Furthermore, cloud & data federation also provide organizations with greater control over their data governance and compliance requirements. With centralized control over access permissions and security measures across multiple clouds or sources of data, businesses can ensure regulatory compliance while maintaining high levels of security.

Implement Cloud Adoption and Data Federation to leverage on your cloud investments now

What part does security play?

Whilst cloud & data federation integrate resources across multiple platforms and servers, it also introduces potential vulnerabilities that must be addressed to maintain a secure environment. Protecting secure assets, such as sensitive customer information or proprietary business data, requires strong access controls, encryption mechanisms, and authentication protocols. 

Regular audits are crucial for maintaining security within a federated environment and identifying potential weaknesses or compliance gaps. By examining security controls across different platforms and servers, organizations can proactively address vulnerabilities before they are exploited by malicious actors.

Security plays an integral part in the Cloud & Data Federation. By implementing robust encryption measures, conducting regular audits, and enforcing strict access controls, organizations can protect their valuable assets while leveraging the benefits of federated environments effectively.

Know more about what cloud adoption and data federation can do, specific to your organization

Don’t know where to start with cloud adoption? Exist is a multi-awarded technology innovator that provides free technical consultation to help you jumpstart your cloud adoption, cloud federation, and data maturity journey. Discuss with our experts to maximize the benefits of digital transformation today.

Understanding the Importance of Business Intelligence Tools Business Intelligence Tools, Data Ready, Data-Driven Era, Java Philippines, Data Solutions Philippines

Understanding the Importance of Business Intelligence Tools

Understanding the Importance of Business Intelligence Tools 650 486 Exist Software Labs

In today’s data-driven world, being data-ready is crucial for organizations to gain insights, make informed decisions, and stay ahead of the competition. Business Intelligence tools (BI), such as Tableau and Power BI, play a pivotal role in empowering businesses to harness the full potential of their data. In this blog post, we will explore the importance of being data-ready and delve into the capabilities of these two popular BI tools.

 

Business Intelligence Tools: Understanding the Importance of Being Data Ready

Being data ready means having the necessary mindset, processes, and infrastructure to effectively collect, manage, analyze, and visualize data. It enables organizations to uncover valuable insights, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions. Being data-ready offers several advantages, including:

 

  • Improved Decision-Making: With comprehensive data analysis, organizations can make more informed decisions based on customer behavior and preferences, among others, leading to better product and service design and increased competitiveness.

 

  • Identifying Opportunities and Risks: Being data-ready allows businesses to identify emerging opportunities, potential risks, and market trends, enabling them to adapt and seize competitive advantages.

 

  • Enhanced Efficiency and Productivity: By streamlining data processes and providing easy access to insights, being data-ready boosts operational efficiency and empowers teams to work more productively.

 

  • Customer-Centric Approach: Leveraging data helps organizations understand customer needs, preferences, and behavior, leading to personalized experiences and improved customer satisfaction.

Leverage on Business Intelligence tools to help make intelligent business decisions

Benefits of Using Business Intelligence Tools 

 

  • Data Consolidation and Integration

One of the primary benefits of BI tools is their ability to consolidate and integrate data from multiple sources. Companies generate data from various platforms such as on-ground sales transactions, customer interactions, marketing campaigns, and supply chain operations. BI tools aggregate and organize these diverse data into a unified view, providing decision-makers with a comprehensive understanding of the business landscape.

 

  • Real-time and Historical Analysis

BI tools offer real-time and historical analysis capabilities, giving businesses the ability to monitor their operations as they unfold and examine past performance trends. This dynamic feature empowers executives to make agile decisions in response to changing market conditions and identify long-term patterns that can shape future strategies.

 

  • Enhanced Data Visualization

Raw data can be overwhelming, making it challenging for decision-makers to grasp crucial insights quickly. BI tools address this challenge by providing advanced data visualization techniques. Interactive dashboards, charts, graphs, and reports transform complex data into intuitive visual representations, making it easier to comprehend and identify key trends, patterns, and outliers.

 

  • Informed Decision-Making

BI tools enable data-driven decision-making, which is critical in today’s fast-paced business environment. When armed with accurate and timely information, executives can confidently make informed choices that align with business goals, leading to more effective strategies and improved outcomes.

 

  • Improved Operational Efficiency:

By streamlining data analysis and reducing manual reporting tasks, BI tools enhance operational efficiency. Employees can focus more on strategic initiatives rather than spending valuable time collecting and collating data. Moreover, with automated reporting features, BI tools facilitate the seamless distribution of insights across departments, fostering collaboration and alignment.

 

The Data-Driven Era

In today’s data-driven era, being data-ready is essential for organizations to thrive. Tableau and Power BI are powerful BI tools that empower businesses to unlock the true potential of their data. By leveraging intuitive data visualization, seamless data integration, advanced analytics, and collaboration features, these tools enable users to make data-driven decisions, enhance operational efficiency, and gain a competitive edge.

Know more about our Data Solutions services here

Exist offers data solutions services and Business Intelligence tools you can use to make informed decisions, and stay ahead of the competition. Start with your journey to data maturity and become a data-driven organization!

About the Author

Mark Daryll De Venecia is a highly motivated and skilled data engineer with a passion for harnessing the power of data to drive meaningful insights and innovation. He has successfully obtained several certifications that attest to his proficiency in data management, data integration, and data warehousing. These certifications, combined with his problem-solving abilities and meticulous attention to detail, enable him to design and implement robust data solutions that empower businesses to make data-driven decisions efficiently and effectively. Mark continually seeks to expand his knowledge and stay at the forefront of emerging technologies in the dynamic field of data engineering.

DevOps. Java. Java Developer. Data Solutions. Data Solutions Provider Philippines

Nine (9) Effective Ways DevOps Minimizes Technical Debt

Nine (9) Effective Ways DevOps Minimizes Technical Debt 650 486 Exist Software Labs

DevOps is an amalgamation of philosophies, practices, and tools that addresses numerous developmental and operational challenges an organization faces, one of which is dealing with ‘technical debt’.

Technical Debt is accrued when less-than-ideal coding and design decisions are made – in order to get what the team requires now or if there is a need to go into production sooner.

TEST IN THE EARLY STAGES OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

This is a key DevOps Practice, to test early in the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), testing early is also known as “Shift-Left Testing”. It assists in finding and preventing errors from the early stages of the delivery process. It includes code coverage analysis, static code analysis, unit tests, as well as other code-level practices to catch errors at the earliest time possible where they cost the least to fix.

IDENTIFY AND RESOLVE MAJOR PROBLEMS FIRST

The DevOps Lifecycle has lean, short feedback cycles and faster iterations due to the enhanced level of collaboration between teams. This results in not having to wait until the next feature release to get a fix for bugs, security vulnerabilities, and usability issues, in addition, major complications that can affect users or operations are fixed instantaneously.

The process can be optimized further by defining a ranking for problems from low to high priority to help in deciding which issues should be attended to first. The team should be focus on solving these major problems first and not leave anything for a later time down the line.

CREATE IMPROVED COLLABORATION BETWEEN THE DEVELOPMENT AND OPERATION TEAMS

A possible reason for incurring technical debt or “code debt” is because development teams, regardless of how reluctant they are, may be forced into taking shortcuts to deliver on tight deadlines combined with struggling with constant changes or requirements. However, improving the collaboration between the Development and Operations teams can shorten the SDLC, and enable quicker deployments, in addition to increasing their overall frequency.

Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment and Continuous Testing can make it easier for teams to navigate and deal with changes. In general, cultivating a collaborative culture inspires code reviews, good coding practices, and robust testing with mutual help.

HIGHLIGHT MORE AUTOMATION

In automating tedious time-consuming tasks, and others that prove to be more prone to errors, your teams will be granted more time to repay technical debt. Additionally, automation that is rooted in CI/CD, in terms of automated testing and building, and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) supports in recognizing debt earlier and facilitates continuous debt repayment. It also enforces code quality standards – hence, automation can reduce existing technical debt while also preventing any future debt.

MANAGE TECHNICAL DEBT

DevOps makes it easier to control and manage technical debt continuously. It empowers constant communication, allowing teams to track debt, incite awareness and resolve it as soon as possible. The appointed team leaders can also include a review of the technical debt into backlog and schedule maintenance sprints to deal with it promptly. DevOps also reduces the likeliness of having incomplete or deferred tasks in the backlog, further helping prevent incurring any additional debt.

CULTIVATE A DEVOPS CULTURE

In managing technical debt over long periods, a proper DevOps Culture will be the key. As we’ve said a number of times over, it encourages strong collaboration between cross-functional teams, provides autonomy and ownership, and practices continuous feedback and improvement. It’s a truly efficient platform in calculating and tracking technical debt whilst communicating it to other teams. A DevOps Culture can also be used as a way to educate and inform developers of the kind of codes that may introduce bugs and raise code quality.

DEFINE YOUR DEVOPS STANDARDS

A well-defined DevOps Standards will allow you to create quality gates for every code check-in before running tests and deployment. It saves your teams from repetitive, prone-to-error tasks while optimizing their development efforts. In enforcing certain DevOps Standards, it can also prevent your teams from cutting corners in the process, which is the major contributor to technical debt, thus, implementing exact DevOps Standards can maintain a high level of productivity and quality while ensuring excellent team morale and indirectly saving money for your organization.

SMOOTHER DEPLOYMENT PROCESS

You should consider utilizing containers to make deployments easier, containers are lightweight and portable and can simplify application development and deployment. A container orchestration tool like Kubernetes, automates container lifecycle in production, allowing your teams to focus on high-value tasks of refactoring apps. or lowering code debt.

APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERFACE (API) FIRST MODEL

The way application components communicate with one another is also critical in addressing technical debt, which can also be caused by different systems accessing services and data in ways that are unexpected to the team. If you implement APIs, it can make the interfaces more visible and increases the resilience of communications, due to bad links between different applications, an API-based model permits teams to make changes quickly without affecting the existing structure. In addition, any team that interacts with the service in question at a later date has a clearly defined set of expectations, as a result of this, it’ll be easier to roll out any changes/features with less technical debt.

Are you ready to make the most of your data to set your company up for success? Let Exist Software Labs, Inc. help you start your Data Maturity Journey today!

Data warehouse, big data and analytics, big data management, data management, data management philippines, data solutions philippines, Java, Java developer Philippines, master data management philippines

Reasons why your business needs a Data Warehouse

Reasons why your business needs a Data Warehouse 650 486 Exist Software Labs

Data Warehouse and E-commerce

Imagine a large e-commerce company that has been operating for several years. Over time, the company has accumulated vast amounts of data from various sources such as customer transactions, website interactions, inventory management systems, and marketing campaigns. These data sources are spread across multiple databases, applications, and departments within the company.

As the company grows, the management team realizes that they need a unified and centralized view of their data to gain meaningful insights and make data-driven decisions. They also face challenges in extracting, transforming, and loading (ETL) data from different sources, which are crucial for performing complex analytics and generating accurate reports.

Furthermore, their current systems lack the scalability and performance required to handle the increasing volume and complexity of data. Queries on their operational databases are becoming slower and affecting the overall user experience. The company recognizes the need for a solution that can handle large data volumes, support complex queries, and provide fast response times.

At what stage should you be considering a Data Warehouse?  As per described in our data maturity analysis.


In this scenario, the organization may already be considering a Data Warehouse or realizing the need for one. A Data Warehouse can act as a central repository for all their disparate data sources, enabling them to integrate, consolidate, and organize the data in a structured and optimized manner. With a Data Warehouse, they can design efficient ETL processes, transform and cleanse data, and store it in a format suitable for analytics and reporting. 

So if you are at this stage you may already be considering or need a Data Warehouse.  

There are several compelling reasons why a business can benefit from implementing a data warehouse, particularly with Microsoft Azure. Here are some key reasons:

  1. Centralized Data Storage: A data warehouse provides a centralized repository for storing large volumes of structured and unstructured data from various sources. It enables organizations to consolidate data from disparate systems, databases, and applications into a single location, making it easier to manage and analyze data.
  2. Improved Data Accessibility: By using Microsoft Azure, a data warehouse can be hosted in the cloud, offering accessibility from anywhere at any time. This enables employees to access and analyze data using familiar tools and interfaces, fostering collaboration and data-driven decision-making across departments and locations.
  3. Scalability and Performance: Azure provides scalability features, allowing the data warehouse to grow and handle increasing data volumes effortlessly. With Azure’s elastic scaling capabilities, businesses can adjust the computing resources allocated to the data warehouse, ensuring optimal performance and response times, even with large datasets and complex queries.
  4. Advanced Analytics and Reporting: A data warehouse provides a solid foundation for advanced analytics and reporting. By integrating Azure services like Azure Synapse Analytics, Power BI, and Azure Machine Learning, businesses can gain powerful insights from their data. They can perform complex data transformations, run sophisticated analytics, build interactive dashboards, and develop machine learning models to drive data-based decision-making.
  5. Data Integration and Transformation: A data warehouse offers robust data integration and transformation capabilities. With Azure Data Factory, businesses can efficiently extract data from various sources, transform it into a consistent format, and load it into the data warehouse. This enables organizations to combine data from different systems, ensuring data consistency and integrity for analysis and reporting purposes.
  6. Data Security and Compliance: Azure provides robust security measures to protect data in transit and at rest. It offers encryption, identity, and access management, and compliance certifications to meet industry-specific regulations. Implementing a data warehouse on Azure ensures data security and compliance with privacy laws, enhancing trust and mitigating potential risks.
  7. Cost Optimization: Azure’s pay-as-you-go model allows businesses to optimize costs by scaling resources based on demand. Data warehousing on Azure eliminates the need for upfront hardware investments, reduces maintenance costs, and enables organizations to pay only for the storage and computing resources they use.
  8. Real-time Data Insights: Azure provides real-time data processing capabilities through services like Azure Stream Analytics and Azure Event Hubs. By integrating these services with the data warehouse, businesses can gain timely insights from streaming data, enabling real-time decision-making and enhancing operational efficiency.

In summary, implementing a data warehouse with Microsoft Azure offers centralized data storage, improved accessibility, scalability, advanced analytics capabilities, data integration, security, cost optimization, and real-time insights. These benefits empower businesses to unlock the full potential of their data, make informed decisions, and gain a competitive edge in today’s data-driven world. 

Like one of our clients, the Universities Project. By leveraging Microsoft Azure Synapse, Universities can build a powerful student information system that centralizes data storage, improves accessibility, enables scalability, offers advanced analytics capabilities, integrates data from various sources, ensures security, optimizes costs and provides real-time insights. This comprehensive solution enhances administrative efficiency, supports data-driven decision-making, and fosters student success initiatives.

Exist Data Solutions offers custom project-based development services, tailored fit data solutions, and consulting services. Exist can assist you with all your data management needs. Click here to learn more about Exist Data Solutions.