Mr D., mae gennym ni sg Pasteuron? I begin by thanking SNP colleagues and Labour MSPs for their support for the motion that allowed us to consider the paper produced by the social policy team of Angus Citizen at the Vice Bureau and the important issues that are highlighted there. I also want to thank the members who have remained behind to participate in the debate. I say at the outset that I am seeking to highlight the content of the report, not as a means the general actions, the DWP or Westminster of such, but to draw the attention to the serious practical impact that the digital by default strategy is going to have on some of the people most reliant on accessing benefits. Angus CAB's paper, DIGITALLY ENHANSED OR DIGITALLY DISADVANTIGED, lays out very clearly the challenges presented by the UK Government's digital strategy and its expectation that 80 per cent of benefit applications will be completed online However, it is not clear that the DWP believes that this is achievable, given that it recognises that only 30 per cent of benefited claimants would have no difficulty moving to an online application process. In other words, more than two thirds of claimants will encounter varying degrees of difficulty yet within three years, it's the aim to have 80 per cent embracing this approach. I think that I am reasonably computer savvy, although my kids and constituency bwrdigol i'r ddirchildren ac maen nhw'n my fel i amdгоfio sicrhau am gweithbloll y自己 favorbyg i'ch bod b directionol y bydd hafennu arall â writer i c Lianghotted y bi opportunities mae hynny. Mae gennychu dy leidio qor wealth sy'n mynd i dod iPeople those who are disabled are over 65, are in fact the very people who are very least likely to have access to the internet or indeed the ability to use it. And yet, this seems to be disregarded in drawing up the new strategy. Now, of course, this in passing highlights a wider issue, a digital skills deficit, which has spread all throughout Scotland. Only one third of those on a low income in our country have broadband access compared to 56 per cent of comparable households in the rest of the UK. While the issue of the digital deficit is one that needs to be addressed and the disparity between not only Scotland and the rest of the UK but different areas of Scotland has to be dealt with, let's focus for now on the issue under discussion and the UK Government's anticipation that such a large majority of benefit applications will be made online whilst offering no new support to help facilitate that. Understandably, it's this lack of support that concerns Angus Citizens Advice Bureau. Just 35 per cent of Angus CAB's clients believe that they would be able to apply online for those benefits, leaving a large group of people relying on the services such as the CAB provide or their friends or their family to help with applications. Now, from 2011-12, the CABs across Scotland helped clients to complete an average 75 old style paper benefit forms a day. That help may have been required due to technical and confusing language on the forms or issues such as struggling with reading or writing. Those problems will still be there with an online application. For anyone who experiences trouble reading or writing, or for instance the deaf community, where often they do not use the written English language, moving the application process online won't fix any of those problems, it will simply exacerbate them. Not only will those who are already struggling to fill in long complex forms require help to do so, but so will those who do not have readily available internet access or indeed do not know how to use a computer. The digital by default strategy fails to make the application process easier for users. For the majority of the requirements, it just makes it harder. On referencing the deaf community, I have also been told that, in order to reduce costs, the DWP are to be where possible, to telephone inquiants to secure additional information or process applications. It is well-intentioned perhaps, but where does that leave the hearing impaired? The actions of the DWP will undoubtedly pile pressure on local services such as the CAB or libraries that offer internet access, as no further support or funding has been offered to help those services to provide for the requirements, even though the UK Government recognises that they will need extra support. Of course, there is a move across society to have form filling done online, but it is about how you pursue that approach and how you cater for those who will fall through the cracks, surely. By way of example, Angus Council's preferred method of applying for housing benefit or council tax reductions is online, but it also offers a telephone and paper-based service. Revenue and benefit staff are available at four locations to assist with completing applications. By appointment, the service can be extended to take in three other locations. Additionally, officers will, on request, visit people's homes. There is also access to digital skills programmes that are made available ranging from the very basic level upwards. That is a common sense approach. It is a compromise, it is flexibility. Angus CAB certainly believes itself to be under resource to meet the demand, which will undoubtedly arise by virtue of the strategy that is being pursued. Throughout the report, the CAB highlighted previous cases with supportless assertion. It appears that benefits claimants repeatedly are being punished for not having online access. For instance, two Angus CAB clients were sanctioned for not being able to access the jobseekers allowance services, which have already moved online. Even though both clients were vulnerable and had no knowledge of how to use a computer, they let alone apply for jobs online. It is not only the change to the application process that will cause an upheaval for those in receipt of benefits, but it is also the fact that it is being paralleled with the rolling out of universal credit. As universal credit spreads across the country, increasing emphasis is being placed on job searching and applications for those who currently receive jobseekers allowance. Not only will they have to apply for benefits online, they will also have to search and apply for jobs online. That approach signposts everyone to apply online, working with digital applications as the rule, not the exception. Needless to say, Angus CAB have examples of clients who have no access to the internet and very limited access to the telephone. As I highlighted earlier, how are the hearing impaired supposed to cope with applications being discussed or progressed by means of the telephone? I am not saying that the phone approach will not be helpful to some, but the practice still does not entirely reflect the flexibility or the resourcing that is required here. While I accept that moving to an online benefit application process may have its benefits for some and should speed up the process for those who successfully managed to apply, the UK Government's digital by default strategy, with its 80 per cent target, is a non-runner for many. The strategy offers insufficient flexibility for those who will struggle with the online application, although the DWP offers no support to the local services that are bound to experience an influx of people who are struggling with the new application system. For me, that is a badly thought-out strategy. The UK Government has recognised the difficulties that it will cause, yet has not provided adequate means of alleviating those. That needs to change. Otherwise, cynics might wonder whether adopting this approach is just another method of reducing the benefits bill, regardless of the human cost. I now call on Annabelle Ewing to be followed by Jackie Baillie. I congratulate my colleague Graham Dane for securing this important debate this afternoon, and although the debate makes a specific reference to a report published by Angus, CAB and the challenges that are being faced, as far as those who are required to make online benefits applications are concerned. From my work on this Parliament's welfare reform committee, I know that similar challenges are being faced by many benefits claimants across Scotland. What is the key issue here? I would submit that the magnitude of the challenges that are being faced stem from the UK Government's determination to force people to make online applications and to maintain online activity with respect to their benefit entitlement, even in circumstances where the citizens concerned have no or low computer skills or have no access to the internet at all. That flows, as we have heard from the UK Government's so-called digital strategy, which includes an expectation that some 80 per cent of benefits applications will be completed online by 2017. However, Angus, CAB and many other CABs across Scotland have expressed or experienced concern about that as we have heard digital by default approach to the welfare system. Indeed, in the report of Angus, CAB at page 2, I quote, they are concerned that this approach would exclude some of the most vulnerable and marginalised members of society from accessing the very services that they rely upon. Indeed, without at the same time taking or promoting measures to ensure that such citizens are not left offline and behind, what is the efficacy of the UK Government's current approach? How will it in and of itself do anything to help to improve online skills and access? The fact of digital exclusion and the implications that it has for the receipt of benefits to which people are, in fact, entitled has been the subject of discussion at the welfare reform committee. In one area of particular, concerned and a point highlighted in the Angus, CAB report, is that of the impact on those who are required to maintain job search online activity. As the welfare reform committee of this Parliament highlighted in its fourth report entitled, interim report on the entitled new benefit sanction regime, tough love or tough luck, which was published on 11 June 2014. One of the weaknesses in the current sanction system was identified, and I quote from paragraph 6 at page 2, as a failure to appreciate that many people on benefits do not have the necessary IT skills at day 1 to utilise the DWP's universal job match facility or other IT technology. That, indeed, was a point raised during the committee's inquiry. For example, by one parent families Scotland, I quote, they said, issues of digital access are being ignored so that sanctions are being applied to lone parents who do not have access to a PC, do not have broadband or do not have the online skills required by John's Job Centre Plus to meet job search requirements. Also, cost issues have been identified, and again, quoting from this report at paragraph 95, at page 19, Citizens Advice Scotland said, some clients are unable to meet job seeking requirements because they cannot afford the cost of their job search. Often, that is the result of a previous sanction. The question arises as to what support there is to be made available in order to move claimants online. Further to the CAB report from Angus cab, there is reference at page 5 to the DWP having advised that claimants should inter alia, contact their local job centre to get help with claiming online or to get access to the internet, but I have absolutely no confidence that that is happening in any significant way. It begs the question as to where is the safety net for vulnerable people as far as the welfare system is concerned in conclusion, Presiding Officer. Surely, it is time that the UK Government had a rethink, not least in light of its own lamentable track record, as far as the setting up and development of computer systems is concerned. I now call on Jackie Baillie to be followed by Christine Grahame. Presiding Officer, can I start by congratulating Graham Day on securing this debate and for the content of his speech to the chamber this evening? Although he may consider himself computer savvy and techie confident, new phrases I am learning all the time, I merely note that, by his own admission, the people closest to him might possibly disagree. However, let me also congratulate Angus CAB on producing their report, highlighting the challenges faced by online benefit claimants. We do live in an increasingly online world, we pay our bills online, we can get our shopping online, we can make travel arrangements online, but it is not for everybody and we should not lose talking to people face to face. Graham Day is absolutely right to point out the need for alternatives to just doing things online. It is correct to say that the DWP expects people to increasingly make their claims online. Indeed, the UK Government's digital strategy expects that 80 per cent of all benefit claims will be made online by 2017, yet the rate of progress is extremely slow. For job-seeker JSA applications alone, where they said that they would reach 80 per cent by September 2013, just last year, they woefully fell short of that target. That was 10 per cent in March 2011, 19 per cent in March 2012, a long way off from the target that they set themselves. There are a number of reasons for that. First, even the DWP admits that their claimants are less likely to use the internet. 72 per cent of disabled people are online compared to 85 per cent of non-disabled people. 59 per cent of people over the age of 65 are online. That leaves a huge number that are not. Access to online services can often be limited by income. Ofcom found that one in three households earning less than £17,500 had broadband. If you are older, in poor health, have a lower income or less education, you are more likely to be offline, yet those are the very people who make the most use of Government services and will need assistance. The approach that expects all of those who claim benefits are in search of employment to have the necessary IT skills will not only put them at risk of being sanctioned, as other members have described, but further marginalise them within their own communities. There is nothing being done by the UK Government to help to improve IT skills by closing down on alternative means of claiming. That will put extraordinary pressure on public and voluntary services to help people with claim forms. The Citizens Advice Bureau dealt with 19,463 benefit form completions in 2011-12. That is likely to increase, and CABs are not funded to meet that level of demand. It is equally a problem for local authority advice services, because access to computers in libraries may be helpful, but there are challenges there—a lack of privacy, often a lack of support staff, and short-time limits on computers. There are three local authority universal credit pilots in Westumbartshire, North Lanarkshire and Dumfries and Galloway. They are already raising significant misgivings. Councilers in those areas are already warning, and I quote, that online applications must not become the preferred method for accessing the benefit system, and alternative methods must not be made more difficult to force people to go digital. Another said, it takes around 90 minutes to complete an online JSA application form. People cannot fill out a 36-page form on a mobile phone, and many people do not want to upload very personal information on a public computer in a library. There is even a question as to whether the pilots will have had time to be properly evaluated by the time of the introduction of universal credit. The UK Government cannot assume that people will have the skills to access the internet or, indeed, the opportunity to do so. Simply asserting that benefit applications will be have to made online is just not good enough and fails to address the practical barriers faced by many benefit claimants. In coming to a close, it is a wrong-headed policy to try to push people to apply for benefits online. It fails to reflect the reality of people's lives and the impact that it will have on public and voluntary services. I thank Angus CAB again for drawing this to our attention and for Graham Day in bringing this debate to the chamber. Ultimately, the UK Government needs to change their approach to some of the most vulnerable in our society and help them to make claims rather than put artificial barriers in their way. I thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I add my congratulations to Graham Day in securing this debate on a very important topic and, indeed, I congratulate Angus CAB. I agree, Jackie Baillie, what you have said about this being a wrong-headed policy. At this time, when we see an assault on benefits claimants, indeed what to me amounts to a persecution of those who put themselves back on the referendum voters role, now hunted for even historic poll tax, who would want to be a benefits claimant today? Everything is made tough for you, complex forms, often to be completed, as others have said by those least capable of completing them, and, frankly, without the CAB and other advice centres, where would those claimants be? Recently, I confirmed that nearly a quarter of a million Scottish pensioners were claiming pension credit, and even then, one third of those entitled were not claiming, and goodness knows how they were making ends meet. I checked today. Together with guidance notes, the pension credit form runs to 41 pages. You need a PhD in form filling to complete that, and I speak as a woman who found that she was going to get taxed for a van she didn't actually own when she completed her own England revenue tax form. I didn't even get that right, and that was pretty straightforward. How often have you tried to fill in an online form to be told to go back and complete some line that hadn't been completed properly, so I can understand why sometimes it takes 90 minutes? Add to that complexity, the UK Government's strategy that 80 per cent of benefits applications should be completed, as others have said by 2017, and it makes it even more difficult for people. I shall keep to the demographics that Jackie Baillie touched on from the CES report Offline and Left Behind, as it's clear that in the age range, 60 to 74, 59 per cent never use a computer, and at 75 plus that rises to 75 per cent. Think of the pension credits not claimed at the moment and how that would impact. In the Scottish Borders, part of which I represent the age group, 60 to 74, represents nearly 20 per cent of the population compared to the Scottish figure of just over 15 per cent. In Woodlodion, the age group is also higher than the Scottish average. In the 75 plus group in the Borders, it's also above the Scottish average, 9.9 per cent to the Scottish average at 8 per cent. In my patch, some 30 per cent are over 60, and a good ween of them will be entitled to pension credit, and now it's supposed to do this online. Compounding this is internet connection at home for all claimants groups. Just 50 per cent have it in the Borders and similarly for Woodlodion, so they're expected to travel somewhere to publicly access the internet. My question, indeed, of the CES is how is this that 50 per cent is to become 80 per cent, and how is that to be achieved in an ageing population? Frankly, as I've said, I can see that one-third not claiming the pension credit rising, and I can foresee injustices for those who various reasons find using the internet overwhelming. While I support cutting out bureaucracy, this cannot be at the expense of the vulnerable, the elderly, and I consider the UK Government should embark on accessing how difficult accessing the benefits system is just now before imposing another hurdle. In the meantime, the UK Government should simplify those forms for the pension credit. For me, if you have to have working examples which they have on the pension credit form, then that's an admission that your form is too complex for the start. I now call Alex Johnson to be followed by David Torrance. I begin by thanking Graham Day for bringing this report before Parliament with his motion tonight. I can also pay tribute to the work that has been done by the Angus Citizens Advice Bureau in bringing forward the paper that they describe on the front cover as a discussion paper produced by Angus social policy team part of the Angus Citizens Advice Bureau. A discussion paper is vital at this time and very valuable in promoting this debate. As we look at the issue of digital exclusion, it is important to remember that those of us who do have access to the internet and make use of it regularly have a tremendous advantage over others. Many of the things that we buy, some of the things that we sell, many of the services that we access are cheaper if you have access to the internet. It is therefore the case that there is a natural advantage to those of us who can access the internet and consequently a natural and converse disadvantage for those who do not have that digital connectivity. There are a number of reasons why digital connectivity may be a problem, as has been highlighted in this debate already in many of our rural areas. The access to broadband is not all it could be. As a consequence, many of those who live in our geographically most marginal communities will struggle to have access to the internet by any means, having no broadband connection and certainly in many areas having no mobile connection that could substitute for it. However, what we are talking about here specifically are those who are not only excluded by one means or another from the advantages of internet access but also who are now going to be expected to make applications for support by that means. Some of us from the welfare reform committee have had the advantage of going to Glasgow to the place where the pilot is being run and talking to some of the people who are involved. It has been reassuring to some extent. The 80 per cent target that has been placed on by 2017 is, let me reassure you, not a target that will be achieved by simply dropping people off until the 80 per cent is reached. The fact is that if the 80 per cent target cannot be reached, then other means will have to be found to reach those who cannot get online. We spoke to individuals who are responsible for running individual accounts on the pilot and who take the opportunity to look at the online applications that have been taken but also are responsible for contacting those who have failed to complete the form adequately or made some error that requires further contact. In fact, it became fairly clear during that visit that many of those who are responsible for running the pilot on a day-to-day basis understand only too well the disadvantages that are coming along. The truth is that the universal credit when it is fully implemented will actually bring some tremendous advantages for claimants, giving huge flexibility, but they must be able to access their account. That is why I am supportive of those who are expressing grave concern over those who would have an advantage if they could connect online but are unable to do so. I think that the Citizens Advice Bureau has highlighted a key problem and we must start to deal with this at every level. That means finding adequate support for those who can give the training and assistance locally, providing the equipment necessarily if in our libraries then in a much more secure manner, providing the support through local government where it can be effectively funded by some other means and, above all, finding the resource within DWP budgets to ensure that a little spent in the right place results in the savings that they would like to achieve long term. I believe that there is a great deal to be achieved by pursuing this target, but this target must be implemented in an effective and understanding way that produces these results for the benefit not only of the DWP but for the claimants as well. Thank you very much. I now call on David Torrance, after which I will move to the closing speech of the minister. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I thank Graham Dave for bringing forward this motion for debate and to emphasise the importance of the issue that he has raised in doing so. The papers produced by Angus Citizens Advice Bureau highlights the major problems with UK Government's digital strategy and its aims for 80 per cent of benefit applicants to be made online by 2017. Those issues will affect benefit claimants across Scotland as universal credit continues to be rolled out throughout the regions. I am certain that claimants in my constituency will face many of the same difficulties as those encountered by carb clients in the Angus area. One of the most pressing problems facing claimants making their benefit application online is the lack of access to internet. Citizens Advice Scotland found in the 2013 survey of its carb clients who had benefit issues that just 50 per cent of respondents had an internet connection at home. That suggests that almost half of the client surveyed would have to seek alternative access to internet in order to make their claim for benefit online. While some people may be able to rely on friends or family who have a computer, those unable to do so must turn to publicly available facilities. Most local authorities without such facilities in libraries or community centres, however, many of these are limited in numbers as well as in the terms and venues of opening hours. In my constituency, there are internet facilities available in local libraries. However, other than these, options are limited. This is one of the reasons behind the newly launched Olive Branch cafe, which is located in Benicad Church in Cercodi. Olive Branch provides an internet cafe, allowing three internet access access for people in the local community. While it is invaluable to benefit claimants, the service is limited to the current opening hours of the cafe. If these kinds of facilities are more readily available, some claimants may have difficulties in getting to them, which could be due to mobility, reasons of cost or availability of transport. Therefore, internet access remains a major obstacle for many benefit claimants. Practical access aside, many claimants lack the skills and or confidence to use internet. One of my constituents who was made redundant last year after 35 years of working in a manual job, he struggles to use internet due to lack of IT skills and when he found himself unable to perform job searches online, his jobseekers allowance was sanctioned. This is surely a sign of things to come, particularly for the older generation who are nevertheless less likely to possess IT skills of our young people who have grown up in the digital age. CAB's 2013 survey found that 47 per cent of respondents cite skills and confidence as a barrier to applying for jobs or benefit online at age between 45 to 59 and 22 per cent were aged 60 to 74. These factors can make applying for benefits online a very daunting task. Under current UK governance digital strategy, benefit claimants may be sanctioned should they fail to perform tasks online. I have witnessed first hand how some of my constituents have been affected by unreasonable and disproportionate sanctions. One of my constituents who were recently sanctioned due to failing to attend an appointment at his local job centre, despite having notified them in advance that he would be attending his father's funeral that day. Although the sanction was reconsidered and later reversed, my constituent had to face a period of weeks in intern waiting the outcome of his appeal with no income whatsoever. He came to me with no money or food for electricity. Bear in mind that a majority of people in receipt of benefits are some of the poorest in our society and that already they are faced with the impact of billions of Westminster imposed cuts to a welfare budget. The DWP's digital by default strategy is likely to lead to a growing number of sanctions and constantly higher currents of incidents like these whereby claimants end up in dire straits with nowhere to turn for alternative sources of income. It is abundantly clear that the UK Government's target of having 80 per cent of benefits claims made online is completely unworkable and that it is unfairly penalised those who face challenges in using the internet, be it due to a lack of access, skills or health. This is likely to have a knock on effect on other local services which will find themselves under increasing pressure to deal with those struggling to meet the digital demands placed upon them by the DWP. I wholeheartedly support Graham Day's motion and call for a review of the UK Government's 80 per cent target at various opportunities. Many thanks. I call on the minister to wind up the debate. On behalf of the Government, Ms Burgess, you have seven minutes. Like others, I would also like to congratulate Graham Day for bringing this issue forward as a member's debate. I also commend the Citizens Advice Bureau in Angus for their discussion paper. It is an excellent paper and it has highlighted some very particular issues faced by claimants as a result of the UK Government's digital strategy. The digital delivery of benefits is something that everyone who has spoken about here tonight is concerned about. I think that there is absolute recognition of the difficulties that it is causing for many vulnerable people. However, we need to be specific in this because what I find concerning is that the way that the DWP is choosing to deliver the benefits through the digital channel, digital itself is not the problem. Very early on, when this was announced by the UK Government, I raised the issue with Lord Freud in one of my meetings with him that I saw as being an issue that is going to impact vulnerable people. I expected that the DWP would, in some way, provide support and financing to help people to get over the hurdle or get access to the digital equipment and access to computers as well. However, I have said before in this chamber that we are not a Parliament of Luddites, but there is no doubt about it. Digital is absolutely the way of the future. In the future, and now as well, efficient and responsive public services delivered online are what most of us in society will expect and demand. In my colleague, the Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs recently published a digital participation strategy, which commits us to building a national movement for change that works tirelessly to build a world-class digital nation in which everybody, regardless of where they live or the circumstances in which they find themselves, can embrace digital technology with confidence. It sets out the work that we are doing in partnership with the Scottish Council for Volunteer Organisations and Signatures of our digital participation charter to provide courses that will help to improve digital skills, mentors that will give people confidence and financial support to organisations and community groups that people trust to support them on their digital journey. The comprehensive nature of the strategy and the cross-ministerial support it enjoys gives me the confidence that people in Scotland will be better placed than most to acquire the skills and confidence that the modern world increasingly demands. However, where there is a problem is when the DWP is railroading people down a digital route simply to say that we will have 80 per cent of people making their applications digital by default. In many cases, it is not the best option for them. Some of the stories in the discussion paper and from other sources that I have heard across Scotland are quite shocking. We have heard some today and I hope that it is not going to be an indication of how universal credit is intended to be delivered. However, I have to say some of the examples that we have heard, such as Christine Grahame talking about pensioners and David Torrance talking about somebody who is working for 35 years of their life never needed to use digital strategy. To lose your job in those circumstances is a big enough trauma for someone, but to then not be able to claim the benefits that they are entitled to or take part in applications online because they do not have the skills to use the internet is just a double whammy for someone. It is absolutely disgraceful that people have to go through that. Jackie Baillie touched on the point of face to face. There are always going to be people who, no matter how digitally, technophobia or clever we are, digitally advanced we are, will always be people who are going to need the face to face advice. Filling in a form is not just always about ticking boxes. You have to understand the answers that have been put in the form. I can certainly say that from many years in the advice sector, unless the right questions are asked of the individual, had they to fill in the form themselves, they would have done it wrong. They do not always know what benefit they are on, what income they are getting, and just filling that in incorrectly in a form could put them out of getting benefits for some time and then getting all that sorted out. That is people without a means to live. I think that all the members, Graham Day and others have highlighted that the people who are going to be most affected by this are those who are on low incomes, living in deprived areas, having a disability, long-term health conditions, numeracy or literacy difficulties and those who have never had to use a computer. Those are the very people who would expect a welfare state to be there for them. I say to the DWP that those people deserve a benefit system that meets their needs, rather than one that only meets an arbitrary target to get 80 per cent of claims online. I know that this figure has caused some concern, and it is because of the challenges that the Scottish Government is funding a variety of projects that aim to enhance digital skills and improve access. Our welfare reform resilience fund supports several digital projects. For example, the localised support project in five, which is recruiting local people to help build IT capacity and delivering a bespoke community bus to take online services to outline communities. The Shetland rural IT project aims to develop individual ITV skills and their access to the internet throughout rural Shetland. There are obviously very specific barriers in rural areas, some that were mentioned already, but there are also issues in urban areas, particularly in Glasgow, Clyde and Lanarkshire, where we know that broadband uptake is much lower than the Scottish and UK average. We have to remember that many, many people cannot afford to have broadband in their home. For some people, we take it as something that is almost a necessity. For others, it is even more than a luxury. It is just something that cannot even contemplate having that money to spend on it. Jackie Baillie mentioned that for many people, their only internet access is a mobile phone. We all know that nobody could apply for a benefit or fill in a form and a mobile phone. That is why, in some way, we are funding the Glasgow Libraries project, £200,000 over a two-year period, to promote local community-based access to computers, fitting new IT kit, making Wi-Fi available and providing relevant skills and development training. There are some signs, and many speakers have mentioned, that the DWP has now recognised that there will be challenges for many claimants and of the need that they will require assistance to be provided to help them through transition to a new system. We do not question that a digital delivery of public services, including benefits, is something for the 21st century, but what we do question and continue to raise with the DWP is the implementation of that service and the intent of the welfare reforms behind it.


What's up everybody, Jason here for jasperjasecasebrace.com. 2022 Panini score, football hobby, four box break, random division, number four. And again, these are the last, this is the last break, I think, right? Is it number four, really? I thought it was, yeah, I guess it is number four. So last four boxes of the case, and again, all-card ship, everybody gets a random division at NFL, look for four autographs, 90 rookies, 10 parallels, 36 answers per box on average. So let's click the dice roll, and we got two and a six, eight times, good luck. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Eight times, two, six, eight. Diego at the top, down to Matthew. Eight times, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Eight times, eight times. NFC West, down to the AFC South. Now let's go through them here. Diego with AFC West, Joseph with NFC South, Matt Arnold with AFC West, Ryan with NFC North. Jeremy with AFC North, Gabe, you have the AFC East, Slido with NFC East, and then Matthew with the AFC South. So if anybody wants to trade, I'll quickly open up the trade window. Let me put these boxes away from the last break, and then I'll go grab the boxes here. But yeah, some of my family speaks fluent Spanish. Filipino food is the best. Yeah, no, it actually is really good. My wife actually loves, one time we went to like this, I think it was soccer, soccer event, like for my niece, and they had a bunch of different people obviously selling food, and those is like one Filipino stand. I want to say, what was it called again? Think it's a pansy? I looked it up right now, right? I think my wife loved that stuff. And one time my friend actually was like, grandma and family members made it for us for like football one time. And sorry guys, I think this is break number three. I think I caught it right as Nick was switching it. So apologies guys, yeah. This is actually break number three, not number four. So of course you guys know that, right? I think I might have just like caught it right when Nick was switching it. So that's why it showed number four, but this is actually break number three. Cause I was going to say, I think scores only a 12 box case. So yeah, number four is obviously on the website, and then that'll be from like a fresh case. But this is break number three guys. So I was kind of tripping out there for a second. I was like, this way, no way is number four. Yeah, dude, that's just good, it's really good. But yeah, no, that's kind of a fun way to say, but yeah, it's really true, right? Like kind of like just a mix. Alrighty guys, well, let's just close the trade window. I don't think anyone's going to trade anyways. Alrighty guys, here we go. Good luck. There's everybody there. Not so much there for your game. I think these are the last four boxes here. Thing guys, a lot of these cards out of the 40 are pretty much base cards. So we're kind of kind of skimmed through those.  Gotta carry a wireless charger, man. That you are Rex, that you are. All right, first one is a Chevarious Ward 220. TJ Hawkinson. Oh yeah, I see they're releasing some of those, Rex. Those will probably be pretty popular. I'd rather give that out for Halloween rather than candy. CJ Verdell, pro-dup right there. Whoa, is that a Pernie plate? Wondale Robinson 101. Genius idea, Gilo. Pete Zappi, very nice there for the Patriots. AFC East, going to Gabe. Chris Godwin to 100. Ooh, wild card. Looks like you're gonna get points, wild card points. So again, that could be anything from as little as like 150 points to like the highest point value ever, right? Then we got Breeze Hall to 50. Devonte Wyatt, breakthrough to 50. Charlie Kohler. Ooh, this is the first time I've been seeing points in this. And how about a three of six, Jason Taylor. And that is Miami Dolphins, which is AFC East Gabe. My start to your break. And then of course, we got 400 points here. So we'll probably most likely give out points individually, you know, number one, number two guts on, et cetera. The wild card, we don't know what it could be. It could be anything from as little as 150 to the highest amount of points. So, I mean, we'll probably end up giving that out first just cause we don't know what it could be. But, you know, so we'll continue to give them down as it goes. Kudero Patterson for the Patriots. Another one for the AFC East. Yeah, Brian, this is actually pretty nice. Actually, I love the vet autographs in here. Romeo Dubs, that's at NFC North by Ryan, Jordan Poir. And we got Browning Cooks. Shit, I didn't even know either, to be honest. All right, here we go. We got a number of fantasy stars. That's a number 32 out of 100. Amari Cooper, Kyle Amari, Christian McCaffrey. So that'll have to be randomized as well. Tyler Boyd, autographed at 20. That's AFC North, winner Jeremy. Rex, you know what's funny is that, this happened to me last week, but I haven't gotten my Mild Sanders RPA from Optics since I freaking put it in in January of 2020. And six months ago, I finally said, F it, I'm gonna replace it. And I put in the replacement code. I put it in to put a replacement. Didn't hear back from them at all for like the last six, seven months. And then all of a sudden, I get an email saying a card has been shipped.  Right, because I requested it. I said, I'm not waiting another two, three years for this. And then all of a sudden I open the box and guess what? It's the actual card. Even though I requested a replacement like six months earlier.  You might actually just get the card later. Evan Neal, Julio Jones. Yeah, so finally received the card two years and nine months later. Which one I don't care? I mean, I got my card that I'd been wanting the whole time, but it's just hilarious though. Yeah, I'm not gonna have to, I don't really wanna do that. Another Bailey Zappy. Another wild card. And more redemption, or more points in this one. Trevor Lawrence. All right, last box here, guys. David Bell, that's the AFC North. Roger McCurry, it's a 35 for the Titans. We got Mike Evans, gold to 50.  And we've got a lot of redemption, a lot of points I should say. Another Cordero Patterson. Bobby Wagner, 200. James and Williams. Another wild card points, man. Are we supposed to expect this in every case? I feel like the first two breaks didn't really have any redemption points at all. Alrighty guys, well, ton of wall cards. One, two, and three points right there. Four actually, three wall cards and four 400 points. So what we'll do is, top three, get a wild card, number four gets 400 points. And then we'll randomize between these three teams to see who gets that. And then here were the autographs. So a lot more rookies this time around a couple Cordero Patterson's. I feel like the last one did have, that's actually had a six, it was pretty cool. Last one actually had a lot of good ones, a lot of good veterans, but that's just the way it goes though. Pretty cheap break. This was random divisions number three, number four will be from a fresh case that you guys can do tomorrow with Joe. Let's just switch things really quick and let's do those giveaways. So we'll do it by name of course. So it'll be a dice roll. That'll be for the points and then this one would be here for the teams. Roll two and a three five times. One, two, three, four, five. Five times, Panthers winning that one. And then let's randomize it because we're names five times, top four get some points. One, two, three, four, and fifth and final time. We got Slidell, Jeremy, Diego and Ryan.  So appreciate it guys. That was like I said, number three, number four is in the store, Jasper'scasebreak.com.


Let's get into the big topic of open source, something that we actually didn't realize. This is so awesome. We are an open culture that is actually a process that a developer or, let's say, as the Kubernetes ecosystem really brings. And we are live. Welcome, everyone, to another exciting episode of Get Ops, Guide to the Galaxy. It's a very special episode today. It's very exciting, very excited, very happy to introduce our co-captain.   Hilary, I'll let you introduce yourself. Kind of, yeah, tell everyone who you are, what you do at Red Hat, background, all that fun stuff. I'm pretty sure we'll talk about your shelf as well. Oh yeah, my shelf, right? Everybody likes my shelf. So, hey guys, gals and undecided. My name is Hilary Lipsick. I am a principal site reliability engineer and global team lead for some of the, one of the managed services teams running on OpenShift dedicated. So if you've heard of our offerings of Managed Kafka or Red Hat OpenAPI manager, those types of things, that is the team that I am leader of. Let me see, I've been at Red Hat for about, I don't know, year and a half now ish. And actually prior to being an SRE here, I was a quality engineer for 10, 11 years. I like to say that I dedicate my life to writing software that impersonates people. Basically, that's what I do. I think it's a very, very apt description. More or less. Yeah, so that's really, that's really it. In my time outside of Red Hat, it's still technically part of Red Hat. You can find me at the WIT network where I run a community of that nonprofit for women in software engineering. And they're actually kicking off this month. We're kicking off our coding coach coffee hour, which is specifically an effort designed to help particularly women, but anybody do well on code tests and get past the code test and just in general upskill as engineers. Yeah, I actually just dropped the link into the chat. So for those of you who aren't familiar with the WIT network, it's all the cool things and everything that Hilary just described, probably more in detail in the link than I can, then we can spend the hour on. So please, please check that out. It's really, really cool. And I'm very excited. I'm very excited to have actually someone on who like actually does things, right? So a lot of us at Red Hat, a lot of people that bring on, you know, solution architects, the people here in the BU, we work a lot on theory. So it was really, really excited to bring an actual SRE onto the show and be part of the, you know, the permanent hosting here. So we finally have a co-captain here at Good Ops Guide to the Galaxy. You know, I've worked with Hilary in the past, she's, you know, she's more technical than I am. But I guess if that's even possible now, I guess now being in the BU is like, they say that's where all engineers go to die, I guess, is in the BU. So being there is, you know, I'm very excited to have someone who does this from day to day. So, so cool. So welcome, welcome Hilary, welcome. So if you guys have any questions, again, feel free to drop it in the chat. We'll be happy to talk about it here. So I'm excited for our guests today.   And Hilary was like, I want to jump on this show, because we're talking about SLOs and SLIs. And that's like your jam, right? That's like you is what you love doing. And so, so yeah, so our guests today, they've been kind of hanging out in the green room. So we'll bring them on. So if Stephanie, the producer can bring them on. It's from Dinatrace, right? So, you know, talking about, so I used to pronounce it ketten, right?  Talking about captain. So Andreas or Andy, I guess, Oleg, I'll let you guys introduce yourself. You know, who you are, what you know, what you're working on, what you do, all that cool stuff. Yeah. Oleg, should I go first? Do you want to go first? Go ahead. Okay. So well, thanks first of all for having us on the show. Thanks Hilary for doing the great work that you do in your WIT network. And yeah, what do I do? I feel a little connected with you. Hilary now knowing that you have worked in quality for about 10 years. I think my screen just went black and now it came back. Hopefully I'm still. Yes. Yeah, I know we can see you. Yeah. Perfect. Because Hilary, my background is also in software quality. I started my career. Yes. Quality. Because who needs software that doesn't work well. So this is why. Quality is very important. And the fun thing is I started my career as a software tester on a testing product. So I did performance testing on a performance testing tool. Back then it was called Silk Performer. It was when I started the company was called Segway. Then got acquired by Boiland and then became Micro Focus. And I think now it's part of, I don't know. But I was a performance tester on a testing tool. I did that for eight years. And then 14 years ago, almost to the day, I started with Dynatrace.  So making decisions on whether the quality is right based on metrics to push stuff from deaf all the way into prod and then use data to make better informed and automated decisions to bring systems back to a healthy state to keep systems reliable. That's kind of what I mean. That's what I mean. It's like, what haven't you done? No, it's just, I think it's a very small thing, but I've done this consistently for a long, long time. I don't know a lot of things that I should know, but I'm happy that I know what I do know. Awesome. Oleg, Oleg, so go ahead and give your quick introduction. So happy to join the test guild. Actually my background also started from quality assurance, but quality assurance in hardware and embedded systems. So first five years of my career, we were rather about testing devices. Then I started more hardware development, mostly digital hardware. I have a PhD in hardware design for what it was, but when you do quality assurance, you need automation, hence you need tools. So at some point I started using Hudson Jenkins. And at some point, if you fix something with CI, you become a CI guy. So this is exactly what happened to me. So I started maintaining Hudson, then Jenkins. I started contributing to open source. Somehow ended up in Jenkins core team. So if you use the Jenkins in the last decade, probably you have seen my name on Jira or in GitHub. And starting from 2019, I started following Captain because it's a really nice project. It has been exciting to follow it. And this summer I started contributing a bit. And finally I joined Dynatrace to help with building a community around Captain. So now my job is rather community management and whatever is related. I call myself one of the captain of this. And yeah, this is a part of my job. Awesome. You know what's really, really cool is that we now have like talking about like QA, we have like QA from from like front-end engineering all the way to like embedded system. So like if you guys, so those of you watching, if you really have questions about testing almost anything, I think this is the stream to do it in. So yeah, so speaking to Captain. So what's interesting is that, you know, when I first thought about bringing, you know, when I first heard of Captain and thought about like this, I want to bring someone on to talk about Captain. And then, you know, I jumped on a call with Andreas and Oleg and it was completely different from what I thought it was. Right. And so, you know, they kind of give me a good education and good background on it. So I think, I think maybe we should just start there. Right. Let's just, let's talk about what Captain is and, you know, let's start the exploring process there. So, so I think I'll hand it off to you guys and you and Oleg to talk about, first of all, what is Captain? Yeah. Is it okay if I quickly share my screen? Let's do it. Yeah. Okay. Let me figure this out. Screen number two. I'll move this out of the way because, you know, you know how you look like. Yes. I'm just, I'm just using one or two slides. I'm very fortunate to be able to travel again. I mean, keeping fingers crossed that on Sunday I get on the plane to North Carolina because I will be speaking at DevOps days in Raleigh next week. And I think I want to just use maybe the intro slides because also there, there's three things that we might talk. What is Captain? Why we built Captain? I think that's also an important piece because why yet another tool? Maybe you think there's already a solution out there. And then how Captain works. I really just want to get the first question addressed. What is Captain? And with a segue also into the whole topic of SLIs and SLOs. So you're the first ones now to actually see this deck. Oh, we're getting a preview. Awesome. Exactly. But don't tell anybody. I'm not going to tell everybody. So what is Captain? In a nutshell, Captain enables you to do on the one side multi-stage delivery. Captain itself is an event driven orchestrator of what we call sequences of tasks. The first use case is for, we call them, I think the DevOps engineers that are alive or responsible for pushing artifacts through a pipeline multi-stage where Captain can orchestrate tasks like deploy, test, validate and then release into the next stage. But Captain is not just yet another tool that can push stuff through a delivery pipeline because the second use case is around orchestrating day one and day two operations. And for, you know, the way I define it, this is everything to make sure that you can successfully, you know, release your canaries. So making sure that the systems, the canaries get scaled out if it's good or scaled back. But also when there's a problem in production, it can automate the orchestration on, let's say, you know, fixing a problem. So it's assessing the situation and then is triggering based on the problem that has been identified is then triggering the right actions and always validate if the action brought the system back to a healthy state. Hopefully that's it. It can go through multiple iterations and eventually if it solves it good, if not, it can escalate. Now the key magic piece here, and this is, I think, one of the interesting topics we want to talk about today is that embedded and kind of baked in at the core of every sequence it orchestrates. Captain makes data-driven decisions based on SLOs, service level objectives, and we'll go into more detail on how we treat SLOs and how we define it because I think there's a lot of people that talk about SLOs and everybody has a little different understanding of it. So we'll show you how we do it. Most important thing is that the data obviously comes from your observability platform of choice. The first integrations we have built is obviously we are a CNCF project. So Prometheus was the first integration. Then we built a Dynatrace integration because most of us contributors are from Dynatrace. We already have a Datadog integration that one of our community members built and there's more out there integrations that people have asked for. Now, on top of this is all of the tools that actually do the individual job because Captain itself doesn't deploy, it doesn't test, it doesn't rollback, it doesn't scale, it doesn't notify. It really orchestrates all of these tools and it does it through an open event standard. What that means is we're really taking away the pain for you to have to write lengthy automation scripts that call the tool for deploy, then validate if the deployment happens successfully, then call test, validate if test was successful, then reach out to your observability platform and figure out your SLOs status and then do the next thing. So we take care of the whole orchestration. We're using an open event standard that also OLEC especially is driving through the CDF Foundation, the Continuous Delivery Foundation. So we standardize on the way we communicate with these tools and at the core, after every task, Captain makes an informed data-driven decision to figure out in which direction the process should move. So this is kind of Captain in one slide. But I think this is important to understand kind of what the use cases are. And before I kind of open it up, one key point and I think this will help us drive the conversation around SLOs. What really happens there is every time Captain has this evaluation stage, there's a core component in Captain that we call the Lighthouse Service. The Lighthouse Service is driven by your SLOs. So you can define SLOs in YAML that you store in the config repo that Captain holds for you. I mean for every Captain automation project there's a Git repo. So you put in your SLO where you specify what are the SLIs, what are the metrics. You can see here error rate, JVM, memory, count, number, database calls and what your objectives are. But Captain itself doesn't do anything with this yet because the first thing it does, through the same eventing mechanism, it's reaching out to your observability tools and is asking them to query the individual value. Because in the SLO, we have a separation of concerns here. The SLO just says error rate. How that error rate is captured depends obviously on the observability platform. So for Prometheus, you would specify an SLO YAML with your PROMQL for Dynatris, it would be our Dynatris metrics expression language. And so that means that the, we call it the SLO provider reaches out to the observability platform, pulls in the data, pushes it back to the Lighthouse and then the Lighthouse compares the values that come back against the criteria. We are evaluating then every single metric, every single SLO. And then on the very top, we calculate a total score between 0 and 100. And then this is then the deciding factor on green, yellow or reds that then decides how the automation process goes on. So this was kind of all of the slides that I wanted to show, but hopefully this gave a little bit of an overview of what Captain is and why these SLIs and SLOs are so core to Captain. Yeah, I think, and anyone who, if you have a question, go ahead, feel it, feel it drop it in here. I think out of the three of us, I think I'm the most ignorant one because my background is mainly in operations, right? And so I've, you know, the importance of data driven deployments, right? I think is what Captain is trying to focus on. And so, and actually, we just got a question here from Rockhound. So Rockhound, welcome. A CICD rapper of all other solutions, question mark with a test dependency at the end. Is that, is that what? I guess I did a crappy job in explaining what Captain is because if the first thing that comes to mind is it's yet another CICD tool rapper, then I really may have missed the point. Captain is not another CICD tool. What Captain is, it is helping you to orchestrate the tools along what we call a sequence, an automation sequence. And yes, obviously, we always bring the example of pushing artifacts through a delivery process because that's why, you know, I have to deploy test and validate here. But the other big use cases for handling problems in production. So if you are Prometheus raises an alert to get a Prometheus alert that something is wrong, then you can also orchestrate all the remediation tasks where you can say I first want to notify my SRE team that there's a situation going on in the same step. Then looking up a list of sequences that should be orchestrated kind of like your runbook based on the problem that comes in and then Captain is then triggering your individual tools. And now the thing is, I really have a hard time with the word rapper. Because what we are doing here, we have it's an event driven systems that mean there's no hard coded tool integration that you build where you say in my particular project, I want to call a Jenkins or I want to call Helm to deploy or I want to make a notification call to Slack. It's all through event subscriptions and maybe that's actually another good point. I would like to think of it as so and then this may be a really simplistic view. From my point of view, I really like to think about it as almost like an event bus, right? So there's certain events that happen, right? And you want certain things to happen based on those events. It's just so it's just so happen is just sitting, you know, I guess at the heart of your deployment. If I think the powerful thing here is that there's essentially a rules engine, right? So it's not just that there is the messaging and the events going through which is super important but you also have a rules engine. So that that is the power in my opinion here. I think that's the power and the other power is there simply it's loosely come like what did we do with all the monoliths that we broke into smaller pieces? We in the end, you know, we stitched them together through an event bus that also has a rule engine. You typically have like your business process management where you then say I know exactly what needs to happen, but you can always replace individual pieces because it just subscribe and not a tool to handle a certain piece of activity. And that's the same thing what we do here, right? If you look at I have a multi-stage sequence here, it starts in staging and then in production. And what you see here is we call I call it delivery here. This is the delivery sequence and I have multiple tasks. Monaco stands for monitoring as code. This is where I basically say I want before I do anything make sure that my monitoring system is configured. Now, in my case, maybe for my project, I use data doc. So I have data doc subscribe to the monaco event or I have another tool, let's say dinotrace that subscribes for it and then does the configuration or it's Prometheus. Right. I mean, basically you can through event subscription say which tool should handle which type of task for which particular project and which particular stage and the events that are sent here. So you can you can see the little icon here and just pushing on the deployment. This is the events that we're standardizing. So this is not just yet another proprietary, let's say protocol that we're introducing here, but we're really working with the community to standardize this because the challenge that we have seen is that every tool out there where it's deployment, test, what's the ability tools notification everyone has the proprietary API. This is also why it is so hard to build and maintain integrations between all the different point tools. And we have introduced or introducing here a standard way of how these tools communicate. And take away the pain.  So like if you have Argo, right, and then you have information coming from dinotrace, since you guys are on. Right, like I have like the dinotrace, you know, feeding those metrics to me like how do I make Argo speak dinotrace and how do I, you know, and, and I can set of writing that integration right there's like an event bus that I can basically loosely coupled.  You're totally right. So there is standard technology called cloud events, which is exactly designed for delivering various kinds of events. So what you see here, captain and many other tools actually built on the top of it as producers or receivers of events, there are many standards like CD events, which was referenced before by Andy, which actually extend this cloud event specification and allow to prioritize particular areas. But ultimately, it's a universal way of data interaction, which is extensible and if tools know how to speak to each other, it unlocks a lot of possibilities for your systems, because as we build modern applications as micro services, the same for delivery and operation services, build them as micro services loosely connected with each other through events. And this actually communication layer enables us to build that efficiently and to use many building blocks like captain to assemble into an operation system you need for your applications. Yeah, I wonder. So, so you're saying you can also use this information for rollback.  You know, you can have the same, you know, rule set, I guess, Hillary, I think you said that I think the best way to say that is you have this rule engine that can then roll it back to a previous version. So the exact so the way maybe and I also see some comments like is this just another if then do that kind of tool for cloud ops. I guess I still need to do a better job in explaining it's not just if then the nails. So maybe let's have a quick look behind the scenes so that people understand what behavior behind every automation project is everything starts in the beginning with what we call a shipyard file. The shipyard is reading out this definition of the process. What you see here is we are grouping or you can define so called automation sequences like I have my delivery sequence for my staging environment and here you specify your tasks monaco monitoring as code deployment evaluation. You can have different tasks in a stage like here is a delivery sequence that also does an additional test, or here's just a delivery with tests. And what we also have here is in production. I have another delivery process where I say I want to trigger that delivery in case staging finished successfully or staging delivery with test finished successfully now I can also go down here. Coming to the rollback. What you're basically doing is you are specifying sequences and you connect them together so a little bit like if then else of course from a sequence perspective. However, the magic what I see here is you don't see any tool. I don't care here in the definition of the process who is doing the rollback because I maybe that defines that process doesn't know what's the target tool in my environment. And this is now where the event subscription comes in. So if I go back to my captain UI, we call this the bridge. And if I go here on the left side to our settings, then we have what we call the uniform the uniform is kind of like all of the tools that captain has to steer the ship. And this is exactly where all this event subscription comes in. So for instance, I have my helm service here. I could also have here my Argo service. My G meter service, my Jenkins service. And basically I say, hey, I am now subscribing helm in my case to certain events for certain project stage and service. That means I can control your three events subscription for to which tool this event should actually be forward and then handled. And this allows me, I think this is the nice decoupling between process and tooling. I can easily switch tools as long as these tools obviously understand the event. And I can also subscribe multiple tools to the same event. Now, why would I want to do this? Well, because maybe I want to push notifications to a select channel every time a deployment failed or a rollback is triggered, but the rollback itself is obviously done by another tool. And so I can have multiple subscriptions to an event and I can easily switch tools because in the end, I just need to make sure that I have tools to fulfill the process. And hopefully this explains it a little, a little better. And you tell me if I, if I do. Yeah, well, I think you're doing a great job. Also, Oleg has been feeding me links. So for those that are following in chat, I've been posting some of these links to find out, you know, more of the information more, more about these definitions here. So Oleg, he doesn't, he was going to sign up for a twitch account, but you know, I'm kind of feeding that, you know, he said maybe next time next time you'll come with your twitch account. You just don't want to see my twitch account. Yeah, yeah, so there you go. Yeah, and maybe we'll maybe we'll rate it afterwards. We don't know. Yeah, I mentioned the uniform. Actually, it's a fun fact about captain that we have a lot of special terminology comes from now we call terms. So from shipyard to captain itself uniform. This web UI you can see on the empty screen, it's called captain bridge. And there's a lot of terms like that. So that is internal lore in captain community. I love that. I love that. I was actually wondering if you were going to mention. And I was wondering if you were going to mention sending notifications to Slack channels and so forth, because chat ops was going to be one of my questions. And for those not in the know, chat ops is sort of an idea of that when something happens, you get a chat message that you can interact with via Slack. And you can actually like the power is so so much so that even from like my phone Slack application, I can see that chat ops come in and do things like run a playbook based on based on the alert and that sometimes can be multiple options depending on you know various certain pieces of data. So that was going to be my question. Exactly. So that's basically, you know, I'm pretty sure actually can find captain's like web hook. So. Perfect. Thank you so much. I mean, whatever, whatever favorite, whatever favorite search engine you have, it's typically pretty, pretty easy to to find all of the different integrations that we have and how we work. There's also a lot of it's like Jenkins is another example obviously Oleg been very active in the Jenkins community, but he knows him there. We know how we can subscribe to to captain how to to Jenkins and send the information over but essentially what I am not sure if maybe it was a little too fast but in captain on the integrations in the uniform. One of the things we can do is we have a web hook service where you can select for which task you want to call an external web hook and every task has three stages. Triggered is when captain says I need this test to be executed who wants to do it. And then the tool that is actively doing it will then send back when it when it's starting the job and when it's finished. But I can also subscribe as a notification tool perfect that if let's say the evaluation finished. Then I want to make a call to to the slack API and obviously we have secrets here right we can configure secrets like your token you will obviously put into a secret. Here you can define your custom payload and then you can pick any of the data elements that are in these cloud events that I have that we've shown you earlier. That means you can obviously reference right the dashboard link or you can reference that was used for the slow evaluation. You can also reference the evaluation result the git commit the indicator result the total score and then you just push this over to whatever tool you want. And so I want to touch on something else that you mentioned.  Yeah this is your your favorite subject. Right. This is amazing. Yeah. I feel like I feel very much with Kindred spirits right now, especially with all the joint Kiwi background like that's amazing. But anyhow, there's something you mentioned and I wanted to ask a little bit more about it so to my mind as I'm evaluating this. It looks like this technology is really I guess I'll use the term it's nonlinear right. You don't have to just have like one set of things happening you can actually start spreading out through a branch of things which is neat. And I'm wondering kind of if you have any examples of that if you have any strategies for doing that in a maintainable way because the problem with making things spread out too far is of course losing track of them. Yeah. So from a spreading out perspective what we can do and I go back to my to my actually let me give you another example here. The demo rollout example that's using Argo rollouts here for for canary deployments. What you see here basically is not a not a spread out but kind of like a sequence of sequences. So I started in staging and I am delivering a new version just in the regular blue green deployment using using our helmet Argo rollouts to actually push it out like a blue green deployment when it's when everything is passed at the end. So tests have been executed. I think in this case I'm using low cost. You can see here another thing right where the testing tool is kicking it off and running tests and we do the evaluation. Then I'm going over when everything is green to production. And here what I've specified is a delivery sequence that is then followed by canary rollout phase one phase two and phase three. And this is if you remember earlier and let me just show you what we the shipyard file behind the scenes because behind every project. There is a git repository. And in this case it's the delivery demo. And here's my shipyard file again. So the shipyard file remember that's the the initial definition so you can specify. As you mentioned earlier the sequences and then the way you connect them and kind of said spreading it out is through the triggered on the triggered on means if one sequence is done then you can trigger another sequence. It's not that you can then kind of branch out into multiple areas. It's always like one sequence what then is what what when this is completed either with a successful status or failed status you can then say are we done or are we kicking off another sequence depending on the finished results of the previous one. So this is how we do it. We like what you're meaning is completely branching off. I mean it's also possible but I think from to this extent where you would say one sequence is done and you're kicking off 50 others. I think this is not where we've gone so far and I will also wondering as you said this will probably be a minute. It's doable right because we would then show it here in our UI we probably need to figure out how to better visualize it even if it branches out completely. But this is not the way we have we have seen it been used so far. No that makes sense. And I think that that's that's fantastic. You can always count on me to figure out some way to break your tool right. I will absolutely use it wrong. That's an SRE SRE life right like it's all use all use your tool wrong. This is what it is. Yeah, I frequently say that SRE is a type of quality department right we're driving continuous improvement through the observation of the production realities. Although I usually I think say it better than that but this is what we get today. Right so I wanted to ask you because it was a kind of a quick thing and if there's other questions I'll see to the actual audience who were here to entertain instead of myself. But I wanted to go back to the the SLO components and some of those definitions again just like I said it was just really quick earlier and I was like oh I want to spend more time there. Yeah. So what do you see here is kind of in the end the visualization that we have right so this means every time I run a sequence and I have to evaluate a step in there. Then captain will reach out and to the monitoring tool that has subscribed to the give me your SLI values. The values will then be brought back and then every value every SLI will be evaluated against the SLO the objective and then a total score will be calculated. So this is just the visualization of one of these you can scroll down here you can actually see the individual values that came back. One of the cool things that I like is that we cannot only compare or specify an objective based on an absolute value. So you can say I don't know host disk queue length should obviously be you know smaller equal than zero because otherwise you have a problem but you can also combine it like the here's a metric called service throughput per minute. You can say I want the throughput to be smaller than 200. But I also want to combine it that it should not increase by more than 10% to the baseline and the baseline is then calculated based on previous results so you can combine absolute objectives with I call it relative objectives. I'm not sure if there's a might be a better English term for that but this is what it is now how can you define all of this. There's two ways how you can define it. Remember what is behind every project. Come on it's a question for you. What's behind every automation project. Oh, I don't know. I've got a long list. I'm not sure what what leading question you're trying to ask. repository so all of the repository all of the all of the actual configuration because so far we only looked at the shipyard all of the configuration then really lives in the git repository. That means I have my shipyard here but then depending on how many stages you specify so per stage. We allow you to then put in all of your configuration files either your helm charts if you want to use help for deployment. I had low cost earlier so I would put in my low cost test script here or my SLOs would also be here. So for instance this is one of the of the samples that are run. I have my service called TNT APL service. I'm just quickly go back here. Right in this project. I'm currently in my service called TNT APL so the way we're structured is project stages and then your services where you can execute automation on. This is why my git repository in the production stage. I have a sub folder called TNT APL SVC and here are all the relevant config files if I want to run automation for this particular service in this stage in this project. So for instance here is my SLO file and in the SLO file you exactly have this configuration that you've seen earlier in the UI. So YAML where you specify as an SLI with a unique name SVCRTP95. Can also have a display name so that it actually looks nicer in the UI and not just using this acronym. So you can say service response time 95th percentile. But here's the thing you can specify pass and warning criteria. We also allow you to change the weight by default every SLI and I have multiple here. By default it has the same weights to the total score but you can change it. You can say this one here should have a weight of five because it's five times more important. You can also specify individual SLI should be a key SLI meaning if this one fails the whole evaluation should fail. A good example would be if failure rate is higher than one percent. I don't care how fast it is then it should be considered as a failed evaluation overall. So that means you can change the weight. You can change and mark one as key and you can specify pass and warning criteria. Now the question is what is behind this here? What is behind SVCRTP95? Well that is in a different file because it depends. In my case I use Dynatrace. I could also use Prometheus or Datadog and Urelic but in my case I use Dynatrace. Therefore I know when Dynatrace kicks in my integration it looks in the Dynatrace folder and in here I have my SLI YAML definition.  Okay so again I'm coming from this from, I'm just a sysadmin trying to understand this. The payload is where the payload is generated doesn't necessarily matter. Where the information that you get it from and how you basically, you're just basically passing that payload from tool to tool to make informed decisions. Exactly and the thing is and not only that, that's what we're doing in general. The orchestration of captain is we are triggering a task and in the end in the beginning the captain doesn't care who is doing the task. We just know here's a task that should be carried out and whichever tool is subscribed to do this task here's all the information you need to know. On the one side there's information and if I go let's say again to the deployment. There's information in the deployment event that says hey I need deployment triggered. So the task is deployment I want to trigger it. This is now part of the project delivery demo. This is for this particular service. This is for this particular stage. By the way I have some additional information for you. This is the artifact that should be deployed. So whoever can do a deployment this is all the information that I give you. Additionally in my case the Helm service is subscribing. So Helm then says hey I want to do it. So it says I'm starting the task so captain can keep track of you know what's going on right now. Additionally however every service we integrate here also knows that behind every project there's a git repository and in that git repository you have additional config files that might be there for this particular tool. So I'm going to the delivery demo project now. If I go to staging then again I have my sample projects here. My sample services like TNT APL service and now I see here I have my Helm sub directory. So this is now where all of my Helm charts live. And that means this particular point tool can then get the configuration file for instance from here. So it's a separation of process and tooling and the configuration that a certain tool needs. It's also fully version controlled in the git repository that is organized based on the way you run your automation. I love this so much. I like that you're using git T as well so that's pretty cool. Yeah I just use git for my demos because obviously you can specify any upstream git. Yeah mirror. Yeah but we call this captain in the box. So we have some of our tutorials where you just run and install. Right now in this here it just all runs actually in my case on my FK3S here. So captain itself is a container based event driven solution and it runs on Kubernetes. So when you install captain initially you install what we call the control plane. So that's kind of the core of captain the orchestration engine. So for instance what do we have here? We have the shipyard controller that is responsible to actually control the workflow that is specified in your shipyard. We have certain out of the box services like the lighthouse service. Remember the lighthouse is the one that is then evaluating all the results with the webhook service. To have the secret I mean you see all of this stuff right and then in my case everything is on one machine. So I also have installed some specific integrations we have like the low cost service to execute low cost tests. The dinatrace the helm service. We have a job executor where you can just let captain deploy a container as a Kubernetes job to do a certain task and then wait until the job is done similar to a GitHub action. So this is all there. But the nice thing for me is I didn't I don't need to care about how do I call a particular tool and wait until it comes back with a result. We've automated all of this for you. The only thing you need to do is you specify the process and you subscribe your tools to those to those events and and that's it. So we got an interesting question here from rockhound says can I define an RBAC which to which steps are available for which repo commit user for example or how do I live that. I think captain RBAC and probably all of you probably know even more than I do about the status. Yes. So there is an enhancement proposal for captain cap 61 and the screen shares. So basically it addresses user identification and authorization currently captain started as a developer tool where the basic approach was just to isolate it through network. And the inside once you get access you would have full access to in principle like an influx to be db works and many other projects. Now with captain gross. Of course there is interest to have user model inside and the current state that we have user identification so through open ID connect etc. You can identify users but the permission model is not fully integrated inside. So what you have now you have a bug for services. So for example you have a service which needs specific permissions like data trace integration service or let's say Jimmy to integration service for performance tests and these services can run with special permissions. So on infrastructure level you have some model and some isolation but not on the user level. So it's coming soon maybe in while I would expect the preview in three months or so but then it will take some time before all of this permission model stabilizers because all the gaps because it's a long story. So maybe six to nine months and we will have user authorization support. Awesome I actually put through that through that in the chat so for those of you following the chat I've been throwing the links in there as they come so start to cut you off Hillary but there was a there was a question that came up so I didn't I didn't I didn't want to miss the question. That's exactly what I was going to bring up was that question. Oh, okay. All right, gotcha gotcha. I've been doing it for the longer so I'm on autopilot so. One more I think there's one that talks about and you don't have to write any of the integrations I think this is something don't you have to write integration programming. Well, rock count also said the great thing is that all event driven based product that it's all event based products so it doesn't care you can just do anything as an event. Exactly the only thing obviously you need to like for instance and this is the reason why we have like, let's say a dinotree service here or a low cost service. We are sending events you can subscribe to events you will receive those events, but there are certain tools that might not be, you know that they don't have the capability right so if we give you we give you a couple of options. The first option is, if your tool that you want to integrate has an API that we can call for a webhook, then you can use our built in webhook service and that just as I showed earlier. You can subscribe here to an event and you can say hey you know what I want whenever a test is triggered in my let's say staging stage. I want to make a call to my testing tool and here's an API and it reports back when it's done so that's one option. If you have a tool they want to integrate and it doesn't support the subscribing to the cloud events we haven't understands it natively. This is one option. The second option is, we have the so called job executor service. That's the one I mentioned earlier, the job executor service. I was going to ask about that. Is that like a job for like a Kubernetes job? Exactly. Okay. Cool. Sorry. Because I was going to say that would be my catch all around be like if I could just create a Kubernetes job like I can wire anything. That's exactly. That's the silver bullet of automation. So captain itself is orchestration engine. But if you show you need automation, you have an option for that. Yeah. And here you can say right again through a config file you put in the in the git repository that again behind every project. There's a git repository and then you put in a job.config.yaml file and here you can say if this event comes in, then please run this particular image as a job. And there's obviously more options here you can pass in all the parameters and stuff. But this is the second option. The first one is web hook. The second is through this. And the third one is and you still have the option you can also write and develop if you want to a custom what we call captain service like these captain services. They are basically just containers that you just deploy it like I have here. Deployments is a pot like the I have a locust service actually here. So this is nothing else than a container that has a sidecar container which is called the so called distributor. This is a component that we actually deliver and that distributor is actively registering itself to captain saying, hey, I'm here. I can handle the test events. And then every time a test event comes in, then it just forwards it to that container that sits in that same pot and just calls a particular endpoint. So, so we have a couple of options. We call them captain services. And I believe if I do my, if I use my Google foods. Yeah, if I can Google correctly, then let's go to the dock. I've come in a couple of times that my real skill, my actual life skill is my ability to navigate a search engine. That's really. Exactly. So right a kept service. Here we go. Right. This is how you could do your own. We also have templates. We have a goal template. I think if a Python template. And that's exactly that me. No, it is probably already on it, but now maybe I'm faster than all I can I'm posting this into the, there we go. Yeah, you got it. You won. I do have a question from from rockhound again. Thank you rockhound. So, trying to remember the exact context of the time you enhance asked this question here she asked this question so are those events queued with am QP for example, or do you limit the maximum amounts of executors on the global level. Yeah, so what we internally. That might be too much of technical detail but we're using nets internally. So they, the shipyard controller remember the shipyard controller is there is the controlling instance that is always aware of in which state is my is my current sequence. And then it sends out the appropriate event so for instance when a new sequence is triggered like a delivery sequence. It knows based on the shipyard file the first thing is it needs to send out a monocode or triggered. So it sends that out and then everybody that subscribes to it will receive that event and then the shipyard controller waits until it hears back from at least one service that says I can do it. And then also the shipyard controller waits until all of the tools that have said I'm doing something actively also finished with a pass or a fail result. And then the shipyard controller takes over so the shipyard controller really manages everything. And in terms of limitations I don't think there's any limits on maximum and there's no no no limits on maximum number of of executors. Yeah, at least not not from an architectural perspective now as long as your cluster can handle that it's fine. One important thing to mention that captain itself it has control plane but its execution planes can be actually located on remote Kubernetes clusters. So for example if you need to have run heavy payloads one of the base examples is load testing as a quality gate which was one of the first use cases for captain. So with Jimmy there and with other services there is key six integration and you can basically afloat this heavy execution to another Kubernetes cluster and captain can just manage it for you as external execution plane. So it also increases scalability of captain as a system. That actually kind of anticipates one of my questions which was actually about to be scalability here. So, I guess, you know, knowing that it can, you know, have a singular control plane executing across multiple well execution planes. I guess the real question I have is sort of like multi tenancy in this model. For example, red hat is a huge org and we have a lot of, we'll call them cohabitating engineering teams who might not necessarily want to see everybody's pieces, but would want to use the same tool. So, yeah, I was going to ask about multi tenancy and scaling to accommodate significant numbers of teams. Okay, captain initially started rather as a developer tool where the approach was that you have multiple captain instances for relatively small steps. But now it changed and control plane evolved significantly. So now, for example, there is ongoing job to have control plane infinitely scalable also these features like high availability, zero time upgrades, etc. So basically control plane is being redesigned now to support not only scalability and high availability, but also support for basically nonstop operations, even if you need to update captain. So this is just ongoing work beats lending incrementally. So there were some changes in the recent zero to 14 release, some regressions, which has fixed by now. But yeah, this is one of key highlights of this year's development is actually having control plane fully scalable and fully cloud native when it comes to terms of a single system. So you should be able to scale captain much more than it was possible before. And then also, I think to add to this, kind of if you really have multiple different teams that all want to use captain, they don't want to see the other stuff or not allowed to. Then two answers right now, you would have multiple captain instances, you can obviously run multiple captain instances also on one. I think there was one question in OCP, we would need multiple instances so you can run multiple captain control planes also for that type of separation. And with with with role based access with our back, I mean, these are all things that are on the roadmap. So you can have team a logging in and only see their their stuff and team B only seeing their stuff. But this is something that we're working on. Yeah. Also, there are some quality of life improvements. So you have seen the uniform UI with a lot of configuration there. But obviously everything can be configured as code. And right now there is an ongoing work to have official github separators. Well, we have prototypes available for preview, but you will be able to manage captain fully, not just as code, but in models like github so that you can share multiple instances configurations between teams. Apply templates and also roll out upgrades incrementally, as we mentioned, this is your time upgrades just by having a number of repositories for your teams. Awesome. Awesome. And we what's funny is I can actually read that. So the the year I'll put this, I'll put this in the chat. Yeah, that was one of the videos and there's one of the captain tutorials we recently did. How to github with captain. What's what's really what what I always always tell people to is that like if you're a yidakanda. Yeah, okay.  That PR there, I think it's a standing PR for now for for captain to support our back so here. Checking here to see if. Yeah, someone asked so this is this is a good this is a good question about and I probably one of the last questions here because we're almost at time, and I, I unfortunately have another meeting to go to. So, someone's asking about a open shift operator integration so that'd be interesting kind of thing to write about having operator integration with with open shift so not sure if there's a PR for that already or or or an issue but That would be really cool. So that's right. Yeah, like what is the Google foo on that. Yeah, we would know I mean that's exactly that's the github operator that that falls into the whole thing what we just mentioned earlier. Awesome, how do you get up with captain that's all operator based. Yeah. Cool, cool. Alright, so, so yeah so we're almost at time we're just about at time so again. Oh, look at that Andy already had the link handy for you. So yeah, so again, everyone. Thank you for joining Andy thank you for joining Oleg thank you for joining. It's been great. Hillary congratulations your first show your your your first official to your first official stream here. You know, again, have excited to have you here so yeah so any any last words for for Mandy or Oleg. Last, the second question about captain at the cube corn. And yes, we are going to cube corn. So you can meet us today we will have a project cars. We will also have happy hour happy hour on May 17 with some special agenda stay tuned for announcements subscribe to captain Twitter. You won't regret it. And also on May 17 there is a CD events a day, which is a conference again about all about events in CD etc captain will be actively participating there. So, see you there. Yeah, I'll put that. So I put the Twitter, Twitter link there for the captain project. So, cool cool awesome awesome so I'll see you at cube console I'll be there as well. You say that like you're going without me we're going together. Oh, my co presenter. So Hillary will also be there we'll all be there all four of us so if we're all four of us be there so catches there. So awesome so Hillary any last words. What what what do you think about your first stream. Love it hate it. Great. This is this is going to be hard to hard to top in terms of favorite streams. I say that now that could change but yeah this was a great topic and I really enjoyed it. And thank you guys so much for joining us. Yeah, thank you. It was the best stream so far for you because it's the first. You never forget your first I guess. So, so yeah so again, thank you everyone thank you for joining you thank you guys. And we'll see you next time. I forget what's coming up. Just look for Twitter, we'll have an agenda out so. So yeah again, everyone thank you for joining and like I always say, unless you can get it's only a rumor so goodbye everyone. Cheers thank you for joining. Goodbye. Thanks.