Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop.   Ha ha ha! Josh! Contin, you get here. Yeah, man. Hey, welcome back, George, David, Reggie, and some Corbin. I'm not Reggie. And you follow us on Instagram.  Subscribe if you haven't hit the like button for that juicy intro there, even though you all skipped it. Play it over. You missed gold. You missed comedic and musical gold. Yes. A golden shower, if you will. I've never understood the appeal. The appeal? Yeah. That and there's people who like to, well, I'm not even gonna say what it is, it's too gross. There's people who like gross things, and I don't understand it. What? Today, we got a video. It's from the Village Cooking Channel. I was hoping you were gonna say it's from the Village People. No. Village Cooking Channel. I would love YMCA.  The video quality is gonna be superb. I love the video quality. And boy, are we gonna get hungry. Oh yeah, but this is, say that word. Arabian mutton brownie. Ooh. With two full goat. Two full goat. So I apologize to our veg viewers. Always for the thing, because if you are, I'm assuming you're just not gonna watch this one. Probably. Yeah. Because there's gonna be a lot of meat murder. Yeah. You know, I was talking to actually a friend of mine. We don't, goat is just something that is not. No, it isn't. It's interesting. It's almost like a. Something that you'd get in a nice restaurant. Lamb is incredibly common in places comparatively. But yeah, not as con, like chicken. That's what we eat. No, chicken and beef. Chicken, beef, and sometimes turkey in most places. Yeah, turkey as well. But the primary protein, you're gonna find chicken as an alternative to a beef option everywhere. Everywhere. But yeah, mutton and goat, which is synonymous, that's not a very common meat. More high-end restaurants. Yeah, it's like a specialty meat. You can find it, but you have to really, really look for it. But I would love for these people to cook for me. No kidding. I would love to be there while they're doing it too. Yeah, me too. Love their energy. And I love, it's just the video, sound that they don't put any narration or music. Yep, that's a dead goat. Already cleaned. Two mulattas, mutton, biriyani. You're cooking so well. You're eating so well.  I could watch this as like falling asleep video, man. Yeah. It would be so relaxing just to flip. I might do that later. I love that you show the whole setup process too. I love it. Just love it. What a great sound. I know, you know what that feels like it's light and it makes your hands dirty. Looks like ginger garlic paste. Venkaya. It's a good sound. Yin-chuponge. Oh, they didn't even peel those. Does that go in the middle? Yeah. I was like, what are they doing? So it heats it all around rather than just underneath. Oh, then those will make it flame inside. Interesting. I guess you just keep track of time, right? That was awesome. Oh, it's got a smell glorious. Making his own gear masala. Oh my goodness. Oh, look at that. So was that, I think it's different organs? Like from inside? He said it was mutton meat. Yeah. I mean, it could be liver, pancreas, stomach. Yep. Briani masala, huh? I can smell it. Smell vision. Wow. Indians use curd in a lot. My goodness. You love a good fried onion? Love fried onions so much. It's one of my favorite things to Thanksgiving on the green bean salad when they cover it in the fried onions. Oh. That's a big pot. I can practically smell that thing. Making the rice now? I guess. Yeah, it has to be the rice. Yeah. Just making food out. Outside. Gotta love it. Basmati rice. That's a big spoon. What are those things called?  Nice heaping scoop of rice. The level of love my wife has for rice is unlike anything I've ever seen for a food. I gotta layer it. What is this? Saffron milk. They just soak the saffron in the milk. I'm pretty sure. You know what cashews will always remind me of? Peacocks. These raisins? Another thing of rice. Did they heap all of that on top of the goat meat? That's just gonna fall off the bone, isn't it? The ginger, the onion, the tomato. Oh, they're just gonna go at it. It's just gonna be served on top of the briani. And then when they just sit down everybody's just gonna grab handfuls. Yeah, I wouldn't be able to do that. No? You know I don't like stuff that looks like it's living snow. Well I know you don't even need it off the bone, do you? Yeah. Like your wings are boneless. Unfortunately. Yeah. Oh no, they took it apart. They did take it apart. Maybe it was just for the pitcher. Must have been. Gotta get the thumbnail, you know? Goodness gracious. So they got all that other preco. That's a yogurt-y thing. They've got the other cooked stuff that's in the middle of it off the bone. Plus the fresh. They always do this. I love it. Me too. Watermelon juice. I love their channel. They have a great channel. Everything about their channel is amazing. Obviously their content of cooking it. But the video quality makes it so engaging and beautiful. And it's almost ASMR. Kind of feels like you can smell it a lot of times. Yup. And then the payoff at the end. I mean, I would hope that even if you're a vegan or vegetarian, you would watch and support. They're... Look at all of these beautiful people. They're feeding many of whom can't cook for themselves. I just love their channel. Yeah, their channels. It's always... I don't think it's possible to be disappointed with a video of theirs. Never. Just one, you're seeing people with a major skill. Yeah. They do what they do. And it turns out so... I would have loved to be able to just go there and eat whatever they make and be there. Absolutely. Just be there and help them do it. Yeah. Just carry the heavy load or just put some wood on the fire for them. And that's the other... They have such joy in making what they make and eating it. It's contagious joy that they have. They're just... This is the very first video we ever saw. Love this channel. Oh, now I want mutton brie honey. My goodness. I just... I don't think I've had mutton brie honey. I think I've had chicken brie honey. I haven't. You know, of all the mutton things I've tasted, which aren't a grand number, but... Unless we had it in India. Well, I had it in Kolkata. That's where I first had a mutton... A beautiful mutton hand roll that... Two of them. One from a restaurant. One that was a street food kind of a thing. That was just off the charts. Extraordinarily delicious. I wish that's something... Honey Mrs. is just being able to get just like a mutton hand roll. Just a real inexpensive... Just go grab a mutton roll and eat it. So good. Shocker, I'm hungry. Yep. Anyway, so let us know what other videos there are. So the food videos we can react to down below. Down below means to comments, by the way. In case some of you don't understand what I'm saying.


Welcome to JSA TV, the newsroom for tech and telecom professionals. I'm Jamie Scato-Cutaya here in fabulous Honolulu. Take a look at this aerial footage from Excite Modula of PTC 2019. And joining me here today, my good friend, Eric Cachal. Been friends with him for 20 years now. Of course he's the CEO, president of United Cable Company, UCC. So we've got big news. Exciting to talk about. We have a new project, Eric, called the UCC Hudson Boar Pipe. Tell us a little bit about it. We've looked at a project going across the Hudson. A few others have, through private conduit, through boar pipes, through midtown. And, you know, we looked at this project from a southernmost approach, going through, you know, through bedrock and through the Hudson Riverbed, instead of going through public transportation. So no longer would I have to reach out to the Amtrak, Holland Tunnel, Lincoln Tunnel, other, you know, right-of-ways GWB. We're actually going to build it ourselves from Jersey City to Battery Park and connect in five of the largest data centers, known to man. 755 Saquakis. Equinix at campus. Newark. Obviously the entire building, but Meet Me Room in Newark, 165 Halsey. Going to 95 Christopher Columbus Street in Jersey City. Crossing over from Morris Canal Park right over Battery Park City. There'll be two pipes, five and a half inches in diameter. Four and a half inch inside, inner diameter. And going into Battery Park City and extending onto 60 Hudson Street to our friends at Data Grid and DRT. And then going up to Equinix and 118 and all the tenants that are 118. So kind of a buried project in New York. A wet project with two boar pipes coming across the Hudson. And Terrestrial, New Jersey and best part is we're equipping day one with 3456 fiber pairs. And one of the conduits and the other condo will be left empty for future use. But we will be supplying much of the much needed infrastructure in New York City that's lacking today. Yeah, sure. And Terrestrial subsea cable, absolutely your expertise. So we're talking new modern fiber infrastructure. What does that mean for Hudson, New Jersey, New York area? Well, that means a whole plethora of new fiber coming in. The latest and greatest spider web cable coming in, no longer ribbon fiber. We're looking at the 3456, which is just a little bit larger than your conventional 864 cables coming into Manhattan. The nice part is when we stub it off at the manholes, which all you'll see is manholes on either side of the Hudson, will then take 1728's around the city to other destinations. So for us brand new infrastructure, the other infrastructure that's there today probably was laid in 2001 and 2006. And again, going through public transportation. So this is completely diverse, secure, 100 feet below the Hudson River bed, something we've kind of talked about in the past. And the best part is the original team that's sold for me in the past couple of places, Tyco, Hibernia, those great destinations are also the team at UCC. So the whole sales and marketing team is intact. As a real operational and we brought on some new venture capital people that will be helping us out, some old friends from old places. So diversity through security and an expertise. I'm loving this. So what is the timeline of this install? Timeline, we're looking to fall right now. The long tent and poles permitting, as you know, we're going through like NOAA. You've got to go through a bunch of different fisheries, obviously Army Corps of Engineers. So a few hurdles to get through, but when the infrastructure would do it and New York City, the mayor and people behind bringing infrastructure into the city, do it's a big part of that as well to bring in this type of infrastructure from Jersey, hooking up local governments in both Jersey and New York. It's really one of those projects that, you know, is something you can hang your hat on one day, you know, and actually put an epitaph behind it. It's a perfect project, perfect background, and no longer one of the ones we're working across the world in. It's in our backyard. We're 30 minutes away, so it's great. Well, certainly something to sing to the kids at night. They will be there for the drilling part, yes, absolutely. The big construction stuff that kids love, even this guy. So where do we go to learn more? I definitely want to know more about this project. Absolutely, you can learn more on our website, unitedcablecompany.com. I'll be happy to go there. We have a great JSNA walkout from a few years ago that's also there on that site, so you can view that, but we're there and it's under the Board Pie project, Hudson Board Pie project. You'll see more. So hopefully you'll see this video up soon, and many more to come as we announce both our drill team, our terrestrial team, and the people that will be doing all our desktop surveys, marine surveys, and our permitting. So that will be coming out shortly. Couldn't think of a better team to leave this project for sure. We're excited to hear it. We're excited to hear it. We will be covering this story as this project unfolds, so keep it tuned in here for more. Live in the construction date, the start of the board. We're going to be there. It only takes 45 days across to Hudson, so it's very quick, you know, very quick. I love the footage already. 60 meters a day. Yeah, that's it. All right, so you heard it here first, UnitedCableCompany.com, huge news, especially for the New Jersey New Yorkers, and actually knowing that New York is such an international hub, it's really a global story as well. It is. You're looking at those major hubs anywhere from 700 tenants to 1,000 tenants in each building, let alone all the people we can reach on the way. The interesting thing is those buildings, the long halls that we'll be providing, there will only be 12 splice points. So for us, there's 6 dB loss with fusion splicing. Really, what that means to everybody? Virtual cross-connects. We're 10.2 miles from any one destination. This is virtual cross-connect world. No, you're buying pairs of fiber. We're not selling lit. We're not selling everything else. Boys stated just dark fiber, point-to-point, and the virtual cross-connects between those data centers. So easy as it can be. Love it. Thank you, Eric. It is always. And thank you viewers for tuning in to JSA TV. Happy networking.


What aspects of sociology are important when considering shell energy development? So sociology and energy development, we need to start thinking about what sociology is first. And that's a question that we often get. Sociology is a social science that focuses on how social systems and the way we're organized influences how individuals or collective groups act. So for energy development, it means that we have research and a long history research and research methods that allow us to think about consistent patterns and how energy development unfolds in different places and how those patterns relate to the ways that our social systems are organized. So what's interesting here is that there has been relatively little research on energy prior to shale. So shale sort of launched a renaissance in energy and sociology. In the last decade, it's just exploded. So the research initially began with thinking about what happens in communities where extraction is occurring. And public opinion as well, how people think about fracking is usually how it's phrased. But since then, it's quickly mushroomed to think about protest movements, regulatory systems, the way that people benefit or don't benefit from development into a very large set of research. So sociologists are particularly interested in understanding how social systems around shale particularly can lead to inequality, how some portions of society consistently benefit while others do not, and how that matches onto other systems of inequalities. So really thinking about how the benefits and the risks are distributed across people and across groups.


Ultrasonic sensors measure distance using sound waves at frequencies above the range of human hearing, much like bats or dolphins use sonar to sense their surroundings. The sensor emits a high frequency pulse through the air and then listens for that same frequency pulse to be reflected back by an object. The distance from the sensor to that object is calculated by taking the time elapsed between sending and receiving and multiplying it by the speed of sound. Finally, because the pulse is traveling the distance twice in a round trip to the object and back, we divide by two. So, placing my notebook 31 centimeters away from the sensor, it sends a pulse to the microcontroller with a duration of 1.86 milliseconds. Divide that by the speed of sound, 340 meters per second, divide by two, we arrive at 31 centimeters. Yup, it works.


Hello everybody pleasure to be here. My name is Gabriel. I'm an SSP and designer at Red Hat just So we can know who here is a redheader can raise your hand, please Okay Yeah, a lot of customers. I think thanks for joining us who here is from Latin America. I know some Brazilian people Okay, okay. Okay. Yeah Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. We are going to talk a little bit more about real-time payments and OpenShift Here with us today. It's Henrique from Banco Original, a great institution from Brazil And yeah, I think we can start with the agenda, right Henrique? Yeah, so hi everyone like Gabriel said, I'm Henrique. So today we're gonna talk about We're gonna talk about some real-time payment processing using Red Hat OpenShift at Banco Original So we'll cover a lot of overview today for all the Latin American and all the Americans too of the Brazilian bank scenario and a lot about how Our challenges were and how we solve them. So my name is Henrique. I'm Brazilian and Yes, I love soccer if anyone's wondering. It's a stereotype, but it's a pretty reliable one I worked mainly as a software engineer, but also in architecture More recently at DevOps as a manager and now I'm a tech manager Yes, I do love soccer too. Actually, I found out yesterday that He could play soccer every week and he didn't invited me like until now Yeah, but he lives really far away from me. So but I'm still waiting for it. Yeah, right Yeah, we have to As I said, I'm a solution specialist in design at Red Hat Work with a lot of FFSI companies and also previously I was a an architect at Open Innovation Labs So I love all the things about digital transformation and real cases And Hickey, I think to start we should tell all the people about Banco Original, right and The journey of being like the first digital bank in Brazil, right? What can you tell us about it? Yeah, as we are all in an interactive session Just to know who here is familiar with the digital banking or digital banks with your hand, please So we have some some are not so just an overview digital bank is a real bank with no agencies or branches Everything is done online. You open your account online and with an app and but it's a real bank So we Banco Original are the first digital bank in Brazil So we started with a lot of challenges even loss Laws have to be changed because you had to go to an agency or a branch to open your account the manager They needed to see you so we started all digital with facial recognition Remember it this is 2016. So it wasn't a thing Here I imagine in Brazil and so today we are we have a large set of products in 2019 We we change our strategies for for three years. We operated with external partners now everything since 2019 We internalize all the development department and all new products were developed We we absorb all kind of know-how and today we have 10 million opening accounts And as I said a large set of products So yes as Eric said and I think that we can frame it as a mobile technology rising during 2016-2015 or since the since the release of the iPhone right and the Banco original was the first Digital answer to these new kind of necessity that the society in Brazil Had to financial services because it was the first bank that didn't have any branch like to so the customers to to receive customers and They actually had like a pretty complete and solid application, right to establish communication with their customers So and we are talking about 2016. So this is prior to the to the pandemic and They when the pandemic rise started you guys were pretty ready for the situation that also followed some new services that were pushed by the central bank of Brazil in 2019 one of them being the open banking Architecture and the the other one called picks that is the real-time payments in Brazil And they so so just an overview picks as Gabriel said is the real-time payment system It basically allows anyone to transfer money between accounts within 10 seconds so the idea of our central bank was like to include as many people as possible in the banking system and It brought a lot of new challenges but a lot of new opportunities to the banking market and It has a sum of requirement for participants bank original is a participant It has to be fast. So as I said transactions must be completed within 10 seconds It has to be available. So it's a 24-7 system and Is that it has to be secure as I said everyone needs needed to use so it's country-wide So it has to be secure with some some rules and and with help the help of technology Also, it has to be integrated. So Every bank is a participant. We have a lot of non banks but financial institutions or even fintechs that Can be part of it. So it had to be integrated It had to be versatile it it opened a lot of opportunities to the market and it launches on a lot of new features Every month or every three every quarter So every bank that is a participant has to be versatile to adapt to those features and It has to be cheap because it's free for users. So every individual that has a bank account can use banks for free and just How do we use it? So if I like I need to pay a coffee for Gabriel So I really type his key and the the amount that I owe him and my my bank app communicates with my saying and he receives the money within 10 seconds a Key is mainly an identifier to his account. It's pretty much either his Social security number his phone number or his email So it's pretty easy. I don't need his bank account number or anything like that In the background is a little more complex Here just to illustrate that not only banks are participants. So we have Direct participants and indirect participants that communicates with the addressing database that is the SPI a Direct participant is mainly a bank a regular regulated bank But quickly now is a direct participant and indirect participants are any other company or tech company that wants to be part and use picks It can use this through the direct participant communication with our central bank It's pretty pretty big today. So I Think I can say almost a hundred percent of people in Brazil use it So we have today. This is from last month. So it's I think it's I'm sure that these numbers are Bigger yeah bigger right now. So we have 500 million keys registered 146 million users Brazil has I think 220 million people today. So it's mainly everyone that that uses a bank and we had a average 80 million in transactions and transactions Realizing transactions Daily average game in 2023. So just to summarize it like none of the Brazilians here They would have any cash Realizing they all because nobody's using cash anymore in Brazil. Am I right or right? Right? Yeah so What is picks is doing is kind of like changing the way that we do payments through our day-to-day activities So and also like with credit card and also open banking APIs And also these changing the society also brought a lot of challenges to the companies to answer with that as in As in Hickey said like You don't have only Direct participants, but you also have indirect participants that can use the APIs from the direct part Participants to participate in the ecosystem So you have a lot of companies that are included in the global ecosystem of the central bank of Brazil And also that raises like a lot of the numbers of about the transactions and also the amount And also availability was a really different thing because you had to be 24-7 right and then in 10 seconds every transaction What can you tell us a little bit more about like how Banco original? Technologically face those challenges right because it wasn't like from the day to the night that you solved all the problem Yeah, we have kind of a journey, but before that. Oh everyone that's standing up There are a lot of places here. You're free to come here. Okay, you're comfortable So like I said, we have a journey we came we started with Legacies we had legacy systems that wasn't developed by us. We have a ITH department actually only validating stuff and products and Today we have a hundred percent of managed microservices at a distributed environment and everything Everything is managed with OpenShift So how do we start from here to there? It wasn't a short period of time so we had I think three years, I think three years of a long journey to To get from here to there and we have some steps in the middle. I think Everyone of these steps were really important for maturity and to to get where we are today and really to To implement PICS because it was a big challenge. So after our legacy systems We started internalizing our our our development department to have our know-how and We started developing our standalone applications and new products but With all the evolution in the ecosystem in in technology We saw a great opportunity in using this a distributed architecture developing microservices. So we have a lot of work of Migrating a lot of our standalone applications to microservices But microservices weren't manageable at all So we have a lot of VMs with a lot of Java processes there Each one in one port And a lot of batch applications. So we needed to manage we needed To limit memory to limit use of resources. So we started using Docker with all of that in containers But even that we didn't have all that managed. So we have to like have all kind of alerts for containers We have a lot of manual work That's when we started we started Searching in the market for solutions. So we can have all that managed and we started using OpenShift To be to get all those containers managed Oh, it's actually what it was actually and introduced a new culture culture because we use only Docker containers now We have a managed service like based on Kubernetes. How do we spread that word? Inside the company and he can actually like if you can talk just a little bit because when we met It was actually during a DevOps event, right that I was doing like a webinar, right? kind of like a talk because it was live right and also a Since that day I saw that you guys from the architecture team was trying to bring everybody together Like not only for the operational side, but also from development And you actually had like an idea to create like a TV series of webinars and do kind of seasons, right? So it's not only about like having the best to but also trying to Make everybody like to feel included and also to develop the the right culture to to so these Systems that can foster in the right way. Yeah, so with all those new challenges that picks brought us because I didn't mention But we have a really short period of time to develop everything of picks. They announced. I think in late 2019 that we we had to have that in production in November 2020 so we we had to run not only us but every bank and when we implemented and started using OpenShift mainly the infrastructure team Take care of that the developers and the architecture team and the other security team weren't involved I think at all but We saw the opportunity and the the need to have everyone involved because everyone needed to know how important that is and how OpenShift and the other tools that I'll mention Could help developers in their day-by-day are the architecture team defining patterns and the security team Guarantee all the security in our environment So that's when we started involving everyone to spread that idea of a new culture for everyone to develop and know all the benefits that they could have on their on their job Yeah, yeah, so Talking about picks that's a big picture of our architecture overview So we have a hybrid environment So we have a lot of things on on-premises and with picks we started using cloud mainly AWS We have OpenShift Installed on our on-premises environment and it manages all All this is an overview only for picks so on the on-premises side we have over 70 components connecting with the cloud side that has over a hundred components because like I said about opportunities we started Selling our services Picks as a service to other institutions indirect participants and even to other banks that Didn't quite had the time to develop at all. Like I said, it was a very short period of time to develop picks and OpenShift controls mainly everything on on our on-premises side we Don't have OpenShift controlling helping us manage the cloud side yet But it we have in a in a we doing a proof of concept We're doing a lot of tests to have that up and running pretty shortly and We faced when we started using OpenShift some challenges So we had a lot a thousand of micro services. We have to worry about deployment. How will we deploy? Using a pattern how we would deploy that safe and How would that environment be secure? So we started worrying about security. How will we we are banks? So everyone everything has to be secure I don't know if anyone may maybe someone here works at a bank. It has to be secure. We have some regulations to follow So it's it's a a mainly thing that we have to worry about and reliability So it's a lot of products. So they have to be reliable I can't have like if a client needs to withdraw some money the services It's not working. So it has to everything has to be reliable We had hundreds of developers as I was in the architecture team We have to worry about How do we define patterns to? Developers worry only about developing products. So we have to worry about abstraction They don't have to worry about infrastructure or security. Of course security in developing security in cold but not security of the environment itself Their services needed to be easy to deploy that they had to have easy to deploy the services To not to worry about all the devos pipeline. They have only to worry about developing and Like I said, they had to have reliability to develop to know that what they're coding today Will be in production and working as they and the team expected And lots of new products being released not only peaks But a lot of new products in the banking market was being released So you guys know how the product teams are they they needed they need things they Passes the requirements and we need to deliver. So We have because they they worry about time to market And we have to worry about to develop their products to be secure and to be available So all the products need to be a need to be available the withdrawal example is a very good example. So The withdrawal had to be available if someone needed to to withdraw 10 10 he eyes Like at 2 a.m. So yeah, and I know what you guys are thinking, right? You look at this and you say containers because that's not possible without containers, right? And if you think about containers, you're thinking about Kubernetes, right? And so you got you guys actually had a discussion about Kubernetes, right? Was the first step to think about that. Yeah, so we were using containers here and We had to give the next step and I think is the most common path of most tech companies So let's start using Kubernetes to manage all that It can manage containers. You can use pause everything is as a resource so but as a company and Mainly as a bank. We had some concerns how the configuration of that environment would be How how much time we needed to to get the configuration? Up and running the way we needed how would we have security of our applications and even image security? So I think everyone here knows about Like the lock for j problem. So that was a concern for us The knowledge and the learning curve for our teams developing team developers team the even our team the architecture team the infrastructure team because we were on premises environment everyone managing VMs and stuff and this the Yeah, the security team the developers team at the infrastructure team and How about support so we're a bank. We have to be available and reliable We're regulated so we needed support if something happens happen and Then you guys found out that we have something called open shift. Yeah, right open shift plus And it answered most of our questions. So we saw that we have easy configuration And so with just a few steps effort had that in our environment. We we could configure Everything as we needed as a bank and our regulated institution We had security image security using ACS because of our our applications I'll get more of that later We have a we had a no low knowledge curve So with that we could get our developers worrying only about developing our security team Worrying only about security our and us architecture team worry about the architecture of all of it and our Infrastructure team not only worry about VMs and all the manual work and stuff, but now managing a Pretty distributed environment pretty easily and mainly we had Red Hat support So that was I think the main point for us if something happened We had a support on all of those topics So like he said he was given a workshop and a lot of others that occurred that we had your help to Spread all the knowledge about open shift and Kubernetes and distributed architectures With easy configuration you guys always helped it up a lot What what you said that really strikes me is that you said let Developers should focus on the value strings, right? So if we talk about team topology is like you have the platform Then you have the string-aligned teams that they've lever value direct to the customer So you try to separate like complexity from those things because they they already have complexity Dealing with the needs of the users So you had like a platform as a service that you could use So you could have like something more templated already that for them to establish and created the applications on the top of it, right? Yeah, and even they didn't have to worry about the pipelines and it was very easy for the DevOps team to The team that has to worry about the pipelines We we don't use yet the open shift pipelines, but we use tecton with Argo CD Interacting with open shift and it made it pretty easily for us to deploy and use deploy strategy Like canary release or a blue-green release or even a simple rollout or stop start So yeah was pretty easy for for the DevOps team to and Some stats. So how are we today only on the big scenario? So we have 10 k pod about 10 k pods up and running We process 1 million picks transactions a day. We have a 99.9 uptime and we can process Until now I'm pretty sure that we can do a lot more of that 130 transactions per second picks. So it's That was a peak but our environment was were pretty Healthy and nothing alarm then at race didn't blood, you know, so didn't bled and Yeah, actually like what strikes me that you also said that you talked like about a lot of developers You guys actually have you have no the number. Yeah, hundreds, right? I think like About 400 100 so a lot of things and you are the architect guy So you need to establish patterns through the company, right? Because you you're thinking about the long-term journey So what can you tell us like about how this platform the service helped you to also? Spread the knowledge and also to make it easier to the other teams to use it. Yeah So like you said, we have to worry about a lot of people using our products Our pipelines our panners developing stuff. So it has to be simple yeah, because new developers come in coming every day we teams grow up teams split in two or more teams so and applications and products keep growing and pad defining and implementing panners could be a headache if you have a Messed up environment because you have to worry about. Oh, this is this will work on this scenario, but you know the picks guys They have a different environment. So it wouldn't work for them the Like transaction guys had a different environment. They don't use like Kubernetes. They use I Don't know no JS wait Something else and so it made us it made pretty easily for us to define all those part patterns and Gave us confidence that it will work on Every team. Yeah, so here we are also talking about and I know that you had a lot of of work because you lead it some some of the initiatives around CI CD and you guys are used like Source stream as you guys use a tecton as you said Argo CD Also, like a lot of observability, right and monitoring resources because as you said like it needs to be 24 7 So you guys use it a lot of like the probes and health checks that are already present in the platform. Yeah, so We had the dinosaurs, but dinosaurs only help us help us a lot on but with alerts and stuff but We define it up patterns actually for that probes and health checks So we have a reliable environment. Like I said, it was a requirement for pigs but actually a requirement for a bank and a requirement for an IT department a development department everything has to be reliable the product guys need needs to know that the product They thought about they discover they they had to work a lot of discovery on interviews And everything has has to work up on What on the way they they thought of yeah, and uh just and you came up to the next one So also, we know that pigs is still going on. We still have like some new products that are being released Do you think that? Having that approach like also not only like to to implement it the two but also to help the teams to understand it Helped you guys to reduce the time to market to release new features Yeah, of course because like now developers can only worry about developing and Security only about secure security and infrastructure about infrastructure. So you keep them safe off like yeah Yeah, they didn't have to worry about anything else But like I said, we Well help does a lot was not not only OpenShift. We use Those three platforms that help us a lot again, we were we are a bank and ACS helped us a lot with images can in and Degreting the pipeline right like to my point integration and every every feature mainly Right has OpenShift platform I think there's no need to say anymore about that because yeah, it's very clear and we We started we starting using ACM more because on our hybrid environment It's becoming a thing to to worry about and We have multi cluster management on the on-premises side We have multi we have some clusters on the cloud side We have a lot of clusters and everything needed to be managed because on the cloud side We we can we have a lot of products that A lot of partners and other companies other banks other financial institutions use a lot of APIs So we have to have that managed to and it's going pretty well. We have some good results We're at the beginning. We're making a lot of proof of concepts now, but we're having pretty good results Also one thing that I remember is a it needs to be scalable right because like the So we we had in Brazil like the five first days in the month We used to be like a little bit rushed for for banks because but now it picks like you can have It can happen at any time right so you spoke a little bit about probes You guys also use the the horizontal horizontal pod outscaler to the to provide that scalability that those 70 applications that you said needed right yeah, so those things helped us a lot And new products are being released so pigs open a lot of new opportunities new products using pigs on the Backstage are being released and we have a lot of adoption of our customers. So we HPA and Probe and help say backstage On the the background Yeah, but I spoke a little bit about Yeah, we also use backstage But I'm I'm in the background and and with that pigs keeps evolving So that's those are some features that are helping us to To keep in keep keep the pace with basing in pigs So those are some highlights I got from the pigs agenda of our central bank So they're implementing international pigs. So at some point we will we will Will we will we can transfer the eyes to dollars and any other country they're starting working with direct debit and Guarantee assets with pigs and the payment API. I think The payment PI is the really important one everything is part of but it's a the main one because it could The idea of that is to distribute the pig pigs and payments for anyone Today I can you I can't pay all my bills using pigs I can pay anyone or anything any retail, but the payment API will Bring a lot of new opportunities and and a lot of new features for the bank environment for more people for more companies and It'll be a lot of there will be a lot of new things. So and more So you we spoke a lot about like delivering code to production faster scalability scalability With all these new products that need to be released in the next few years What is the biggest challenge that you want to to to succeed now? And what you see in the years for come to to open shift and bank original? I guess it's keep growing and had our have our Technologically speaking had our cloud environment all managed because we have products there that other partners use and more customers use We cannot we can achieve much more customers and a lot of new products. We could build and Have a revenue for the company because you know, that's what companies are for but I think having all that manage and Everything interacting and everything working is our challenges for the next multi-managed way. Yeah multi-managed So that's it. We have some time for questions Yeah, we have some time for questions. Yes, sir You said you were running multiple open shift clusters on prim Sorry, sorry I'll slow down. You said you were running multiple open shift clusters on prim. Yeah, how many are you running on prim? You know me asking we have Three today. So because we have multiple data centers So we have one when initiate data center Yeah, and it's that 10,000 pods total across all three clusters Oh, yeah, but only four picks. So we have more but with to all of the other products. Cool. Thank you You Cody then Hey, and you mentioned your monitoring strategy that you use the kind of the built-in features that came out A box of open shift in terms of external monitoring or a probe or let's say a black box Do you guys use anything? External to the cluster itself to monitor your applications. We use we have some metrics Collective systems that run within like sidecars and in applications as libraries to that collect metrics and send to an external metric Collector that we have and we can produce a lot of new monitoring on that So not not only inside open shift, but we collect the metrics of the applications and set it externally So we can build a lot of a lot of new dashboards and when it are here kind of a mix between Dynatrace Prometheus Grafana. Yeah, right? Yeah So so don't address is the external sauce to collect the the metrics that say so if the cluster was to fall down that was your What about the cluster itself I would say but about Specific about the cluster would be Prometheus and the specific about pigs applications would be Dynatrace and Prometheus together, right? Dynatrace and those systems and libraries we we built to collect all those metrics and Because develop we built though those libraries because to help Developers collect the metrics. They think they needed to they can create right metrics like product metrics or system metrics to collect that and everything is is managed externally a Lot of questions. Can I go after? Yeah Hi, and I have a question about Backups and when you are using what bounce closer manager, how do you manage backups for containers and on the different clusters Do you have any solution or it's not necessary in your case you do you mean on backups of our Like the diversion of the microservices that's that's applied So we use that based on on image on our image raster's registry I think today we are using ECR a double SCR So every deploy that generates that image is Generates a new version at ECR So if we lose anything on the cluster side, we can recover just by deploying the image again Just one are you talking about like data or the container itself? Both okay, because for data would say there are Another platforms right in the with data storage and everything but about containers They do have like quay and also ECR that have the images as well. Yes You yes, and I go back to you I Would like to know like how is the performance, you know, when you are running on the bare metal now, we are like, you know we we have an SLO of Max 500 milliseconds for all applications and for PICS applications We have a lot that on 200 90 seconds so that that's valid off on the young premises and on the cloud side So on our pipeline, we have a performance in test step that tests all of that and And validates all all our SLOs. So if microservices Doesn't achieve the SLO it isn't deployed. So it I can to answer a question. I can say We And we started using performance testing only with open ship So I don't have the data before that because it wasn't a thing that we worry about because we had Fewer products and fewer users, but with PICS are We have a lot of users and a lot of products we started worrying about so today is for pigs 200 Milliseconds, and I don't have the previous data for you. Thank you Yeah, regardless the environment where the application is running It needs to respond with the same time because if an operation past 10 seconds the central bank of Brazil is going to cancel the operation More questions actually have two questions now. That's okay. Yeah. Yeah, okay So the first one is do you use any log aggregation software like a last-search or low key? Yeah, we we started using the Elk stack, okay, but that's what we use on in our environment as well Yeah, but then we migrated to Splunk using Splunk, but we have a log library that we developed ourselves to generate logs In using a pattern so it everything will be easier with Splunk or any other two so Everything's about our logging library Regardless of the login tool we use or the environment so we migrated from the Elk to Splunk with no painless and no Other issue at all. So our login library is the main thing. Okay, cool And then the second question is I'm assuming your application is the imprecise storage What a kind of provider to use to provide those volumes to OpenShift do you like Ceph or Portworx or something like that? for On the on-premises environment, we use Oracle so Oracle database Okay It doesn't need any like file system file system persistence in the pods themselves. Just what's in the database? You guys. Yeah, you actually have like Non-stakeless applications. Yes, they do they do use Ceph and On the on-premise side is that using ODF? ODF exactly. Yeah, the data foundation. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, no problem More questions. Yes, Glenn Yeah, hi. I was thinking you using advanced cluster management Could you maybe elaborate a bit on what you are using it for like policy management get-ups full setup of clusters? We we are at the beginning of it We're doing a lot of proof-of-concepts and tests today but mainly to We are Like testing how we could have all our clusters Manage the same the same way that our on-premises cluster are configured and managed So we were getting a lot of ready-held help for that So we are on early stages of that so we have we will have that soon soon enough. Yeah, I would say like So we are going to the cloud right now and Trying to keep everything balanced and also better standardized So ACM we are we are on early stages of like trying to establish like the same configurations for the clusters and eventually yes We are going to come to like to get ops and also using different policies and other stuff Maybe a second question then because you're a bank Do you have some other way right now that you're applying? Policies or that you're checking something or is that something that you don't account for other what sorry policies But you general for the center bank center bank of Brazil you say or like? Technologically speaking right now you're talking about like regulations. Yeah, yeah, so so Our answer with an example. So as I said picks has to be secure New policies and regulations are created constantly because we have a lot of frauds for example When we started it's 24-7, but you could transfer any amount of money After 8 p.m. Today you you have a limit. So like the There's a new regulations that you have to have a limit of I think it's 5,000 highs max you can change that with your bank, but you have a limit after 8 p.m. Until 5 a.m. to to because of frauds or anything and this the busing security the central bank security team keeps investigating and and Release a new regulations and policies for that. Hey, can you go back to that slide of the SPI? So we have two types of participants in the system One's called indirect participant and the other one's called direct participant. So the direct participants they need to have kind of like a long-term relationship they they had to Like be at the central bank of Brazil had a relationship with the central bank of Brazil for long long long long time But to make it the real-time payment systems broad they created this category of the indirect participant So there are some institutions that they don't have to follow the same rules as Banco original But they are still able to use it the real-time payment systems through their APIs So they need to follow like the strict rules and regulations But those ones they are still included, but they use it through Other participants basically did the policies and the the rules are restricted to the regulated banks That that's why indirect participants cannot Interact directly with the addressing database only through direct participants Yeah, okay. Thank you. Thank you Another question Here Man in the slide you showed 113 TPS Yeah, I think it's I That's too much. How do you handle that traffic? What is your RP management strategy? This was with picks. It was a peak so what helped us handle that was HPA with our cluster and the performance SLOs That and the performance C testing I mentioned we had on our pipeline so we can If we can evict performance issues on the QA environment so because before going to production our staging environment Because if a system doesn't meet all the requirements performance talking it won't go to production so HPA and The probes and the performance testing we have on our on our pipeline helped us a lot to achieve that Was a peak so we can achieve a lot more our environment was healthy But if we continue that for like a day or two maybe something Will some problem will pop up pop out and we will have to solve it Yeah, and uh, you asked specifically about the API management like a tool or Release strategy. Okay. Yeah, but You question on that so off-tuning right so especially in our open-shift Especially in our open-shift environment right Performance tuning we all understand regular of Tuning strategies and all of that right? Can you can you give us, you know the one Big thing that was in the way and you guys had to solve For open-shift for perf tuning Right any any one big dog that you had to you know sort of solve for that'll be helpful Yeah, I think sorry the most difficult as we said was the Culture of all our teams so our infrastructure team manage a bunch of VMs and Bermuda and all of that so we didn't have knowledge and a culture of a distributed Architecture talking about I think few people knew about what a pod that was what a pod was so the Learning curve I think and the culture the spread of the culture or the most difficult challenges we faced That's why when we met we met I I talked to him about all Opportunities and needs we had to spread that culture and that knowledge Throughout the company you actually met in an insible event right yeah, I wasn't even open shift yeah, it was a nice and Because Technologically talking it's we had all ready had support but because it's configuration installation and read the doc stuff, but when we talk about culture and learning curve of Different a different set of teams. That's when the challenge came for us Yeah, if I can dig just a little deeper like this is a Typical digital transformation scenario not only for the market, but for the companies itself because You need to have like the way that you work like Prior to those that revolution is not going to work if you want to solve the problem that way If you don't implement like SLOs SLI's SLAs site reliability engineering platform engineering and Other kind of technologies that can help you you either going to take that long to to solve all the challenges Or not going to be able to do it So when we when we started like the way it was like okay So we have to and we know how to use it. So how to tune it as well How we can spread out this message across the bank because I cannot have like the architecture team Being called like every day when you have a problem at 4 a.m If they don't manage if they didn't have like if they they weren't the ones that made the changes like to the code Just because they know open shift. That's not that's not the right answer, right? So the first the first thing that we did was like, okay, you guys have like webinars, right? So we are done, right? There are more questions. They needed us to stay here But yeah, it's not it's not all about technology is about partnership and also culture. Okay. Thank you guys


To ask the Scottish government when it last met with Dumfries and Galloway Council and what was discussed. Minister Kevin Stewart. To ask the Scottish Government when it last met with Dumfries and Galloway Council and what was discussed. Minister Kevin Stewart. Thank you, ministers and officials regularly meet representatives of all Scottish local authorities, including Dumfries and Galloway, to discuss a range of issues as part of our commitment to working in partnership with local government to improve outcomes for the people of Scotland. On 13 September, the Cabinet Secretary for the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work met the South of Scotland Alliance, including the leader of Dumfries and Galloway Council, to discuss the establishment of the South of Scotland Enterprise Agency. Finlay Carson. Thank you, minister, for that response. It has been announced this month that a number of regeneration projects look to receive financial support from Dumfries and Galloway Council's town centre living fund. Can the minister tell us what support the Government is providing to encourage people to move back into town centres in towns in Dumfries and Galloway to reverse decline and boost much-needed economic development? Minister. The Government has been very supportive of the town centre first principle, which is a matter for local authorities to bring forward. I would expect local authorities to look at their local planning and ensuring that the town centre first principle applies. Minister Carson will probably be aware that I was recently in Dumfries to discuss with citizens and stakeholders around about their town centre. I was very pleased to hear that citizen-led approach, which I think has led Dumfries and Galloway Council into creating that fund and investing in town centres. I would encourage them to continue to do so. Of course, the Government will continue to support them through the town centre first principle. Joan McAlpine I commend the Dumfries town centre initiative that is indeed citizen-led, as the minister has said. I thank the minister for the great interest that he has shown into it. Does the minister agree with me that one of the big barriers to developing town centres for housing and other purposes is the vat that is levied on the restoration of buildings compared to the zero-vatted status of new out-of-town developments? I thank Ms McAlpine for her question. I am sure that she and other members have heard me in this chamber on a number of occasions calling on the UK Government to get rid of that vat on repairing of houses. That would go a long way in bringing lots and lots of buildings back into use. It seems a bit of anomaly that there is no vat on new build, but vat on repairs to existing properties. I hope that at some point the UK Government will listen to what we have said and will eradicate that vat so that we can bring more properties back into use in Dumfries and in other parts of Scotland. John Mason To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it is giving to how tenement housing can be better maintained. Minister Kemp. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Responsibility for maintaining tenements is principally the responsibility of the owners and is usually governed by rules and conditions set out in the title deeds for the flats within the block. The Tenement Scotland Act 2004 provides a structure known as the tenant management scheme for the maintenance and management of tenements. The Housing Scotland Act 2006 gave local authorities discretionary powers to require owners to carry out work in substandard houses and to provide assistance with repairs and improvements to private property. The Housing Scotland Act 2014 amended those powers to make them more effective, including new provisions to allow local authorities to pay missing shares for work carried by a majority of owners in a tenement. In the private rented sector, the new private residential tenancy comes into effect in December of this year. That will significantly improve tenant security and better enable tenants to exercise their right to report a breach of the repairing standard to the housing and property chamber of the first tier tribunal. John Mason I thank the minister for a very full answer. I take his point about title deeds, but I wonder if he would agree with me that some title deeds do not have any provision for a factor, and it then becomes very difficult for owner-occupiers or landlords of private tenants to get together, to organise things and to carry out repairs. Perhaps there is a need for ensuring that there is a factor in place for every single tenement. John Mason The Scottish Government agrees that owners of tenements should ideally plan ahead for future common repairs and maintenance. Property factors can play an important role in ensuring that repairs are made and therefore the property is maintained. However, the services of a factor come at a cost, and some homeowners would not welcome the need to hand over sums of money into a sinking fund for repairs, not required at that particular point in time. I would encourage homeowners to work together to share their responsibility of looking after their properties, but to legislate to require a factor or sinking funds would place an additional financial burden on homeowners who currently do not have those in place and may be difficult to enforce. Can I refer all members in the chamber today to have a look at the under-the-one roof website, which can be immensely beneficial in helping property owners in dealing with some of the issues that Mr Mason has raised today? Graham Simpson I am hosting or sponsoring an event on this very issue next week, and there is a cross-party interest in it. I know that Ben Macpherson has tabled a motion that I have signed on this very issue. I wonder if the minister would agree with a call from the RICS that there should be tenement health checks. Does he think that there is a need for further legislation? I asked him a written question recently about whether the powers that he mentioned that councils have are being used. He referred me to councils. I have done an FOI. I will be revealing the figures next week. He is welcome to come along and hear them to see just how effective or ineffective that legislation is. Graham Simpson I thank Mr Simpson for his invitation. I cannot say now whether I will be able to attend or not, but I will take note of that invitation. To Mr Simpson, one of the things that I am absolutely adamant about is to ensure that local authorities use the legislation that is currently at their disposal. I do not see the point in coming up with a raft of new legislation when that may not be required when current legislation is not used. I thank him for his support in trying to ensure that councils use the powers that are currently at their disposal. Beyond that, the Government itself has looked at a number of things. We are running an area-based pilot of equity loan schemes that assist owners to carry out essential repairs and energy efficiency improvements in Glasgow, Persia and Argyllun Bute. I will look at the findings from that pilot and see if there is a need to establish or sufficient demand to establish support for procurement of a nationwide scheme in the future as part of the development of Scotland's energy efficiency programme to continue to upgrade Scotland's tenement properties. I thank John Mason for raising the question on an important but often overlooked issue. Although I agree with the minister that not all solutions are necessary legislative, I also agree with him that we have to help owners to come together. I ask what activity the Government has undertaken to work with credit unions to help who could potentially help owners to come together in terms of collective savings, collective loans and potentially invoice factoring, which could help the financing of much-needed repairs to tenement buildings. Mr Johnson has come up with a particularly good idea. I am more than willing to talk to credit unions about providing help if that is at all possible. We will look at all possible solutions. That is one of the reasons why we are running the pilot that we are at this moment in time, which is helpful to those who may not afford the repairs at that point in time and allows us to take an equity stake in that property. We will get the money back in the future. I am more than willing to take on board Mr Johnson's suggestion about approaching credit unions. I will let him know how I get on in that regard. I ask the minister to bear in mind when undertaking any review of tenement law or of maintenance and guidance that it is not always very old buildings, red sandstone that we often think about, but in new towns like East Kilbride and some of the peripheral housing states, we have tenements that are of a much more modern fabric. That brings its own questions and its own problems when it has been right to buy in particular, because it can end up with mixed tenure of local authority, of owners and indeed private landlords, some of whom are not always willing to take their part. It then leads to severe factoring problems, with many owners feeling that they either get good value for money or good social value, and could that be looked at as well? I am well aware that Ms Fabiani has raised a number of points about property factors and new developments in recent times. There is provision in the Title Conditions Scotland Act 2003 on manager burdens and title deeds, and those are typically used by a developer to appoint a factor in the initial years of housing development. I know that Ms Fabiani is interested in that. Once a manager burden has expired, the owners of flats and tenements have rights to act together to dismiss a new property factor. I will continue to work with Linda Fabiani and other members to try to improve the situation and, once again, I ask all members to have a look at the Under One Reef website. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact on people in Scotland of the United Kingdom Government's extended benefit cap. The latest figures from the Department of Work and Pensions show that, at May 2017, around 3,700 households containing more than 11,000 children were subject to the benefit cap in Scotland, losing on average £57 per week. Almost two thirds of those households are lone parents, with around three quarters having a child under five years old. The Scottish Government continues to oppose the benefit cap, which is clearly impacting hardest on low-income families with children. That is why we have repeatedly called on the UK Government to reverse that policy. I certainly echo the call on the UK Government to reverse that and a long list of its other vindictive and unnecessary welfare changes. While the Parliament and the Scottish Government should not be left with a position of merely mitigating the effect of those decisions, the Scottish Government has a role in protecting people. It has currently allocated £8 million for mitigation of the benefit cap, yet we have shown that the reduction in overall spend through the benefit system as a result is £11 million. Given that the impact on households is even more severe than with the bedroom tax and yet the overall budgetary impact of fully mitigating would be less, is it not clear that the Scottish Government should strain every sinew to fill this gap, which currently stands at just £3 million, and wouldn't that make a massive difference for people in Scotland who are affected by that policy? I am grateful to the member for his supplementary question. I just say gently and respectfully that, although I completely agree with him that it is not the role of this Government or, indeed, this Parliament to merely mitigate the worst effects of what the UK Government's policies inflict on the people we represent, it is a little ironic that it then goes on to suggest that we do precisely that. Future spending is a matter for the budget. As Mr Harvey rightly says, we have allocated £8.1 million to local authorities for DHPs to mitigate in part the damaging impact of lowering the benefit cap. That is a £6 million increase on the DWP allocation last year. Of course, local authorities retain discretion to top up the DHP funds. As I have said, future spending is a matter for the budget, and allocation of DHPs will be discussed by the Scottish Government with COSLA. We are very happy to hear suggestions for both the DHP allocation and overall spending, but I would say that those suggestions should also come with suggestions of how additional funding commitments can be met. If the Scottish Government is so concerned about the effect of the benefit cap in Scotland, why is there no provision in the Minister's social security bill to deal with that? In particular, why is there no provision in that bill to provide for the creation of new benefits, which was a key part of the Smith commission package on welfare devolution? We are certainly up in the irony stakes in this portfolio question time. I am almost speechless, but not quite. It is the case, as Mr Tomkins well knows, that ministers have the powers to create new benefits. Indeed, that is precisely what we are doing in replacing the sure start grant with our best start grant, bringing a considerable financial increase in support to mothers and not only the first child but all subsequent children, unlike the UK Government, which stops at the first child only. Mr Tomkins is quite wrong to say that there is somehow some failing in our condemnation of what the UK Government is doing around the benefit cap. Indeed, I concur completely with Mr Harvie. There are many other areas of the UK Government's welfare approach that require condemnation if only they would but listen to us, but he is quite wrong to suggest that we are deliberately and willfully choosing not to act in that regard. We do not require our social security bill to provide us with powers that we already have. To ask the Scottish Government what recent meetings the Cabinet Secretary has had with the community representatives in Caithness regarding concerns about the removal of services. Scottish Government ministers regularly meet the community representatives right across Scotland, including the Highland Council area, on a range of issues as part of our commitment to working in partnership to improve outcomes for the people of Scotland. Edward Mountain. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am not sure that I answered the question. It was just that there were regular meetings. The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport, but not with the people in Caithness and not necessarily by the Cabinet Secretary. The Cabinet Secretary will agree, I am sure, with me that building communities is something that we should all embrace. Communities add strength and cohesion to society. If she really wants to build and support communities, surely she needs to speak out against the possible closure of local hospitals, the possible downgrading of palliative care, the reduction of the number of residential care beds, the amalgamation of GP services, the reduction in public services. Will she join me in speaking out against those that help only to fragment communities like the communities in Caithness? Presiding Officer, I would have thought that Mr Mountain would have been better to have addressed the substantive part of his question to the Health Secretary. Nonetheless, from my portfolio, the Community Planning, Community Empowerment Act 2020 has given community planning partnerships new statutory duties. We work very closely with local government and our wider partners across the public service to look at how we can improve decision-making arrangements, strengthen local democracy, protect and renew public services and refresh the relationship between citizens, communities and councils. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to support disabled people in the light of the paper published by the United Nations in October 2017, which sets out its concluding observations on its initial report about UK reforms. The United Nations concluding observations recognise the positive steps that the Scottish Government is taking, including the publication of our disability action plan involving disabled people in building a new social security system. Those are, of course, welcome. Now, in Scottish Government, we have begun a review of that action plan against those concluding observations and will move on to discuss with disabled people and organisations that represent them what we need to do to align our work to the areas highlighted by the UN. Indeed, I began that discussion this morning. In addition, I have written to the UK Government to ask them what they will do to address the concerns highlighted by the UN, in particular personal independence, payment regulations, employment and support allowance sanctions, and to involve disabled people in assessing UK Government policies, which will impact on their lives. The minister will be aware that there is a recommendation to, and I quote, ensure that legislation provides for the right to high-quality sign language interpretation and other forms of alternative communication in all spheres of life for deaf persons and hard-of-hearing persons in accordance with the convention. Can she advise how the Scottish Government will seek to ensure that it complies with this? As the member will know, the British Sign Language Scotland Act 2015 was passed and received Royal Assent in 2015. Members, I am sure, will know that, in following that up, we have published our first BSL national plan yesterday, the first such plan in the UK. We also recognise that delivering many of the improvements that we want to see depend on the availability of qualified BSL English interpreters with the right skills and experience. The Scottish Funding Council is already supporting an MA in BSL English interpreting. Over the next two years, we will sponsor two new training programmes, one at Heriot-Watt and one at Queen Margaret University, designed to support interpreters to work in the specialist fields of health, mental health and justice. We have also introduced and funded the first nationally funded BSL online interpreting video relay service. Finally, we fund an inclusive communication website that provides tools and guidance on how to make information accessible. To ask the Scottish Government what action it takes to monitor and protect the social and human rights of young people. We remain committed to enhancing children's rights in all aspects of Scottish life. The Children and Young People Scotland Act 2014 places duties on Scottish ministers to consider how to give better or further effect to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and report every three years what steps they have taken and what they plan to do in the fall in three years. The first report, which will include input from children and young people, is due in 2018. The Scottish Government also reports progress through the UK State Party report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in line with the committee cycles. Children's rights and wellbeing impact assessments ensure that all portfolios consider the interests of children in developing new initiatives. In addition, the programme for government made clear our plans for a comprehensive audit on the most effective and practical ways to further embed the principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in the Policy and Legislation, including the option of full incorporation into domestic law. I welcome the cabinet secretary's response. An anti-loitering device known as the mosquito, which emits a high-pitched sound effect in young people, has recently been installed at Hamilton Central Station in central Scotland region, but it is not an isolated case. The device indiscriminately affects all young people and has been roundly condemned by both the Scottish Parliament and the Children and Young People's Commissioner as being in breach of their human rights. Does the cabinet secretary agree that those devices have no place in a civilized society and that a ban on the mosquito is the only way forward to protect the social and human rights of our youngest citizens? I agree with Ms Lennon that those devices have no place in Scotland, and she might be aware that Annabelle Ewing, the Minister for Legal Affairs and Community Safety, wrote to all local authorities, public bodies and, crucially, given her constituency interest, ScotRail. In short, the Scottish Government is opposed to the use of these mosquito anti-loitering devices. We do not believe that there is a need. We do not believe that they are effective and that they do not sit well with our approach to tackling anti-social behaviour. From my perspective, I note the concerns and views of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and their concerns about whether and how measures such as those devices breach the rights of children and young people. We are currently looking at the evidence from a survey of young Scots done through young Scots. There were nearly 800 replies to that survey, and the response to Ms Ewing's correspondence will be very important as we consider what further action we may wish to take. Michelle Ballantyne National Care Leavers week runs until 28 October. Leaving care is a life-altering and often very difficult time for a young person. What action is the Scottish Government taking to promote young people's rights around continuing care and aftercare? How are those rights being effectively enforced to protect the welfare of those often very vulnerable young people? Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I thank the member for that question. Of course, the Children and Young People Act was a landmark legislation that did indeed introduce new responsibilities to the through and aftercare of looked after children. However, the essence of her point is that those children are our children and they are Scotland's parents. If people like me think that they have only got one child, they need to think again in that we have that parental responsibility towards all of our looked after children who are among some of the most disadvantaged young people in our society. There is a wealth of work taken forward by education ministers, the children and young persons ministers in particular, and there is work that is spearheaded by our own First Minister. In essence, it is about ensuring that our looked after young people at the end of the day improves their life chances and life opportunities. However, at the end of the day, like our children, they feel loved and wanted and that our responsibility is to have the same hope, dreams and ambitions for those children as we do our own. Can the minister further clarify the Government's progress towards undertaking a comprehensive audit on further embedding the principles of the UN convention on the rights of the child into policy and legislation? Given that, next year, looking ahead, it is the year of the young people, it is important that we re-look and refresh how we listen to the voices of young people and embed those voices of young people in all areas of our political and civic rights. On Ms Mackay's question, it is important that we adopt a fully participatory process and take our commitment forward in terms of the audit that she mentions. She might be interested to know that initial scoping work is under way and that includes discussions with stakeholders on the best way to include children and young people in this very important process. As outlined in last month's programme for government, the audit will start in 2018. To ask the Scottish Government what action it has taken to encourage more people to carry out voluntary work in their communities. The programme for government recognises the very vital role volunteers play in shaping Scotland and the positive contribution that they make to our society. We have set out our commitment to reinvigorate volunteering in Scotland, building on positive trends for youth engagement and continuing to support people in their volunteering. In June, I announced £3.8 million over the next four years for the Volunteer Support Fund to promote community-led volunteering, with a particular focus on engaging volunteers from disadvantaged groups. In addition, we continue to provide direct funding to Volunteer Scotland and to the 32 third sector interfaces to encourage, promote and support volunteers and volunteers to communities across Scotland. What else brings? I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. Is the cabinet secretary aware of the recent research from volunteer Edinburgh that indicates that the number of adults in the capital here who volunteer is continuing to rise and is now at 35 per cent, one of the highest rates in Scotland? But what specific action can be taken to encourage people who have not volunteered to give their time to charities and other organisations, especially men in Scotland, to get them involved? Is there a clear lack of male volunteering in Scotland, particularly being reported by some charities who are looking to male befrienders to work with service users? The point that Mr Briggs makes about male befrienders is an important one. It is encouraging to hear those statistics in terms of the higher participation in adult volunteering in the city of Edinburgh. The average across Scotland is 27 per cent, so it is right to applaud the civic efforts of the city. It is indoubtable that the biggest gift that we can give anyone is the gift of our time and people volunteer without fuss, fanfare or rewards. We need to be clear that volunteering very much is the golden thread through the fabric of our society. In terms of what more we can do, MSPs of all shades have responsibilities to talk about the value of volunteering and how it benefits £2 billion to our economy. It enables volunteers themselves to upskill, to perhaps increase their wellbeing and employability. In terms of the work that this Government will take forward, we will develop a framework that very much looks at the evidence of the value of volunteering, so that there is a coherent compelling narrative that identifies the key outcomes that we all want to achieve with key data and evidence, and that we will be able to have an informed debate about the interventions that are most appropriate and successful. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the work of the homelessness and rough sleeping action group. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The short-life homelessness and rough sleeping action group met for the first time on 5 October and immediately started working its first objective of what we can all do to minimise rough sleeping this winter. The action group will report back shortly on the issue. Its other objectives are to provide recommendations on ending rough sleeping longer-term, transforming temporary accommodation and ending homelessness in Scotland. In November, it will be meeting as part of a much larger event involving other partners. I thank the minister for that update and welcome the progress of the group. Can the minister also set out how the Scottish Government is working with Edinburgh City Council in particular to address the standard of temporary accommodation here in Edinburgh and the supply of affordable housing for those moving on from temporary accommodation? Presiding Officer, one of the homelessness and rough sleeping action groups' main objectives will be to make recommendations on how we can transform temporary accommodation in Scotland. Currently, 82 per cent of folk in temporary accommodation are in mainstream social housing, and I would like to see that number rise. Of course, all of that is against the background of UK Government welfare cuts, which means that less funding is available for temporary accommodation, but we are already committed to ensuring that all of that accommodation is the same standard as permanent accommodation. The action group will work with local authorities, such as the City of Edinburgh Council, to ensure that temporary accommodation plays a positive role in moving people on from homelessness. We will also continue to work with local authorities on that issue longer-term, through the group and beyond. We want temporary accommodation to be as short as possible, and we are increasing housing supply to help with that. Over this parliamentary period, the Scottish Government has allocated affordable housing supply programme funding of nearly £190 million to the City of Edinburgh, which we expect to deliver around 4,000 houses, primarily focusing on the social rented sector. There has been a rise in rough sleeping the last two winters, and I do not expect that this winter will be any different. I know that we are all concerned about that, but can the minister say whether he can take any immediate action, given that we know that we are going to face it this winter? There are significant resources that are used by charities such as the Bethany Trust and the City Mission. Is there anything that the Scottish Government can do this coming winter, as we know that, sadly, there will be hundreds of people sleeping and freezing on the streets of Scotland? As I stated in my earlier answer, one of the key objectives of the action group is to look at what we need to do this winter. Already, we have the winter shelter open here in Edinburgh. I understand that the winter shelter opened in Glasgow just the other week because of the weather conditions that there were during the course of Storm Ophelia. The action group is looking at this very carefully to see exactly what we need to do over the course of this winter. The Government will look carefully at all the recommendations that the group put forward, and we will take action accordingly. I agree completely and utterly with Pauline McNeill that it is unacceptable for folk to have to sleep rough. I wish that the UK Government would change its policies in terms of social security cuts, which are putting more and more folk at risk of having to sleep in the streets. To ask the Scottish Government how it ensures that rural and urban communities receive equal support. The Scottish Government seeks to support of Scotland rural and urban to create inclusive economic growth and development. We fund local authorities based on an assessment of needs, rather than geography, which ensures that local authorities receive their fair share and that the specific needs of urban and rural areas are considered. We recognise that rural communities have unique challenges that require specific support and interventions. That is why we have Highlands and Islands Enterprise and why we are creating a South of Scotland Enterprise Agency to respond to the challenges that are faced in the primarily rural areas. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. You have mentioned the rural and urban support specifically. However, the member will know that mobility is a lot harder in rural areas than in urban areas. With cuts to local council budgets, it is even harder for older people to get around rural constituencies such as the Scottish Borders. How will the Scottish Government work to ensure that older people can keep their independence without being cut off from society? Ms Hamill's question touches on an area that is a good example of cross-portfolio working. She may be aware that the Minister for Social Security is currently working on a social isolation strategy. I should stress that social isolation is not just an issue for older people. There are huge issues for some of our younger people and other groups. However, that strategy will look at how we can ensure to the good cross-government endeavour and some of the issues that she raises. The issue about mobility is an important one. Obviously, I am aware that she represents that Transport Scotland is currently looking at a border transport corridor project, which is a pre-application stage. Transport Scotland will have obligations to think about the needs of older people and people with disabilities. However, we will keep the member informed of our work on social isolation, because it is relevant to the work that the transport minister leads. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that two thirds of people with epilepsy have had their PIP benefits downgraded or denied with some consequently reporting suicidal feelings. The roll-out of PIP has indeed been beset by delays, as has led to many people having to undergo stressful assessments. For many people, their claim for PIP has been downgraded or denied, as has been outlined yet again by epilepsy action. Our response is repeatedly to call on the UK Government to halt the roll-out of PIP in Scotland. We are not the only ones, many organisations have also said that the roll-out should be halted. Most recently, in terms of the UK programme, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was specifically called for a review of PIP regulations, but the UK Government continues to roll out PIP. Here in Scotland, the Government is committing to building a rights-based social security system, which is precisely what we are currently undertaking. I thank the minister for that answer. Does she agree that those statistics only go to highlight the abject failure of the UK Government's running of the social security system? Can she set out exactly how the Scottish Government plans to do things differently, particularly in regard to the assessment process under the new Scottish social security system? I thank the member for that additional question. I agree that that is why I have made a number of commitments in regard to assessments, in particular including a clear commitment that profit-making companies will not be involved in delivering health assessments for disability benefits and that we will end the revolving door of repeat assessments. The expert group, chaired by Dr Jim McCormick of the Joseph Rowntey Foundation, has been specifically tasked by me to work out the detail of our assessment process, drawing on views from our experience panels, so that we gather the information that is required at first decision-making point and consequently reduce the need for the number of one-to-one health assessments.