And someone came up with what SOA actually means, so there was state-of-the-art, one option, Sir Baner's Oxley Act, State of Alaska, Yubecha, Sexwheel, Overdragbar, Andoening, and Sega of America.  Take a hand up if you know this. Right. I mean, a few. It should be really well known because it's the internet.  You put stuff somewhere, you find it. It's like you want to buy a pizza, so you call someone and say, Where's the best pizza shop? And someone says, I'll put you through. And they put you through, and a pizza arrives. Except it's all digital. So it should be really easy to do because there's no pizza.  And pizza shops can come and go anytime. And since internet is all about information and communication, it's a real shame that messaging, which is the core of this, is so poorly understood and so poorly made. It's really, really expensive. In most cases, it's mostly proprietary and closed and locked down. There are some open source projects, and mostly they're kind of blech. And there are some protocols, and they're kind of blech. And it really is like the last big, boring, complex, and painful area of computer science. I think we solved databases about 10 years ago, and now everyone can do SQL, and it's a child's play. No problem. So messaging is in that stage of moving from enterprise technology to something that anyone can use.  You can't actually make big applications. This is what our job is. It's connecting pieces in interesting ways. So I think big companies actually like it to be complex and painful and boring. It's actually in their interest. It keeps you a competition. It lets you lock in customers. It lets you charge profits. You have web services architecture, and you have 55 protocols to learn, and they're all complex, and they're all really huge, and of course it's expensive. But open source doesn't work that way. Open source works by making things simple, and open, and cheap, and reusable, and generic, and everywhere. It doesn't work by making things complicated. So this is the thing. How do you make things simple? Simplicity is very hard. It's a common idea people have that you start simple and you end up complex. It's actually all the way around. You start complex, and if you're very lucky, after years of work you end up very simple. And look at SQL. It's a good example. SQL systems from the 90s were big, complex. You have Oracle, which is a nightmare. Today it's SQLib. It's a plug-in library which you just call. It just works. That's what technology should do. It takes a long time though. So messaging is something that every single project invents. In my company we do custom projects for a long time, and we find ourselves every time reinventing messaging. There's a factory receiving orders from an SAP system. Well, there's some software that exports orders from SAP and then sends the factory and then processes them and sends back confirmations within messaging all the time. And every team does this, I think, and we all do it badly. That's the funny thing. It's a very easy problem to try to explain. The question is very simple. I want piece A to talk to piece B. And piece C and piece D. That's easy. But actually doing it is very, very hard. Doing it properly is very hard. And it's hard because you've got to get the addressing right. Where is piece A? Where is piece B? What if they move? What are they called? You've got to get the queuing right. What if piece B is gone temporarily? What happens to its messages? What if I have several piece Bs? How do they share the work? And the answers take time to develop. Reliability, transport systems. What protocol do I use? Is it TCP? Is it SETP? Is it multicast? What do I use to connect the pieces at the lower level? So the right answers are hard to get. And in fact, until recently, no one had the right answers. That's my theory. Lots of wrong answers. Big, expensive wrong answers. Fantastic. So a few years ago, I think because people got really fed up by this and by people, I mean large companies, users of middleware messaging, actually began to push develop a new standard called AMQP. And AMQP is very interesting. It's worth studying. I think it's the first open standard that actually tries to address the generic problem of messaging. And it's a very generic solution. You could use this for anything almost. It is a general answer to addressing, a general answer to queuing, a general answer to naming pieces. It's portable. It has no hang-ups about what language to use or what data format it's... Blobs move from A to B to C. I guess I was the first author of AMQP, so I kind of love it. But I think it was really an interesting protocol. And it's been adopted by several companies. There are, I think, five or six implementations now. And they're being used in anger, in real, in large deployments. One of our customers is Dow Jones Company, which now moved their industrial average onto AMQP backbone, which is quite impressive. They're doing something like... I think it's 100,000 messages a second, and that's constant the whole time. Full time. On and on and on and on. So they pull in data from Reuters, from NASDAQ, from Chicago Options Exchange, and it goes through a server, which filters it, selects it, and then it gets published out to different clients, which then bring it down, and it computes, amongst other things, these averages. So you have a protocol designed by users in small IT firms, which is very good. It makes it quite reasonably nice. The website is amqp.org. The website's kind of disappointing, as you'll see. Now OpenAMQ, which is what this talk is going to be about, but that's a very small part of the whole thing, is our AMQP server and client. We began making this together with AMQP about four years ago. It's, I would say, industrial quality software, very serious stuff. It's easy to use, but it's also reasonably painful to build large build system, multi-threaded, designed for big use. But yeah, download, build, compile, run, fairly straightforward. It's fast. It could be much faster, but AMQP has issues there. And it's reliable. Like I say, it runs and runs and runs, and we spent something like three or four years just making that work. Very hard to make reliable software. You get memory leaks, you get little race conditions. If it's multi-threading, it's horribly difficult, but we got that. We have a whole toolkit, in fact. We had this crazy idea of writing it in C. C is the worst possible language for serious programming. It's really a terrible language. I love it, in fact, but it's really terrible. It's very simple. It's not like Pearl.  C, you remember C. It's very simple. But when you write C, every line of code is really painful to write. To write huge amounts of code. I think that the size of open AMQ in lines of C code is approaching one million. And that's a lot of code for a small team to maintain. So we use a toolkit, which is a meta-programming toolkit, which is really funky. Meta-programming means that you actually write code that then writes code. And what we do is we write code that writes code that writes code that writes code that writes code that writes code. It gets really crazy. But it does actually produce a lot of code very cheaply. The actual, so a million lines of code for open AMQ, the meta-code is about 150,000 lines of code. And of that, I think only about 70,000 is really written by hand and half is generated. And then that produces all the C code. Meta-programming is a way to write very, very large systems which have a kind of a, you know, guaranteed level of reliability. When you generate code, you know what's in there. There's still handmade code in there, so there's still issues, of course, but they can be fixed. So that's on www.openamq.org. Now, we built an AMQP for Geoffrey Morgan. We then built Open AMQ for several clients. We delivered that, and then we looked at this for a while, and then we said, this is still too complex. People aren't adopting it. It's look at AMQP.org, look at AMQ, look at Open AMQ, try it. You'll find it too complex. Try to write a client that speaks AMQP. It's a protocol. It's written, it's documented. It takes months. That's not good. I don't like that. For me, the target audience for technology and products isn't the guy sitting in a bank with a year and a half to write a product, you know, to write an application. That's not fun. My target audience are people like me, open-source developers who have no time who want to download, try it, and it works the same day or else they give up. And for me, if you don't get AMQP and stuff like it and this way of doing messaging into the hands of, you know, developers without an enterprise, you know, financial system to back them, but just their own time and effort, then it won't work. And we will see the domination of messaging by proprietary products and by really second-class answers. So, I've been working with some guys since August on making AMQP simpler, simpler, simpler, simpler, which is quite a fun project. There are other problems with AMQP. It has some flaws, but we were still learning when we made this, you know, it's not perfect. We discovered something called REST.  REST is something which has become very fashionable in the last year or so. But in fact, it's the underpinning of HTTP. It's a very straightforward way of working with resources. What REST does is it says, look, we have a server with stuff and clients, and the clients can use create, read, update, delete patterns to work with the server resources. It's very simple. It's not complicated. The state is very clear. You know where things are at any point. You can redo, if you're not sure, you can try again. Delete, okay, delete again, no problem. So, it's a very robust protocol, whereas most protocols are very fragile. If you get it wrong, it breaks. REST is very tough. And it's a pattern which works over large scales and which is easy to use by people who don't have much time for the fine stuff. I quote from a user who was comparing REST to SOAP and XMLRPC, and he said, moving to pure HTTP allowed us to throw away the code for the XMLRPC service in brackets. I love throwing away old code. And so, I was saying, look, let's try and make AMQP work over HTTP. It's obvious. I mean, the patterns don't quite fit, but HTTP has, you know, everyone can program HTTP.  So, okay, this was the challenge. Getting AMQP working with HTTP. It took us some time. It's now there. It's called REST-MS. And what this is, it's a very clean REST, RESTful implementation of a messaging protocol which actually maps purely onto AMQP. So, your clients, your applications, speak REST-MS, which is HTTP, put, get certain resources, which I'll explain in a second. And it's just HTTP. It's just a web client. It could be in JavaScript, it could be in Perl, it could be in Python, Ruby, whatever. And it speaks to a server, which then maps that onto AMQP and it speaks to an AMQP server. And back and forth. So, it's like a proxy between AMQP and HTTP. What this means is that you can basically get from bare metal, well, bare programming language metal, if you like, onto working messaging application in a matter of a few hours. It's less. That's on www.restms.org. That's an open protocol spec which anyone can contribute to. You know, some things with AMQP I don't like is that the protocol is managed by a small group of people. It's very exclusive. If you want to contribute to it, you can't forget it. They want to accept contributions. I don't even know what's happening in version 1.0. It's happening behind the scenes. This is kind of annoying. If it's an open protocol, it should be open for anyone to contribute. So, with rest as the way it is, if you want to have an opinion on it, come with fixes, it's all there, it's all online. I was going to show an example, but very small. Basically, it's six lines. I'll read it at you, because who does not know HTTP in a modest sense. Okay, no hands, that's good. So, it starts and it says post. You know what post is, right? So, it says post slash restms slash domain slash default. This is saying, speak to my default domain object and make it create something. So, the default domain is like the factory for other objects. Content type, application slash restms.xml. That's just saying, I'm going to send you an XML document, hang on a second. Then it gives a slug. A slug is like a name, it's a slug, two points fortune. That's the header, three lines of header. And then comes in an XML document, which has brackets restms. Feed type equals service, close brackets restms, that's it. So, it's a little XML document being sent to a factory, which is a domain. I'll explain these words in a second. This tells an object on the server to create a new object. So, the server does the creation of objects and then it comes back with an HTTP 201 created with the location, which is the address of the object, to the URI. And now the client application takes a URI, does stuff with it. When it's finished, it says delete on that object. So, it can do read, update, delete on that object that just got created. So, the whole structure is self-navigating, created dynamically and navigated through URIs. This is very, very, very nice. It means that you can completely partition work between applications without any kind of notion of security or, you know, training. If you know your URI, you can access it. If you don't, you can't access it. You can have public and private resources and clients don't have to invent anything. Clients get information from the server, they use it and they give it away. Okay, now I'll explain very briefly how they work with MQP and REST-MS as architectures, how they work. It's actually quite simple. You have a board and you have chalk. So, the problem is you have applications here that want some kind of a service. They want to get pizza and you've got restaurants here that have pizza. They all have pizza. It's digital pizza, so there's no real pizza. And there's someone in the middle who can actually tell you where the restaurants are and how to get the pizza back as in forwards. So, you kind of say like, okay, I want a pizza. That's like your address. And someone here says like, yes, we have pizza. And in the middle, the request and someone's statement of we have pizza get matched up and the request for pizza comes through and it's pepperoni and then that gets sent back a pepperoni pizza. So, if you instance later this pizza restaurant burns down in a ball of fire because the guy left the stove on too long and his wife was shouting at him. And this one is now visible or it was visible before but didn't pay attention to. So, the thing about services is that they come and go completely randomly. Certainly, as a user here, you have no idea who you're talking to. It's indirect. It's abstract. This is very, very important. It's easy to make architectures. The problem is, things change. And in all IT, it's change which is the big enemy. Stability is not an issue. Anyone can write a program or compile it for correct code but change happens a lot. Here you can change stuff completely arbitrarily and that's the magic of messaging. You can add and remove pieces and they find each other dynamically. They do their work and that's it. No state necessarily shared between them. And there are different patterns. For example, in this pattern the message goes back through the central router but in fact that's not necessary. You can actually do very nice peer-to-peer messaging where you use the central point for address lookup and then they talk directly and if you know something like SIP which is the voice over IP application it works like that. A central registrar for who's online and where they are and then peer-to-peer communications. And we do this in some of our products. There's one called ZeroMQ which works like this. It's very nice. Much, much faster than MQP but MQP insists on everything going through one single central point. Now, the key concepts that MQP I think introduced and which work very, very well are the key concepts of an addressing thing here which we call an exchange and queues which connect to exchanges through bindings is a queues. I don't know how many ease here. Okay, that sounds about right. So Q binding exchange lets you create a queue that takes care of the asynchronous aspect. If there's no pizza restaurants for a second it'll wait in a queue. When one comes it'll get its work. It'll go to any kind of a robust system. And the exchange lets you then have a fixed point to talk to but which then will handle the things that come and go. So you talk to a fixed point. You say, look, I want these and these messages when they arrive. You get them in a queue. Does this make sense? Okay, this certainly works very well but in MQP there's a few gotchas in there. For example, we have different kinds of queues. We have queues which are shared queues where you basically say, look, all my pizza orders will come in this queue. I get them one by one. I share them to different pizza restaurants. They're big, important queues. We also have little private queues like I am subscribing to all the gold price. I want these prices in some little private queue for me. They're in the same space which is kind of messy. There are a few other problems with that as well. But okay. RESTMS works in a very similar fashion but we use different names just to be annoying. We call these feeds and we call these pipes and we call these joins. So a pipe is like a UNIX pipe. You create pipes, you consume from pipes. It's a very simple metaphor. They have names but the server generates the names. You say, I want a pipe. Server gives you a URI as we saw on the RESTful example.   You get a message, message content so you can access the pipe and what it has. The feed is where you send stuff. So feed would be for publishing information, for sending requests for pizza, anything. And then you connect the pipes to feeds. It's a very simple metaphor and it works. And it actually maps onto AMQP in a kind of a nice way. It's not quite one-to-one because in some of the feeds are exchanges and some actually are queues. And that's where AMQP got it wrong, things which have the same basic semantics in two different places. It separates them out. Okay. Enough of the lecture on that. It gets very detailed. We made a implementation of RESTMS called Xire. So if you were online, I would say look at Xire.com now but you can't. But I'm sure you will when you go home. Xire.com has a... Xire is the messaging server. It's open source, of course. We began this last year together with RESTMS. And it's basically a proxy for... I'll show you how it works. Typically you have an AMQP network with a big broker in the middle and applications hanging off it all around doing heavy stuff. And then you have an internet network on the outside, public internet network. You have clients here that want to access something in that network. Xire sits here. Speaks AMQP. And here speaks HTTP. Post Get Delete. So basically you can use Xire in several ways. You can use it to create a web frontend for an existing AMQP application. Which is unlikely to interest anyone here because I doubt any of you do that. More interestingly is just completely ignore this part and just use it as a messaging server. And just pretend it doesn't know. There's an AMQP engine at the back not relevant. It's basically a very simple, accessible messaging system which speaks HTTP. That's all. I think the... It's also do with the cost. The cost of learning AMQP writing an AMQP application it's weeks and months. This is a big improvement over previous systems already. Which used to be six months to a year. Getting, you know, JMS. Reasonably good still. Very, very complex. Doesn't do much more basically. AMQP is good but it's still too complex. In REST-MS you pick it up. You should be up and running in a few hours. If you're using one of the libraries that we have less time, a few minutes. And that's really the goal. The goal is to get this to be really, really accessible really easy to use and still deliver the same functionality. We lose a few things here and there. Some things we chop off. Not interesting. Maybe they come back later when we actually need them. Xire is actually built on something called X5 which is a redesign of an old thing that we made years ago called Shitami which is a web server. A very popular tough little web server I once saw on Slashdot a guy who had a Windows 95 machine with 26 hard drives and he had this site running on Slashdot. It was being Slashdot-ed and running Shitami and it was just taking it. Very tough. This was one of our early experiments in multi-threading in code. It's now been rewritten to use our new engine and that's doing the HTTP work for Xire in fact. So we'll also make a new web server which has a kind of a side product. To give you some examples of how big this is actually about three and a half lines of code. Meta lines of code if you like. Xire is about the same. They're tiny in terms of actual code work. The metaprogramming is very, very efficient. So then we were saying well that's fine. We have this software it's still a bit complex to install. We don't yet have nice binary packaging because my friend Benjamin has been working for like six months. Where's Benjamin? He's not there yet. To try and get a deviant packaging working it's very difficult. It's all fud's work and it takes time and stuff. So we still deliver source code. It's annoying for many people especially on Windows where with Microsoft compilers they're just so bad. So we made a live site. This is fun. It's called Live Xire com. And again if you had Wi-Fi you could go and try it right away but you can't. So just imagine it. Basically it's a running RESTMS server. It's running online. You can access it. It's an open server. You can use it to publish stuff, receive stuff.  You can look at them and try them. And there is a seven line Perl script basically. And it's doing micro blogging. So you publish to a feed with your name and a comment and you can receive from a feed and you can basically just do micro blogging like that. And it's really, really simple to do. So you're probably asking by now what's actually different here? We know a lot of stuff. We have RSS, we have Atom, Pub. What's different? What am I getting if I try this out? So I'll try some sales. I don't usually do sales. I'm usually a programmer. But okay. I think the biggest thing is that stuff's happening here. Interesting stuff. Useful stuff happening on the server on your behalf. The most interesting is queuing. Now if you look at RSS, RSS basically says here's a feed. And then every now and then you go and look at your feed again. You pull and you say where's my feed? It's very slow. And you can maybe get 10 or 15 or 20 items and then the things hang. And it's horribly slow. For a little amount of data it's like, it's incredible. And it's all pulling. So you have to pull, pull, pull, pull. And you're asking the server, has something changed? Has something changed? Has something changed? You couldn't imagine a less efficient way of doing messaging. It's the worst possible design. Atom, Pub is better. It's definitely got better pattern. It's very restful. If you look at Atom, Pub, the spec, how they work, it's very nice in terms of rest. But it's still pulling. You're still saying here's my feed, get my feed, look at my feed. Okay, fine. You have to go and ask them when do they arrive. This is a really bad way of making any kind of system. So systems should be asynchronous. You should be event-driven. That means that it arrived. Thanks. And most time you're waiting on stuff. So you say, I wait. When it arrives, I continue. What we do in REST MS is we have what's called a long pull. A long pull says get a message. It's not there yet. When it arrives, I get it. So the get action, the get method actually can be an asynchronous get. It's kind of weird. The URI exists before the object exists. It works very nicely. So you can have queues which are sitting on the server waiting for you, private queues.  It's really like a mailbox. A little bit like email. But much simpler than email. Much, much simpler. Addressing. So again, protocols like Atom, Pub are very nice, but there's no abstraction. There's no addressing. You publish to a feed, you read from a feed. Well, it's better than publishing to a directly point-to-point. But it's still very tightly coupled. With REST MS you can say, look, I have a pipe and my pipe collects data from these and these and these feeds with these conditions. I get my stuff in my pipe and I read it when I want. So the pipe is actually doing a little bit like searching on feeds of data in real time. And whatever it's matching, it picks up and puts aside and then you can pick up in your application. So you can imagine new ways of doing information processing. Let's say you want to monitor IRC channels on FreeNet, which is by the way not allowed. I tried it and they're like, you can't do that. Okay, fine. Whatever. And you want to see when they mention your product or your name. You have all these channels talking. Maybe they're talking about you. It's a great paranoid tool. So you can search, of course. IRC logs. You can index them and you can search them. That's useless. You want to get in on the chat. You want to come in when they're talking about you and say, yeah, that's true. That's great. He's a great guy. I know him personally. Or yeah, that's a great product. Or no, no, it's all lies. It's all lies. But you want to be there in real time. Information when it's old is useless. This is really the way it goes. Information, the value decays really quickly. So you want to be able to monitor the whole of FreeNet in real time.  Don't do this. This is by the not allowed, but this is what you would do if it was allowed. Subscribe to all the channels. Publish all of the content of the channels onto a feed on LiveZire.com. Create a pipe and say on this pipe, I want to match on these and these and these words. Read your pipe. That's it. That's simple. Conclusions. Messaging can be fun. And it should be fun. It's communication. It's what we like doing best of all. So the internet is all about. It's communicating. Making pieces of work together.  We have new open protocols that change the game. They really change the game. The messaging has been dominated by products, first of all. APIs, secondly. And protocols, really, it's a very recent phenomena. APIs are useless. That's ODBC. You know, it didn't get us anywhere. You want standard protocols. Anyone can compete. You want open source products. Anyone can improve. You want competition. You want freedom from lock-in. You want the programmers actually fighting to make a better product. So, for example, with OpenAMQ and MQP. You know, we find it was too slow. So we have some guys in Slovakia friends of ours. FastAMQ. We start with zero MQ. Which is basically doing a lot of this work with no broker and they're hitting four million messages a second with latency of about 10 microseconds just in software. Really extraordinary. This is competition. People saying, I can do better. And it's all open source. So you get the input from, you know, the input from Intel, from other people helping us with that. MQP is good. It's still too complex for me. It's failed in its mission of being simple and accessible. It's enterprise technology, which is really no good. All that means is that it's a problem. You want it to be web technology for me. So, my advice is to try, have a look at RESTMS. Try it out.  If you're a Python or a Ruby or a Lua programmer and you feel like it, then, you know, rewrite my Perl class and contribute as a class in other languages, go for it. Try that. Tell us what you think. It should, in theory, be simpler to use an XML RPC, much, much simpler than SOAP. And it should be very close to production ready. We're talking about code that's been, you know, there's three and a half K lines of code that is new. And it's running on an MQP backbone which has been running for years and years in production. So it's very close to production ready, the whole thing. That's it. I'll take questions now. It's a good question. The way I see it, so there's different points of view in this. My point of view is standards is work of the community and that it's a matter of selection, as in natural selection. In other words, standards for me should develop by an organic process where people propose small improvements and the good ones get adopted and the bad ones get thrown away. So for me, the best approach to standards I've seen ever in IT is the RFC model where there are lots and lots and lots and lots of small standards. And interoperability is a matter of that one, that one, that one, that one, that one, and that one. You know, I implement RFC 1-1-8, I implement RFC this and this and they're all very formal, they're all easy to verify because the standard is a small piece of specification. That's my view. MQP doesn't really do that. MQP is getting very big monolithic standard, so interoperability with MQP as it stands is a difficult thing to even prove, let alone achieve. What I've been working on, apart from software, is a process around MQP to encourage community-driven standards development and RESTMS is part of that.  It's had to do it without a top-down structure, without committees, without meetings, without that and it's based on what we did in other organizations like DigiStand how to make good, simple, accessible open standards. If you're doing any kind of standards work, it's fun to look at that and that's interoperability. It's based on people trying specs implementing them saying it's good, it's not good and if it's good and you get two or three companies implementing it, teams implementing it, you have interoperability. You don't interoperate with products only with standards. Otherwise you get this business where my product is doing this I'll change mine to make work with yours.  You interoperate with written specifications and if they're not simple and small you can't do that and therefore you don't get interoperability. Next question. Regular developers. Can you repeat the question? The question was, is the messaging for regular developers or for enterprise? Roughly. Well, there's no contradiction. The thing is that enterprises and enterprises, we mean big companies with many staff have a very high tolerance for pain. They don't mind using really complicated technologies to take a long time to learn.  They don't mind that. Little companies do mind that. So little companies need it to be very cheap, very simple and very effective, very quickly. Actually they're quite small to be honest. They're well-known but they're actually the team there is like four or five people and they're very, very good and they actually push us to make things a lot simpler. Which is interesting. Exceptional. That's very unusual in large businesses of that good team but they were in fact a team that used to work at a small internet start-up called MarketWatch which was bought and so they're very competent people. It's unusual. Most big companies are filled with very incompetent people. I don't want to be unkind but that's the truth. And they don't really want they want things to be comfortably difficult. It makes everyone's life in a certain way easy. Big budgets, big projects, not necessary. So my goal is to really make this easy for people like me who are basically lazy. I don't like having to be really concentrated to understand something. I want it to be simple, to work automatically, to be, you know, full-proof. It's more fun and it's also part of the art. If you make software that good that it works for anybody. You know. That's an achievement. Next question? Right. So there are the volumes that we talk about, they go from one message a second up to five million messages a second. That's the volumes we talk about in real-life use that we see. If you're doing a if you're picking stories from the BBC, it's one per second. If you're lucky, if they're working really hard. If you are processing orders on the Chicago options exchange, it's five million per second. So obviously there are trade-offs in different ways of doing things. This guy here aims at that level. So if you want to see how to make stuff if you want to see how to make stuff that can process millions per second look at zero MQ. It takes a different approach. There's no broker, it's basically a library which you plug into your application and you have to write applications very, very, very carefully because if you make mistakes in applications it slows everything down. And then the other end, I have REST-MS which I don't think it's one a second I think it's probably about a hundred or five hundred a second but it's very chatty, REST-MS and REST is very chatty. It's get my message delete my message. One by one. Now you can batch it. So I'm not really worried about it if I have a hundred a second I can make it ten thousand per second by batching messages which we do a lot also in MQP. So the trick is you make it simple you make it work you find out where it's too slow you make it better you don't start by making it fantastic start making it simple and making it work. And then when people say look it's too slow for me make it better. MQP it's somewhere here it can do something like a hundred thousand to about five hundred thousand a second depending on the implementation which is more than anyone needs outside of certain large companies. You mean like choreography? Does curing a message distribution also stores later so you can stop? I would say not my problem the thing is that we work in layers and this layer is about shoving blobs of data around the network between peers. We're doing addressing, we're doing queuing we're doing simple APIs we're doing simple patterns for reliability that's it. On top of that you can build all kinds of services including right no what I was going to say was it'll come so when you have layers that work and are trusted people will build on that. Companies like Tipco need to always raise the bar because they're selling stuff open source we don't care we can stay quite happily at one level make it better and better but it'll happen people using Tipco will say well why am I paying ten thousand per core per year for this and I can make it myself on top of OpenAMQ okay go make it at the back a question no at the front no and there are many many messaging products many thousands but and there are many open source products the trick is what are you actually buying and this is this is the thing it is we have product we have API we have protocol and again you compare to SQL you can be buying Oracle you're buying a product well if you're comparing Oracle to side based on formics you're not winning anything you're just choosing which lock in you know you're going to get now open source it's better but it's still a product you're still locked in okay you have APIs APIs are better but APIs don't actually guarantee you very much because APIs are always extended modified and changed ODBC again a good example now so you want a standard SQL 92 this is the way a select statement works if you stick to that it's going to be portable and now you're suddenly you're free and now you can take Oracle put in my SQL and if you stick to that SQL statement it'll work so actually when you when you're buying technology solutions if you're buying products you're just choosing a way to be locked in unfortunately APIs is better but it's still not enough this is the problem in Java is Java is all APIs you have GMS messaging it's an API and every single provider is different in all different ways so you're just choosing different kind of lock in so it's about standards and it's a very important DDS it's a protocol it's patented and it's not well documented and okay what can I say I'm not a fan of DDS not a fan of patents indeed how long do we have still did anyone get Wi-Fi working in the meantime no you mean did you get Wi-Fi working no sorry okay then you're in trouble no I'm just joking brokers fail there are different answers to that question the one I like best is the broker shouldn't fail and in fact we put our effort into making the broker that doesn't fail which is more fun than making a solution for when the broker does fail so it's like you know I have a car what happens if my car breaks well what we'll do is we'll sell you two cars and then we'll drive behind you in the second car all the time the first car breaks you jump in the second car you carry on it's fantastic this is what they do I'm serious okay this is called the backup broker and you actually have two brokers running and two big machines and the one that's going and this one dies so then you switch off the backup broker and then you hope it all works now useless this is what enterprise likes but it's useless it's really a bad way of making reliability yes machine could break down so backup machine possibly a good idea possibly two machines you're worried about your machines but today machines don't break down anymore again machines are very reliable they have failsafe power supplies they have failsafe disks okay your data center could burn down okay your building could explode sure it could it's really a matter of how paranoid you are what we discovered in the end was that you can actually make the software completely not really reliable within the parameters of your application now you can always crash it doing different things we have stuff that runs day and night in company A and some other guy says look I do this and it dies like wow that's something new he does software is never reliable without limit but within the limit of a particular environment it can be 100% reliable at that point it never crashes and then after six months or a year the customer says wow it never crashes and if it does crash it restarts really quickly and if you take an example like Dow Jones they don't mind if it crashes in fact as long as they get the data back within one minute as long as they get no duplicates they don't mind if they lose data in fact but they hate getting data twice imagine that the stock price of Microsoft is going up and suddenly you know they would be crazy so a gap is fine data later in the wrong order or double is really bad so companies have also different requirements there are different answers to that question and my answer is make it really reliable and you know try not to make it crash try to stop it crashing unfortunately we've been doing this for something like 15 years now we have our own tools for that we have co-generators we have one called GSL I mean it gets really really complex I don't want to talk about it too much because it's this is not simple but as a co-generator we have frameworks again a modeling tool and if you look at imatics.com you'll find some reference to this co-generation is unfortunately very it's very leveraged so it gets very abstract very quickly and that's a bit of a shame it means that people don't understand what we do in fact when we write when we write software we invent new languages, meta languages modeling languages which describe protocols, describe state machines we generate from that we generate the generators it lets us work very quickly but also means if you look at the code you'll be like what the fuck this is impossibly complicated code the generator code is really really complex and the meta code is very abstract so it's a bit of a difficulty for participation it does that as right very good software very quickly it's open source it's open source yes all open source it's all all the meta code is GPL GSD ok hands up who hears for the next speech not my speech just to see ok thanks guys


The next item of business is consideration of a motion of condolence in the name of Humza Yousaf in tribute to Winnie Ewing, an inspiring and hugely influential politician, an MSP, an MP and an MP, and of course the first person to chair the reconvened Scottish Parliament in 1999, and the flags outside the Parliament today are lowered as a mark of respect. I call on the First Minister to speak to and move motion 10350. It is with great sadness that I move this motion of condolence in my name in paying tribute to Winnie Ewing.  Born in 1929 in Scotland, and indeed in a world that is very, very different to our own, Winifred Margaret Ewing was brought up in Glasgow. She became active in politics while studying law at Glasgow University, joining the Student Nationalists Association, something a few of us are familiar with. It was there that she met a one Ian Hamilton and he asked her whether she would like to be part of an infamous trip down to Westminster Abbey to repatriate the stone of destiny. The only thing that prevented Winnie Ewing from making that journey was that she did not have a driver's licence and Ian Hamilton needed a driver. In a life of a trailblazer who achieved so much, it may be fair to say that that was the only stone that she left unturned. Even at this point in Winnie Ewing's life, she was clearly destined to be a trailblazer. For a woman that has a high profile career in law with something of her rarity in those less equal days, and a career in politics, forget about it. Unheard of for a woman, particularly a woman of nationalist persuasion. During the 1950s and 1960s, Winnie's legal career began to flourish. At that time, she met her beloved husband Stuart, and she would go on to have three children. Winnie was studying for the English Bar when a bi-election was declared in the constituency of Hamilton. As we all know only too well, bi-elections are only remembered and only have a national impact when the result is in upset. That would be something of an understatement when it came to Winnie Ewing's incredible victory in 1967. It was not too overstated, but it was seismic. Professor James Mitchell best summed up its profound significance when he wrote and I quote, After Hamilton politics in Scotland would be viewed through a Scottish lens by all parties seeking support north of the border. Although she failed to hold on to our Hamilton seat in 1970, Winnie was again elected in 1974 to serve the people of Murray shortly afterwards, began her long career as a member of the European Parliament. She secured some spectacular successes for the Highland communities that she represented. She helped to secure objective one assistance for the whole of the Highlands and Islands in 1989, which opened up major resources for infrastructure and employment projects. Winnie was clearly motivated by her desire for Scottish independence, but she was also involved in major international issues of the day. Her infamous declaration, Stop the World Scotland Wants to Get On, has been quoted countless times, but what is often forgotten is the context in which she said it. At a time where Scotland had no national parliament and had little international personality, Winnie worked tirelessly to foster understanding of Scotland and goodwill for our nation as a friend of a range of prominent European and indeed international figures. Those international figures included the likes of Jacques Chirac, Golda Meir and politicians from across the island of Ireland, including David Humean-Paisley, Eamon The Valorah and Hughes Funeral. She attended by hiring a small plane at her own expense. As an MEP, she was also elected as a parliamentary delegate to the Lomay Convention, a trade and aid agreement between European, African, Caribbean and Pacific nations. That opened the door to Winnie working on a variety of international issues of importance. Memorably, she succeeded in bringing the Lomay Assembly to meet in Inverness. It is also fair to say that Winnie was known for her compassion and tirelessly fighting for those who did not have a voice. Winnie was a champion of the Jewish dissidents in the Soviet Union. One prisoner in particular was Wolf Zell Manson, whose case she publicised and campaigned for relentlessly until he was finally released to Israel. Winnie devoted much of her career for speaking out for those who could not speak for themselves.  She knew that a key part of that would be to mobilise Scotland's young people. In her maiden speech as an MP in 1967, Winnie had spoken in favour of reducing the voting age to 18. Years later, as an MEP, she deserves enormous credit as an architect of the EU's Erasmus Student Exchange programme. I hope that Scotland will, in time, be able to rejoin. Even after all that, Winnie was not finished. In 1999, she was elected to the first Scottish Parliament. As the oldest member that fell to her to open the first session, we can only imagine the emotions that she felt as she paid tribute to colleagues and friends from across political parties who had campaigned for decades to see this very place become a reality. Winnie's message on that hopeful day was very much one for the future. If the 1707 Parliament's demise had been the end of an old saying, Winnie said that the creation of this place allowed us to write a new one. She urged us to sing in harmony and to do so with fortissimo. Down the years, there has certainly been a lot of fortissimo in this building, sometimes even a fair amount of disharmony, but we should never allow ourselves to forget that there has also been a lot of harmony. Across political parties, this chamber has been able to fulfil Winnie's wish by working together, and, fair to say, as a Parliament, we have achieved a lot for the people that we represent over the years. This Parliament has also helped Scotland to build new friends and partners the world over. The SNP would not categorically not be where we are today without the contribution of Winnie. With her passing, my party mourns the loss of a giant of our movement, both in terms of contribution and sheer force of personality. Equally, Scotland as a whole has lost a relentless champion and a true pioneer. To Fergus, to Annabelle, to Terry and to all of the Ewing family, we offer our condolences, but we hope that your grief is tempered by an enormous pride for your wonderful mother and a wonderful grandmother, for a life that was well lived and lived, ultimately, in the service of others. On behalf of the whole chamber, I say thank you, madam, because. Thank you, Presiding Officer. There are not many politicians who, whilst never achieving senior office and government, nevertheless become household names. But Winnie Ewing certainly falls into that category. The First Minister referenced Winnie Ewing's interests and appeal to young people. I can well remember being at school in Inverness in the 1970s when Winnie Ewing was already a household name at that point, and at that time was the MP for Murray and Nairn. In my primary school, everyone wore on their blazers little yellow badges in her tribute, bearing the legend it's Scotland's oil. It might amuse the chamber to know that even my own blazer might have borne such a badge, although to the relief of my colleagues behind me, I should say, my political views have matured since that particular point. Even back then, Winnie Ewing was well known as an energetic campaigner and someone who fought hard for her constituents. She lost her seat in Westminster in 1979 to the Conservative candidate but bounced straight back in fighting the European Parliament election. That's a candidate for the then Highlands and Islands constituency just a few weeks later, in due course beating the well-known liberal Russell Johnson, who had been MP for Inverness. I can well remember the pictures of Winnie Ewing, who was attending the Cabinet Cup final, which I recall correctly was being played at the Buck's Park in Inverness. Winnie was only part of the crowd, but quickly realised that Russell Johnson, who was her opponent in the election, was a member of the official party and was having the players presented to him before the match. If she took it upon herself to run across the pitch pursued by a TV camera to insert herself uninvited in the official party, so certainly she was never shy of putting herself forward or wanting to miss an opportunity to be in the limelight. I'm now the only Conservative MSP whose time in this place overlapped with Winnie in the first session of this Parliament. Despite our political differences, I always found her to be engaging company, and on more than a few occasions we found common cause. I can recall one particular occasion at the opening of this new Parliament building in 2004. By that point, Winnie had stood down as an MSP, but had been invited as an honoured guest to the opening of the new building. Due to the security around the late Queen, who was performing the opening, all the roads around the Parliament had been closed to traffic. I happened to meet Winnie as she stepped out of a taxi at the top of Abbey Hill, very frustrated that she was so far away from the Parliament building. She was, she quickly discovered, wearing quite unsuitable shoes for the long walk down Abbey Hill to the Parliament building. I offered her my arm to a sister in the journey, and we proceeded arm in arm towards the Parliament building for the Royal opening. On the way, she regaled me with various tidbits of political gossip, which even now I would not dare repeat to the chamber. However, I do remember as we came in sight of the front of the Parliament, she complained bitterly to me that the union flag was flying above the Parliament building. I thought that it might be impolite to disagree with her, and maybe I was just terrified, so I maintained a diplomatic silence at that particular point. However, Winnie Ewing was not just a nationalist icon, but someone who was highly respected across the political spectrum, having served in three different parliaments. She will be greatly missed, but all those who knew her, and many who did not ever have the chance to meet her, but knew her simply by reputation. My condolences and those of my party go to the whole family, but in particular to our colleagues Annabelle and Fergus, who as well as losing a political mentor have lost a dear mum. I know how proud Winnie was of them both and enjoyed seeing how their careers developed and see them take up the causes that she fought so hard for. It is an honour to speak today on behalf of the Scottish Labour Party in memory of Winnie Ewing. Before I begin, can I also take the opportunity to offer my condolences again and those of everyone at Scottish Labour to the family of Winnie Ewing, in particular to Annabelle, Fergus and Terry? To many members on the SNP benches and to many more SNP members across the country, Winnie Ewing was and remains an iconic figure and an important part of their lives, so I am sure that many SNP MSPs have felt her absence keenly, and they too have my sincerest condolences. However, it is hard to think of Winnie Ewing and the story of her life without thinking of the story of Scotland in the 20th and 21st centuries. She may have been christened madame Ecos for other reasons, but in many ways the political and public life of Winnie Ewing serves as a crucial insight into the changes that Scotland has been through. At a time when it was rare for young women to receive a university education and to enter politics, Winnie Ewing did both. She did not pull up the ladder after her. She was generous in her encouragement of women across all parties. Far from picking an easy life, as we have heard, Winnie Ewing joined the SNP at that time more likely to visit London to try and liberate the stone of destiny than to enter the House of Commons. However, as the First Minister said, she was indeed a trailblazer. In one of many elections, by elections indeed in the Hamilton area, Winnie Ewing scored a remarkable victory for the SNP, sending shockwaves right the way across the United Kingdom. In part, because of that success, Labour fast-tracked its long-held plan for a Scottish Assembly, so this Parliament, in which we are all in today, is very much part of the Winnie Ewing story. As an MEP, Winnie became famous for her very forthright speeches in the European Parliament, and later, indeed, as a grandee in this very Parliament. I was pleased to be in the chamber when, in that role, she had the historic privilege of opening this Parliament in 1999, reconvening the Parliament for the first time since 1707 and the first time under a representative democracy. The legacy of Winnie Ewing is clear for all to see in the electoral success of her party and in the articulate and thoughtful work done in this chamber by her children, Fergus and Annabelle, and by her daughter-in-law Margaret Ewing, who also served in the Scottish Parliament. I always look forward to Winnie Ewing's contributions in the Parliament, even though we occasionally disagreed. I have to be honest, she could be quite fearsome when she was disagreeing, but I have to also say that she often gave a harder time to her own side than to me, an honourable tradition that has been reintroduced by her children. I will conclude with this anecdote. Whilst door-knocking recently, and I won't be so cruel as to say where, I came upon the doorstep of an older gentleman, some would say a wiser gentleman. He is now an XNP member. In a lovely conversation, he told me that he had previously joined the SNP in 1967 due to the inspirational Winnie Ewing and her win in the by-election, and he still held her in the highest regard. So, while the electoral fortunes of political parties come and go, it is clear to see that, above the ebb and flow of the tide of politics, the influence and legacy of Winnie Ewing lives on. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I would like to begin as others have by offering mine and my party's sincere condolences to Winnie Ewing's family and friends. I know for many in this chamber she had an impact not just on their political journeys but their personal lives too.  A historic by-election win for the SNP in Hamilton advocating for independence on the international stage and reconvening this Scottish Parliament. That's an honour that no one else will ever have and I hope that we can also take this time to remind ourselves that this place has to go on to achieve everything that was hoped for in that very first session. She's undoubtedly left her mark on the political landscape. She represented in politics in a time where it was unusual to say the least to see women taking a prominent role. It's a reminder to us that we need to continue to value women in politics and help all of us to bring everything that we can to the job. We have to recognise the unique situation that we are in with both Fergus and Annabelle here as sitting members. Her loss of the party and the independence movement is obvious, but the loss to her family is profound. Finding the words to express that loss and convey how sorry I truly am is almost impossible. The gravity of grief, let alone having to navigate that grief in the public eye, is great and it takes a great deal of strength to be able to sit through a session such as this. I hope that the outpouring of feeling and the formal marking of your mum's death bring some comfort. Grief is a process and I hope that long after this debate concludes, colleagues around the chamber will continue to provide a listening ear. Winnie Ewing achieved what many of us hope to do in our lifetimes. She's a tangible legacy, written into the history books with people who love her to continue to tell her stories. Both the triumphant ones of Winnie's elections and undoubtedly the deeply personal ones of fun. Those are the things that paint the picture of a life well lived, that add colour and light when grief can weigh heavy. I wanted to finish, Presiding Officer, with a poem that was sent to me by a friend at my own time of loss, that I hope that those across the chamber who feel Winnie's loss will find some comfort in. Don't think of her as gone away, her journey's just begun. Life holds so many facets, this earth is only one. She's in a place of warmth and comfort where there are no days or years. Think how she must be wishing that we could know today how nothing but our sadness can really pass away and think of her as living in the hearts of those she touched. For nothing loved is ever lost and she was loved so much. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. This is an afternoon of clear emotion and we've just seen that in the very moving words of Gillian Mackay. I also extend the heartfelt condolences of my party, the Liberal Democrats, to everyone who loved Winnie Ewing in the chamber today, not least her children, Annabelle and Fergus. It's lovely to see Annabelle's lectern up and Fergus's pen in his hand, so I hope that we may get some contribution from them later. I've been particularly moved by what we've heard today, especially the laughter. I think that it's a testimony to the women that this chamber has been filled with laughter on what would otherwise be a solemn occasion. I didn't know Winnie. I think that I met her when I was a lobbyist, but it is impossible not to have been taken by her formidable reputation. I have said several times that it is incumbent on all of us elected to this chamber to reflect the better nature of the people that we are here to serve. Winnie Ewing did that and did that with a plon. On the news of her passing, my Scottish Liberal Democrat colleague Alistair Carmichael said that Winnie was renowned for her fierce determination, which was amply matched by her sense of fun. That meant that, in his words, even those who disagreed with her held her in respect and admiration. I think that, after hearing what we've heard today, that is clearly true. Her mark on Scottish politics is as indelible as the legacy it leaves. You yourself, Presiding Officer, referenced the fact that she was the first person to speak in this Parliament when it was reconvened after 300 years. Her portrait rightly hangs near the entrance to this chamber, because it is in part due to her efforts in Tyler's campaigning that the Scottish Parliament stands here today. The famous 1967 by-election victory in Hamilton was groundbreaking in many ways, but what strikes me as we reflect on was how undoubtedly important it was in paving the way for many more women, from all parties, from all political strikes, both in this chamber and beyond both to be inspired and then to go out and get elected. In her time as a member of the British delegation to the fledgling European Parliament and in her tenure as an MEP, it was her commitment and passion that helped to forge lasting and strong ties between Scotland and Europe. In fact, as we have heard, she is one of the few people to have served in all three of our parliaments, or as was, which is, I think, testament to her ardent commitment to public service.  All of those achievements highlight a career that I think many of us in this chamber, regardless of our political side or stripes, would look up to and aspire to emulate. Although, clearly, a lot of her politics were at odds with mine and my parties, I admire her greatly. In fact, it is difficult not to. She will be remembered as a stalwart, as a trailblazer, and, for her passion, drive and perseverance, all of which will have lasting impact on our society far beyond her passing. Presiding Officer, it is an honour to be called to make a contribution to this debate on the motion of condolence for my mother, Winnie Ewing. At the outset, I would wish to thank the First Minister and, indeed, all the other speakers for their kind and thoughtful words today. Indeed, the family has been touched and supported by the condolences that we have received from across the chamber, Scotland and further afield. From my mother's sensational victory in November 1967 in the Hamilton by-election to her unseating, the Secretary of State for Scotland in Murray and Nairn in the February 1974 election, from her victory in the first directly elected European Parliament elections for the Highlands and Islands in 1979, to her holding that seat in three more elections with vastly increased majorities, from her winning her Highlands and Islands seat as member of this Parliament to her historic words in formally reconvening this Parliament, this long-track record of electoral success, very much against the odds, was not down to luck but rather was as a result of how my mother was able to inspire people. For she was not just clever, kind and generous, she was not only stylish and charismatic, but Winnie walked in other people's shoes and they knew that she would speak up for them. Winnie transformed political campaigning, she spoke directly to people in their factories, in their homes and on the streets. Indeed, by the sheer power of her personality in the Hamilton by-election campaign, it is not an exaggeration to say that she created a new mood of optimism there in Hamilton and across Scotland. Winnie inspired people to imagine how things could be in a normal independent country with transformative powers to create a fairer society and to participate in the world directly, taking our seat in the United Nations between Saudi Arabia and Senegal. The early Westminster years were tough for my mother as the sole SNP MP in a House of Commons of 630 members. There was, it had to be said, a great deal of hostility, much involving outright misogyny. When my mother was elected in 1967, having in fact been encouraged to stand by my late father, we kids were all under 11, with my younger brother, Terry, just three and a half years old. My mum was often met on arriving home on a Thursday night, frequently exhausted, with a rather disgruntled wee boy running to the door where Terry posed two crushing questions. Where you been? Why you went? I am sure that that plaintive cry strikes a cord with many colleagues across the chamber and I am pleased to report that my wee brother Terry's grammar has improved massively over the years. It is simply beyond doubt that Winnie blazed a trail for women. She was far ahead of her time. She set up her own legal practice at 28. She became a respected and busy Glasgow criminal defence lawyer. She then became secretary of the Glasgow Bar Association and she was also president of the Seroptimus Club of Glasgow Central. Winnie demonstrated that a women's place was wherever she chose it to be, including in politics. Perhaps what is less well known is that Winnie personally inspired many women to stand for elections, some of whom I see around the chamber today. Winnie was a champion of women's rights. A friend of different political views in her condolence card to me said, all women in Scotland, I am sure, are proud of Winnie and what she did for us. A lifelong campaigner for human rights and oppressed minorities, Winnie was also a good friend to the Jewish community in Scotland, working with fellow Glasgow solicitor and friend Leslie Wilson to free prisoners of conscience from the Soviet Union. In her 24 years as member of the European Parliament, Winnie was steadfast in standing up for our fishermen and for our fishing communities. She always spoke up for the Scottish interests. She was a champion of the Gaelic language and she did, indeed, earn the Soviet quay madame Ecos. She worked with MEPs from other political groups and made common cause in getting things done that would benefit Scotland and Europe more generally. We can indeed see that in her work to get the Erasmus scheme up and running when she was chair of the European Parliament's Education and Culture Committee, and we can see that in her bringing the LOMI assembly to Inverness. We can also see that recognition in her being awarded the Medaill en Orch Rhymerit Europial, further to a presentation by the then European Commission president Jean-Claude Junker in November 2014 in Luxembourg. When my mother reconvened the Scottish Parliament on 12 May 1999, she said in her contribution from the chair that she had four practical hopes for the Parliament, that we strive to adopt a more consensual style, perhaps a work in progress, Presiding Officer, that we be fair in our procedures to minorities, that the very existence of this Parliament leads to better relations with our neighbours across these aisles, and that we live in harmony together, both those born here and those who have chosen to make Scotland their home. Presiding Officer, I imagine that my mother would not mind me adding here. Indeed, I expect that she would be a bit disappointed if I did not, that her hopes for our party would be that we remain a national party speaking up for all parts of Scotland, that we never take any vote for granted and that we continue to seek to persuade our fellow citizens of the opportunities of independence by reasoned and courteous debate. It would be wrong for me not to mention just how much our father Stuart devoted his life to provide support for Winnie, without which she simply would not have been able to do all the things that she did. She did help my father Stuart in fact in his bid to become a Glasgow councillor in the 70s, and in a Saturday night pub canvas in Mary Hill, she introduced my dad, who many here will know was not exactly quite as gregarious as my mum, it is fair to say, but she introduced a rather reluctant Stuart to a group of ladies who were having a very good night out in the pub in Mary Hill. She introduced my dad with the words Ladies, this is your council candidate and my husband Stuart, to which there was a bit of a silence, a bit of a pause, and then the deadpan reply came, Winnie, are you boasting or apologising? Presiding Officer, Winnie was a trailblazer for women. She was a legend in her own lifetime, a heroine and a patriot, but for the family she was also our mum, and Fergus, Terry and I are inordinately proud of her. Thank you. We'll take a minute or two before we resume proceedings this afternoon.


Hello team seeing our Richardson here with McPon Russ Smith kind of an end-of-year wrap-up to wrap up a terrific 2018 and even more important already start to look forward to 2019 so it's great to be here on Facebook live and McPon you got anything you want to say to the team before we get rolling I'm just grateful sir for this opportunity as much as we travel to reach those that we can't through Facebook live So thanks for this opportunity. Yeah, great. I think a lot of people have signed on We've got some questions ready to go So we'll get right to Q&A and then what we'll do is we'll have kind of a wrap-up at the end Just about how to set our minds for the holiday. Okay, thanks first question This just in all right. We'll future deployments look like Truman's deployment They came back to home port halfway through their deployment will future deployments be similar so as you may know the new national defense strategy and our new way of doing business is to Be less predictable. We call this dynamic force employment and so naval forces inherently maneuver forces we do our best when we are moving around the globe and Cause it everybody Our rivals to think about what we're doing and respond we want our rivals responding to what we're doing Now the Harry S Truman strike group was the first group strike group to go out with a dynamic force employment plan and We went to places that we haven't taken a carry on a long time We took the carrier above the Arctic Circle for the first time since 1991 We did a tremendous amount of work high-end naval exercising and training with some terrific allies and partners all of that just to try and exercise our full maneuver capability as As a naval force element Listen, it's about being a bit unpredictable Our rivals and so this time the Truman came back and did a working port visit in the middle of their deployment And they did that in Norfolk That's not going to be the plan every single time and so we're going to have to build some adaptability in build some flexibility in and all the while keeping this as under control and Informed as possible For our allies and partners and most importantly for our families So we'll look forward to doing more of this going forward certainly in 2019 We're going to learn a tremendous amount from the Truman strike groups deployment. We'll roll all those lessons going forward Okay, so it's going to be a bit of a new way of doing business. We'll make sure that we do it in a sustainable way And we'll keep everybody as informed as possible. Thanks. Great question. Great way to start Is the Navy encouraging sailors to opt into the blended retirement system? We don't really have a stand on whether you want to opt in or opt out It is a fact that about 80% of the sailors that join us don't stay for retirement. So the BRS does offer Sailors a lot more opportunity to walk out the door with something rather than nothing if you don't stay to retirement eligibility What I would encourage you to do and we've been asking you to do is make a deliberate decision If you don't opt in by December 31st the system will automatically opt you out if you're going to opt out That's okay, but it's better that you make the deliberate decision that you're going to have to live with By getting in logging in and making that decision yourself I encourage you to go to our fleet and family support center talk to our certified financial planners go to your financial Institutions wherever you do your banking get some really good informed advice and make a really good decision for you because It's your retirement and you're going to have to live with the consequences So be smart talk to people that can help you make smart decisions and make the decision. That's right for you Now I couldn't add anything more to that everybody has their own situation There's lots of advice out there make a deliberate decision Rather than just let the system default to it. Yes, sir. Great. Yeah, great answer second question See, you know it seems like freedom of navigation ops in the South China Sea have increased in the last year Is this something we can expect going into the future? Let me put these freedom of navigation ops into a little bit of broader context First of all, there is a system of international rules and norms out there There are you the United Nation convention on the law to see there are there are laws out there and The United States Navy will continue to fly and sail and operate wherever those international laws apply and allow and Furthermore will advocate for those laws For our allies and partners and in fact everybody, right? This is the system that has enabled a tremendous surge in prosperity for the world And so as part of that advocacy as part of that support for those laws We do these freedom of navigation ops and we do dozens of them around the world It is not just a thing that we do in the South China Sea and so it's important. It's an important part of our Advocacy for these laws that we do these freedom and navigation ops and we'll continue to do them going into the future So you can expect that Next what is the shift in focus regarding collateral duties? We've been talking about this for a while now and a few years ago The chief enable personnel De-weighted the the weight that collateral duties have at a selection board We can do that and we've done that at the selection board process The problem is some command teams and not all in fact not most But some command teams in their ranking boards at the local level are still making decisions on sailors based on collateral duty and performance And unfortunately that can disadvantage a sailor when that e-ball goes in and it goes to the selection board and the mass Chiefs sit down and they rack and stack and they compare and we're looking for technical expertise We're looking for the rating experts that are going to help us get after the high-end fight I need everybody out there in the hinterland to really look at the evals that they're doing and look at the way they're evaluating their personnel and Make sure that you're picking the rating experts make sure you're picking the sailors who are doing the job We're paying them to do primarily and that's the thing that you're using to grade them and make and determine Who's the best and most fully qualified at your local level when you rank them and send those evals into the board? And that's how we're gonna pick the best talent. Did you say hinterland? I did sir Okay, so hey Think about has this just right. It's really all about becoming a Functional, you know sailor that is focused on the war fighting and operational problem that faces us So be a solid member of that operational team be ready to fight your command And that's what we want to be evaluated on that and Our character right our character and we want to make sure particularly as we get into leadership positions That we were putting the right types of people in front of our sailors that the people that know their job that are experts but also are the type of people from an integrity and Character standpoint that that live a life of honor courage and commitment. Those are the types of people we want leading our sailors So great question. Absolutely sir. All right Okay, as it stands, you know gloves can only be worn with the parka Can we change the instruction to include wearing gloves with the fleece when it's worn as a standalone outer garment? Okay, so this is one of those C&O moments I guess that I've got to decide whether the Navy can wear gloves with the fleece if it's worn as a standalone outer garment It's a tremendously weighty decision I'm gonna give it a few moments of thought make pond any thoughts. What do you think? I think it's a great idea It's a great idea. I do. Okay. It's done. You can wear gloves with the fleece when it's worn as a standalone outer garment easy Merry Christmas Sorry technical difficulties couldn't read that one So we can't Make pond. Why can't we negotiate for fallen orders if we are selected for a dependent restricted tour? The system right now only really allows us to look at and at prioritized billets out to 12 months So doing that won't really allow us to do bundled orders the good news that you're gonna love and in the comment section If you look down, you'll see a link to this that our people have placed You'll see a a detailing marketplace link that you should look on which will allow you to get a look at that a Quick look at how detailing marketplace is gonna look What cheap enabled personnel is put together with detailing marketplace is gonna do something we call tailored compensation Which is gonna give you the opportunity to do some things like bundled orders and give you some geographic stability or the ability to Take a little bit less our be SR SRB and get follow-on orders to maybe a different location that you want Take a hard tour for us in Bahrain Maybe you get follow-on orders to Norfolk if that's where you want to go It allows us greater detailing flexibility It allows you it'll allow you to move around perhaps between different skill sets that are related And allow you to do a lot of different things But we're moving towards a system that will allow whoever asks this question To get closer to what you're talking about with bundled orders and geographic stability We're just not quite there yet, but we're also not talking about if you look at that link about a Jetsons future We're talking about the next 18 to 24 months when we get this IT online and we really get the ability to do what we want to do Yeah, so coming right down the pike one to two years We're gonna be moving into this new regime which really allows us to have a lot more transparent and informed Conversation certainly about how we meet our mission as a Navy, but also about how we can tailor our Approach tailor your career to make you contribute to the Navy's mission, but also address your priorities So whether you hey if you want to go to one operational tour after another we got lots of jobs like that if you want to get some stability for Putting your children through school or something like that. We've we've got opportunities like that Maybe you want to get some education. We've got opportunities. So as we grow to understand your priorities better We can then tailor an approach, right? It allows us to first and foremost meet our mission as the most powerful Navy on earth And then also meet our mission to serve our sailors and their priorities as best we can sir Coming down the pike very soon Okay The what is so now coming back to me the collateral duty question again. All right, so we've I Think mcpond addressed this again. This is coming right off Facebook live How do I think about collateral duties mcpond nailed this it's a matter of what do we really prioritize as we choose our Leaders and those people who want to advance going forward. So We want those people to be chosen based on their primary war fighting and operational assignments And collateral duties are very important, but we don't want them to be a distraction to that That principal focus on becoming more lethal Navy. Okay. Thanks I've heard a lot about change the boot camp. Could you explain what those changes are? It's a great question. Absolutely We put a lot of work in We got a lot of feedback that boot camp wasn't focused on turning out sailors that were ready for the fleet environment and After taking a really long look and send a team of folks up there to take a look at what we do and how we do it deconstructing the syllabus that we have we Made a lot of structural changes and in short we stress the sailors that the recruits out We take them take a knee We give them the opportunity to learn how to cope with that stress and then we gradually increase pressure and decrease predictability Much like the fleet environment over the time that they're there until they get to the BST 21 trainer And then when they get to that BST 21 trainer They're actually graded on what they do and they're not new skill sets that they see for the first time They actually are doing things that they have been trained to do they've touched they felt all of the damage control training all of the Firefighting training the medical drills. They've done all those things in the ships and compartments. It's no longer 96 sailors watch while for sailors do Everyone gets repetitive touches on all this stuff and they get ready to do it There's a forming standard a PT standard they have to meet and there's a higher PT standard to graduate from boot camp and We're with the warrior toughness pilot We are turning out a sailor who is better equipped and better raw stock for the fleet to turn into that combat ready sailor Yeah, and so just as big pond said we're actually turning out sailors who are tougher this program has gotten more challenging But the other thing is is that the recruits are really rising to that challenge and there is Less attrition the fewer people dropping out now then there were before so it's really kind of a win-win We're getting a sailor who's more ready to report to their command and contribute to watch standing contribute to damage control be part of that operational team and Our graduation rate is actually going up. So it's really like you say they want a challenge They come to us wanting that challenge. That's why we're giving it to you. Yeah, that's why we join right so okay great question all right How's the Navy? Handling personnel has seemed to avoid see to see duty. Some of us are doing back-to-back sea duty while shipmates are doing years on shore This is a great question And if you think about some of the major personnel trends the major trends in the Navy There's probably two that we should keep in mind as we answer this question one is Our Navy is growing okay In fact, we are bringing in as many recruits as the system can bear right now about 40,000 recruits a year are going through Boot camp and onto a school and that's about the systems limit right now And we're looking to see if we can grow that but bottom line the Navy is a growing organization right now to meet our responsibilities to the nation Second, you know at the end of the day the Navy is about going to sea. That's why we exist we exist to exert Influence in the maritime domain we go forward We protect America from attack at sea we promote our interests around the world at sea and we promote and increase our prosperity by keeping sea lanes open Getting access to markets at sea and so this is this is the fundamental business of the Navy as we have taken a look across the naval Force all the fleets we are prioritizing and incentivizing all of those Opportunities to go to sea okay, so these are two big trends one. We're growing and two we're getting back to our sea going Purpose right when we get in our sea legs back, so you'll find that there's a lot of prioritization To fill all of those billets at sea and we'll take a little bit of risk on the shore, so those are the big trends Okay, this is another uniform question I'm not really prepared to answer it right now. It's has another thing to do with the fleeces Let me take this one under consideration for a little bit and make sure I understand it And if it's an easy one, we'll get right back out to you before the holidays. Okay. Thanks Okay, so this is a good question Is there a plan to speed up the process for obtaining a security clearance? The wait times have been out of control long and it's really starting to affect our Abilities to do our jobs and hire on new people well I'll tell you that is true, and that's not just the Navy's issue. That's really across the Department and We have a focus of the entire department's leadership on that. Certainly. I'm focused on it. Mig puns focused on it we've had some success with some Sort of tiger teens that go down to fleet concentration areas and help people fill out the paperwork Sometimes these delays really come from just you know, the paperwork wasn't filled out, right? And you know how long it takes just to get it out and get it back so we Can expedite and optimize this process by making sure that we fill the paperwork out Right the first time and that smooths the way getting through but we're hired on more people We're taking a very very focused look at what we need to do to get that time crunched down But here this loud and clear I 100% agree that it's taken too long and we're getting after it Is there anything being done about sailors who are in closed-out rates? If by closed-out you mean closed-down rates like we're rolling zeros for advancement NPC makes every up every Every opportunity available to sailors in rates that have very little advancement Admiral Hughes and C&P goes over quotas for every single rate every single advancement cycle And we do everything we can one to avoid big swings between up and down numbers for advancement and to where there is Opportunity and we can take some risk where there is a rating that has zero opportunity We try to provide at least one or two quotas so We only had I think one or two ratings that had zero quota opportunities And that was just in rates where either they're about to close or we just can't promote growth because frankly There's no opportunity and we don't want to damage a rating far into the future We're trying to work out opportunities for growth in the future. So For ratings that are closing There are processes to cross-rating the related skill sets or other opportunities and like I said earlier with detailing marketplace That process is going to become a lot easier in the future. Is this something we're rating modernization? Yes, sir finding those related skill sets again We're especially at the apprentice level where you can find a quicker way to move over into something That's less backed up and provides greater opportunity to move up into greater positions of leadership is what we definitely want Yeah, so I think bottom line working together, you know, you working with the Navy with us We can find a path forward and we want to find a path for that We've invested a tremendous amount in you you've invested a tremendous amount of the Navy And it would just be a shame if we had to take that investment and just kind of cast it aside So let's find a way forward. Let's work together to find a transition plan. Okay? Okay You know, can you tell us what we can expect from a possible government shutdown? I think we're gonna be okay there Everybody's working on moving forward. It's hard to predict the future But we're gonna do everything we can to take care of our own and make sure that we have the least disruption Can we please provide feedback and or scoring from chief selection boards Unfortunately the bar is different every year the criteria is slightly different But certainly the competitive pool of sailors that competes every year is different because some are selected some are not some retire Some move on to other programs And so to compare and contrast and say hey, you were the you were the first non-select this year Does not mean that you should have any expectation that you will be selected next year because the competitive pool may be different next year to give you that false hope to have you have the To have you second guessing the board or somebody else second guessing what the board did if you're not in there in a part of that debate It's a little bit unfair and that's why we don't provide that narrative post board There are always post board briefs that talk about selection Highlights things that you should do when we talk about back-to-back short-duty back-to-back C-duty is usually something that plays very well in a selection board taking those challenging jobs and Succeeding in positions of technical expertise and leadership and focusing on those positive attributes that we look for those are always published And they're always available those Enlisted career paths that we publish long before a board that gives you an idea that those are briefed at a selection board And they're not a secret Those are the things that you should be focusing on as the things that you do to prepare yourself for a selection board and to Find advancement in selection Yes, so Said another way the other thing to make sure we consider is that the proceedings of the board are sealed, right? So those are Not to be talked about outside the the boardroom itself And so the details are just so the board members taking oath that they Protect those conversations, you know, you can imagine some some very very Specific and personal matters are talked about But just as big pond said the general trend the sustained superior performance at sea In those hard jobs those things have lasting value will always set you up or for goodness in terms of advancing Getting the types of jobs that you want Okay So, you know Wouldn't it be cheaper to upgrade the kitty hawk then buy a new CVN the answer is no All right, and no and oh by the way, we've got to be thinking into the future so if you think about the Future systems that are coming online the future weapons systems. They need a new sort of power generation system Right. It's one that's configured for pulse power think about the new air wing, right? It's gonna consist of a number of different types of aircraft and so the Gerald R. Ford class is Configured for that future it is ready to be you know that carry that is relevant for the next 50 or so years It gets to be very very Expensive to keep these older ships at sea in proper material condition And it's it's impossible to upgrade them in some cases to be ready for the future and so we do this type of analysis every time we think about a new class of ship and We do that kind of cost-benefit analysis as part of that and That that shapes the decisions we make so right now our best bet is to go forward into the future with the Ford class carrier and that's going to be relevant and a major part of our Navy For as far as we can see Can we please speed up the process for single sailors to receive BH after they apply? What I will tell you and this is my shameless plug for NPC and for CNP Is the my Navy career center if you haven't had a chance to give them a call? Please do it's around the clock 24-hour service It's replacing the PSD process which can be cumbersome and absolutely had customer service hours These people will help you 24 hours a day seven days a week. They're standing by for your call Call them and use that. I don't have the number. We'll post it in the comments section. So you have it available But the reason that we're going to this model is so that you can get that kind of help When you need it where you need it anywhere you are around the globe because we are a 24-hour operation and sailors to Deserve that 24-hour service. So if you find it's not working we want your feedback And I've been saying that everywhere we've gone because all we're getting so far is a lot of positive feedback And so if there is negative feedback, we want to tweak the machine to make it work But we've been getting a lot of positive feedback So please keep flexing that system because we know as we start to close PSD's down that we're going to continue to sort of cause that change in the system that will throw people off and We're going to get commentary. So help us help you make that more robust and work well But but use that number my Navy career center will help you We've had thousands and thousands of people use my native career center and just as big bun said the Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive people are getting their problems and issues fixed there And so and we're listening to feedback just as big fun said to make it even better So that that's a great answer and a great plug for that that capability. Okay, we're going to go to the last question now And it's for mcplot What do you say to sailors and their families who think that asking for help with their mental health may affect their career or their security clearance? I really appreciate the opportunity to answer this question. So The holidays can be tough Any time of year can be tough with with what we do as a business, you know between deployments And even being at home during the holidays, you know, sailors carry a heavy burden and we recognize that Over the course of my 30 year career, I've maintained an SCI clearance and I have used clergy I've used our counseling services and I've done that to find a balance in my life And I've maintained my security clearance throughout because I've used those rather than turning to other means to self-medicate and find relief It's okay not to be okay. It's not okay not to ask for help We need to be good shipmates and teammates to ourselves and to each other to be able to look at each other and listen and recognize when sometimes we just need to be a good ear and Sometimes recognize when being a good ear is not enough because what that friend of yours is dealing with is a little bit too heavy And you need to get an expert who deals with that professionally Involved and get them some help. So this is where we need that eat me cap to me cap eyeball to eyeball Help from each other to look out for each other because that's what we do We're teammates.  They know What's on their teammates minds what their teammates are going through? They support one another right and so this is what world championship teams do This is what makes them world champions. And so as we move into the holidays I want all of you to know that you are members of the world's best Navy. We are the world champion Navy that Members of a world champion team. They carry themselves differently. They understand that they've got to come to practice They've got to come to training. They've got to be part of that team so that when that that moment arises When you've got to really deliver You have prepared with your team To be your absolute very best at that moment and so as we go into the holidays Everybody finds some time to get a little bit of rest, right? That's you know, this is a great leave period but do so mindful of One do so responsibly. Okay, make sure you get rested But we need you to come back the new year is going to take off and accelerate very quickly And we need you to come back rest it and ready to go and to even on leave Let's stay in touch with one another make sure we're reaching out We're we're we're taking leave and resting as a team so that we can come back and be stronger as a team in 2019 there'll be a lot of stuff coming out to talk about the forward direction in 2019 I'm going to be putting out a message that that sort of focuses on the way ahead and We need every player to be at their full strength to maintain The United States Navy as the most powerful in the Navy Everybody going out there and have a happy holiday Enjoy yourself spend some time with your family spend some time with your shipmates and we'll see in the new year Let's get to it. We are Navy