Los Alamos National Laboratory Extends Contract with Locus Technologies for Four More Years

Locus to continue managing environmental data and information for the nation’s largest laboratory

SAN FRANCISCO, California and LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, October 28, 2013 — Locus Technologies (Locus), the industry leader in Web-based environmental software, announced today that Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has chosen to extend its contract with Locus for four more years.

LANL is a United States Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National Security (LANS), located in Los Alamos, N.M. LANL conducts multidisciplinary research in national security, outer space, renewable energy, medicine, nanotechnology, and supercomputing. LANL is one of three laboratories in the United States at which the government conducts classified work to care for the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile.

Modifications that accompany the extended contract include additional functionality for air data management and reporting that involves better flexibility for increased data transparency. LANL also will put more focus on field and mobile devices, and significant enhancements will be made to Intellus New Mexico, the public-facing website that Locus created for LANL’s data.

The original contract between LANL and Locus began in 2011, with the option of extending the contract for four additional years. LANL will continue to use Locus’ Environmental Information Management software (EIM) to address legacy site contamination and to take a better aggregate view of its operations for environmental stewardship.

“We are very proud that LANL trusts our EIM software to continue assisting it with its environmental data management requirements,” said Neno Duplan, President and CEO of Locus. “We look forward to continuing to work with the team of talented professionals at LANL, and also continuing to assist DOE sites with their environmental data management challenges.”

“High-quality data is a crucial component in environmental stewardship and our commitment to transparency with the public,” said Chris Echohawk, office leader of the Laboratory’s Operations Improvement Office.

 

ABOUT LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY
Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, the Babcock & Wilcox Company, and URS for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration.

Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.

LANL news media contact: Fred deSousa, (505) 665-3430, fdesousa@lanl.gov

The Governor of California Signs Fracking Regulation Bill

Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation this past Friday that marks California’s first regulation for hydraulic fracturing.

The bill, which is most likely the toughest regulation yet for fracking, requires oil drillers to disclose the chemicals used and acquire permits before engaging in fracking. Other provisions of the legislation, which will take effect in January, call for oil companies to test groundwater, notify neighboring landowners before drilling, and to conduct a study about fracking’s impact on the environment by January 2015.

Although the bill was originally met with support from environmental groups, some of these groups have revoked their endorsements and now argue the regulation is not enough; whereas oil companies oppose it, claiming the bill will make it much harder to take full advantage of the oil from California’s southern San Joaquin Valley.

Gov. Brown has said the bill “establishes strong environmental protections and transparency requirements.” However, he also plans to explore further changes next year to clarify the new requirements.

Before this legislation, SB4, California did not have regulations for fracking. The new bill will undoubtedly require a great deal more reporting and permitting for the oil and gas industry. For companies engaging in hydraulic fracturing in California, the time is now to prepare for this new bill by organizing their information and automating reporting to ensure that regulations are met while their operational costs are lowered.

Locus Introduces Software Functionality to Support ERPIMS Imports and Exports

Companies can now use Locus’ EIM software to comply with the U.S. Air Force standard ERPIMS system

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., 16 September 2013 — Locus Technologies (Locus), the leader in cloud-based environmental compliance and information management software, has expanded its award-winning Environmental Information Management (EIM) software to support ERPIMS imports and exports.

The Environmental Resources Program Information Management System (ERPIMS) is the system that the U.S. Air Force uses for validation and management of data from all environmental projects at its bases. This data can be complex, containing analytical chemistry samples, tests, and results, as well as monitoring well specifications, descriptions of sites, and hydrogeological information. It can also be a challenge for organizations working on relevant Air Force projects to correctly abide by ERPIMS formatting. In order to support these organizations, Locus has added ERPIMS laboratory imports and critical regulatory exports to its EIM software.

“Locus’ EIM has been managing detailed analytical information since 1999, and today manages environmental data for some of the world’s largest companies,” said Neno Duplan, President and CEO of Locus. “Incorporating ERPIMS compatibility within EIM is just another example of how we are constantly striving to make processes simpler for our current and future customers.”

EIM was the first subscription-based application to organize, manage, and report sampling, analytical and subsurface data in the Cloud. The ERPIMS import and export functionality is the newest component in EIM, and is available for use immediately.

Cloud Apps Critical Requirement No. 5: World-Class Data Center and Security

A cloud application provider should be able to offer excellent security and data privacy better than its customers can do on their own, and at no additional cost. Processes and policies should encompass physical, network, application, and data-level security, as well as full backup and disaster recovery. The provider should be compliant with security-oriented laws and auditing programs, including SOC 1 Report on Controls over Financial Reporting (SSAE 16), (formerly known as SAS70 Type II), and SOC 2 Report on Controls over Security, Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality, and Privacy; both developed and administered by the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) and the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) for use by practitioners in the performance of trust services engagements.

Reputable SaaS providers are proving that SaaS can be done at least as securely as most enterprise implementations, and in some cases more securely. For example, at Locus, direct access to the database is limited to a select set of people on Locus’ operations staff. A typical on-premises ERP implementation would grant this access to a much wider group, creating a security challenge. SaaS providers must take a holistic approach to security, ranging from technical safety guards such as encryption to understanding data privacy laws and compliance, and building those safety guards into every product and process.
Locus has adopted the following SOC 2 principles and related criteria:

  • Security. The system is protected against unauthorized access (both physical and logical).
  • Availability. The system is available for operation and use as committed to or agreed upon.
  • Processing integrity. System processing is complete, accurate, timely, and authorized.
  • Confidentiality. Information designated as confidential is protected as committed to or agreed upon.
  • Privacy. Personal information is collected, used, retained, disclosed, and destroyed in conformity with the commitments in the entity’s privacy notice and with criteria set forth in generally accepted privacy principles issued by the AICPA and CICA.

It should be the responsibility of CIOs to conduct due diligence on SaaS providers. Go in and see what they’re doing around data security and privacy.
No one should enter a relationship without thoroughly vetting the provider’s capabilities. Providers that won’t allow you a thorough examination, claiming all kinds of reasons, are the ones to avoid.

Why Water Quality has its Own Month

How many times has water played a part in your routine activities today? Maybe you have taken a shower, made coffee, flushed a toilet, or washed your hands. Chances are you’ve already counted on water multiple times today, and probably didn’t think twice about it.

As we count down the last few days of National Water Quality Month, I would like to elaborate on the importance of this resource, and urgency of this subject. Water is obviously a crucial resource to sustain life. Not only used for daily consumption, but also for general hygiene, recreational purposes, and as the necessary fuel to propel everyday business operations. Most energy generation sources also heavily depend on high water availability. However, water is not a limitless resource. Yet, most of us continue to take it for granted while it grows in scarcity as the world’s population booms.

Only about three percent of the world’s water supply is drinking water, and more than half of this is unavailable, locked in ice at the North and South poles. The remaining supply is distributed in surface water bodies like lakes and rivers, and in underground repositories as groundwater. According to the United Nations, 783 million people do not have access to clean water. This number is likely to worsen in the future as the demand for clean water is expected to rise 40 percent by 2030.

With water being at such high demand, and such limited availability, it is essential that proper water quality be achieved. This is most important for safety reasons, but water quality issues also pose potential liabilities of billions of dollars to businesses worldwide.

Water is key to the operations and success of many businesses in various industries, such as agriculture, oil & gas, and nuclear. It is the responsibility of these businesses to properly manage this risk, and of all the types of water-related data that companies need, measurements pertaining to water quality stand out in terms of their sheer quantity and complexity.

Existing regulations are largely limited to requiring the monitoring and reporting of the contamination of surface water bodies and groundwater by various industrial processes, spills, and other releases.  However, the focus has begun to shift from compliance-based monitoring and reporting, to the scarcity and quality of drinking water supplies, and the impact that energy consumption associated with water activities has on carbon emissions. As detection technology improves and human exposure to low-level contamination is linked to more diseases, more testing will be required for ever smaller and smaller concentration levels.  All of this means only more and more information that needs to be captured, stored, managed, and reported.

In order to effectively manage all the data for this critical resource, it only makes sense to use the most up-to-date technology. In this case, it comes in the form of a robust, web-based information management system that allows businesses to manage, organize, and visualize their water quality data from a single access point in near real time.

At Locus, we recognize the importance of this resource and the challenges that accompany water quality management. This is why we continue to mold our software offerings to best help organizations responsibly handle this data, and ensure positive decision making. It’s the decisions we make today that will affect the state of this precious resource in the future.

Metals and Mining Companies must Work Ahead to Manage Water Risks

According to analysis from Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and Eurizon Capital, metals and mining companies that take action now to manage their water risks will be much better off financially in the future.

The research findings state that water stress is the most reported risk to operations- being identified as so by more than two-thirds of the sample. The majority of participating businesses were severely hit by water-related issues in the past five years, and almost half of the companies expect water stress to affect their businesses in the next five years. Also, with these negative water impacts comes increased spending.

However, the CDP report also finds that companies that manage and report on these water issues are also the ones that experience better financial returns. Companies that properly plan for the future get to avoid the increased operating costs, lower revenues, and decreased shareholder value that comes along with poor water stewardship.

An inadequate volume or quality of water can significantly decrease access to commodity reserves that are essential to the business operations of mining and metals companies. With such an important resource, it is obviously critical that it be properly managed and reported on. Luckily, there are tools that exist today, such as Locus’ robust environmental management software systems, that can help these companies effectively manage their water risks.

Cloud Apps Critical Requirement No. 2: Regularly Delivered, Vendor-Managed Updates–Rolling Upgrade Program

A cloud application is a single version of software that is regularly updated, often several times a year, for all customers. To realize the true cost benefits of SaaS, the provider should be managing all of those elements to adopt the latest capabilities in the updates on their own timelines. Software that has to be upgraded at the customer’s expense, even if the vendor hosts it, does not meet the requirements for a cloud application.

The update v. upgrade approach benefits both the vendor and the customer. The customer is not burdened by IT upgrade projects, while the vendor can focus on what it does best, which is maintain its own software. Vendors have a strong technical understanding of the software they developed, but the on-site world requires vendors to share this knowledge with customers, which is not an easy feat. When customers do not have deep insight into the software, or have difficulty obtaining employees or contract workers skilled to work on that software, the result can be problematic and even result in failed upgrades.

Vendor-managed updates deliver continuous improvement and allow companies to stay compliant with new laws and regulations. Traditional software vendors might offer some big, new changes every four to five years. With Locus, for example, customers receive consistent improvements through updates several times a year, and do not have to pay extra for any of them.

Locus Achieves a Microsoft Gold Application Development Competency

Locus demonstrates best-in-class capability and market leadership through demonstrated technology success and customer commitment

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., 30 July 2013 — Locus Technologies (Locus), the leader in cloud-based environmental compliance and information management software, today announced it has attained a Gold Application Development competency, demonstrating a “best-in-class” ability and commitment to meet Microsoft Corp. customers’ evolving needs in today’s dynamic business environment and distinguishing itself within the top one percent of Microsoft’s partner ecosystem.

To earn a Microsoft gold competency, partners must successfully complete exams (resulting in Microsoft Certified Professionals) to prove their level of technology expertise, and then designate these certified professionals uniquely to one Microsoft competency, ensuring a certain level of staffing capacity. They also must submit customer references that demonstrate successful projects (along with implementing a yearly customer satisfaction study), meet a revenue commitment, and pass technology and/or sales assessments.

“This Microsoft Gold Application Development competency showcases our expertise in and commitment to today’s technology market and to providing our customers with the most advanced technology and functionality available,” said Neno Duplan, President & CEO of Locus. “We plan to accelerate our customers’ environmental data management success by combining this and other advanced web technologies with our deep domain expertise.”

“By achieving a gold competency, partners have demonstrated the highest, most consistent capability and commitment to the latest Microsoft technology,” said Jon Roskill, corporate vice president, Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft Corp. “These partners have a deep expertise that puts them in the top one percent of our partner ecosystem, and their proficiency will help customers drive innovative solutions on the latest Microsoft technology.”

Earning the Application Development competency helps partners differentiate themselves as a trusted expert to their customers through development and deployment of commercial or custom applications built using core Microsoft technologies.

Locus Ranked Second Largest Environmental Firm in Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley Business Journal ranked the biggest environmental firms by the number of professionals in Silicon Valley. Locus Technologies is second out of twenty-five.