Can your EHS software vendor share SaaS system performance statistics in real time? Across all customers?

EHS SaaS Multitenancy explained and why it matters.

There is a considerable degree of (intended) confusion in the EHS software space when it comes to cloud computing and multitenancy. If your software vendor cannot share statistics in real time like shown in the figure nearby, most likely they do not run on a multitenant SaaS platform.

The real-time information on system performance and security of SaaS cloud platform is the most important element that frequently gets overlooked during EHS software selection process. Success in the cloud is built on trust.  Trust starts with transparency.
Our real time status monitoring (ran by an independent provider of web monitoring services) provide transparency around service availability and performance for Locus’ EHS SaaS products.
Just as with airlines that fly through clouds, our entire business is built on trust and security of our cloud offerings. Over 700,000 locations around the globe trust Locus to safeguard their data in the cloud.

Cloud Computing
Since the turn of the millennium, cloud computing has revolutionized the landscape of the computing world because it provides enterprise-grade computing resources that are affordable and instantly available. Clouds provide straightforward access to IT resources—you just access as many resources as you need when you need them, and never have to deal with the complexities of managing all of the underlying infrastructures that provide those resources. EHS manager job is suddenly a lot simpler and easier with cloud computing. You don’t even need help from IT department (if you don’t want it).

Multitenancy

Multitenancy is the fundamental technology that clouds use to share computing resources cost-efficiently and securely. Just like a bank—in which many tenants cost-efficiently share a hidden, common infrastructure, yet utilize a defined set of highly secure services, with complete privacy from other tenants—a cloud uses multitenancy technology to share IT resources securely among multiple applications and tenants (businesses, organizations, etc.) that use the cloud. Some clouds use virtualization-based architectures to isolate tenants; others use custom software architectures to get the job done. The multitenant design of a cloud service can have a dramatic impact on the application delivery and productivity of an IT organization, yet most CIOs, CTOs, system architects, and developers who use clouds don’t give it a second thought because it’s all magic that transparently happens behind the scenes.

Locus Platform is the proven cloud application development platform that powers popular Locus cloud EHS and Sustainability applications as well as custom applications that customers build to satisfy their specific EHS+S requirements.

Locus Technologies releases new Query Builder tool in Locus EIM

Advanced querying in Locus EIM just got much easier and much more powerful

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., 8 March 2017 — Locus Technologies (Locus), the leader in cloud-based environmental compliance and sustainability management software, is excited to announce the release of the EIM Query Builder tool that is one of a kind in the environmental data management industry. The tool, exclusively in Locus’ EIM environmental information management software, provides users with a graphical “drag-and-drop” interface to design, save, and share customized SQL queries with their teams via the EIM interface. This powerful tool will transform the user experience for Locus EIM customers.

EIM has always allowed users with advanced access and expert knowledge to write custom SQL queries against one site in the database. However, the existing tool required the user to be extremely knowledgeable in both SQL and EIM’s database structure.

The new EIM Query Builder tool allows all users, even those with less knowledge of EIM’s structure and the SQL language, to access their data via an interactive tool for one site, multiple sites, or across a site group. The Query Builder tool saves users’ time through a number of new, useful functions, such as including lists of EIM tables and columns, automatically populating table relationships, joins, and on-the-fly query debugging. It even includes “friendly names” to make table querying even easier. Additionally, users can leverage this new querying efficiency by saving and sharing queries across all user levels. The new version of Query Builder will be available to all customers in Spring 2017 and is included in the basic subscription pricing.

“We believe our EIM users will love this new tool, as it provides the flexibility to dive into the data in any way users wish”, said Wes Hawthorne, President of Locus Technologies. “Many times, experienced data managers need to extract very specific data sets that previously required the use of complex SQL queries. This new tool elevates the experience and provides many extras— including cross-site query and sharing that will greatly streamline advanced querying.”

 

Data mining gains more cachet in construction sector

Locus is mentioned in ENR’s article about data mining, discussing how Locus software helps our long-time customer, Los Alamos National Laboratory, manage their environmental compliance and monitoring.

Environmental and Sustainability Software

We believe that every company that wants to be credible with their environmental reporting must own their data and organize it in centralized database on the web.

Our market category is not shaped by explosive growth of software companies like ones associated with social media or search engines. Our software manages and organizes a type of information on which the future of humankind depends. We organize it in a serious and very scalable way.

To read the full story and interview please click here.

 

Conversations with Data

I was amazed with this presentation about data visualization by National Geographic Emerging Explorer and data artist Jer Thorp. We are witnessing a new revolution in data visualization and one of biggest possible benefactors of these new technologies will be environmental and sustainability professionals. But before data can be put to a good use and hard work it needs to be 1) owned, 2) organized, and 3) socialized. With Cloud-based technologies all three are now possible. Data is the new oil!
Jer Thorp translates unimaginable blurs of information into something we can see, understand, and feel—data made human through visualizations that blend research, art, software, science, and design.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmzdqRIS7SI]

Enterprise Environmental and Sustainability Information Management: There is a Better Way

Data published by the Environmental Business Journal indicate that the global environmental market is approaching one trillion dollars in annual expenditures. Last year U.S. environmental industry generated revenues of about one-third of that. The industry continues to grow at an average rate of five to ten percent per year, and is poised to grow even faster in 2014 than in any previous year.

Despite its impressive growth, some troubling trends persist within the industry. Most notably is the industry’s failure to embrace the cloud-based  information management revolution. Not adopting the latest technologies for capturing, storing, distributing, managing, visualizing and reporting information increases costs of managing emissions to air, water, and soil, delays the cleanup of contaminated sites and management of climate change information necessary to better understand causes of global warming phenomena.

Most companies “own” their financial, human resource, customer relations, and other data. This information typically resides on computers located in the company’s facilities, or it may be housed off-site in data centers managed by an outside party, or more recently in the SaaS-based Cloud applications. Regardless of which alternative is adopted, both are similar in that:

  1. Information is stored in a consistent and organized manner in central databases developed by professional software companies.
  2. Employees within the company have, to the extent that their privileges permit, continuous and unimpeded access to these data.
  3. Companies unquestionably own the data and are able to change support vendors at will.

However, the way companies with environmental liabilities manage and store their environmental information and data stands in marked contrast to the model they have adopted for all their other key data. Historically, environmental consultants have used narrowly focused applications built on spreadsheets and client/server databases to serve the complex software requirements of this market. Today’s landscape of available technology options has consolidated; new and better options exist. While planned IT spending on environmental software is rising, organizations are still struggling to identify software and service providers that can support environmental information management in the manner to which they’ve become accustomed with other enterprise initiatives and enterprise software, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), and supply chain

Cloud Apps Critical Requirement No 9: Control

Cloud applications should allow organizations complete control of their environmental and sustainability data, even though it is located off-site. Organizations are freed of application maintenance; additionally, there should be no roadblocks or bureaucracy to hinder authorized individuals’ ability to import, export, purge, and archive data to and from the application without having to first contact the SaaS vendor. Customers own their data! SaaS providers should make it possible to have a “sandbox” version of the production environment, so an organization’s project team can view and analyze data, and experiment with features and configurations before going into production.

What’s more, high-quality SaaS providers should provide regular audit reports for their customers about the data in their applications. Customers should be able to understand, very quickly, the changes that were made to their data and who made them and when.

Cloud Apps Critical Requirement No 8: Faster Deployment

Since cloud applications do not require investments and installation of hardware and software, organizations should be able to get them running and productive in a fraction of the time compared to on-premises software. This is particularly true for complex environmental and sustainability information management and compliance applications. On day one, customers are able to look at demonstration data, and very quickly after that they can test their data in a SaaS system to see how it looks and works.

Multi-tenant SaaS deployments are highly iterative and collaborative with the customer, and a provider’s deployment staff should be skilled down to the most minute of tasks.
With multi-tenant, configurable cloud applications, the coding is outsourced. With the DOE implementation of Locus, for example, the business side of the organization was able to play a significant role in leading the project, which let the customer focus its finite IT resources on data, integrations, and working with the business team to ensure technology and processes were aligned. In a configurable cloud application environment, once the processes and training are in place, you turn it on. It is that simple.

Cloud Apps Critical Requirement No 7: Predictable Total Cost of Ownership Model

There should be no surprise costs with cloud applications. Implementation costs should be predictable, and subscription-based pricing should be transparent with no hidden fees. Cloud applications should not require upfront investments in hardware and software license fees.
Real SaaS is a lot more than just hosting and data storing. Where multi-tenancy, a single version of the software and vendor-managed updates all come together and really payoff is having more predictability around your total cost of ownership. There should be no more highly unpredictable projects, with the most common among those being software upgrades.
One thing that can kill a VP of EHS reputation is surprises, particularly surprises with lots of dollar signs. With a valid cloud application to manage environmental and sustainability information and compliance, EH&S manager can determine exactly what it is going to cost over the next five years.

Such predictability lends transparency to the environmental compliance and sustainability budget process and means you will not have to fight budget battles for unexpected costs.