Possible Impacts on a typical software project...

There are lot of factors which may have an impact on any project.
Broadly they can be categorised into areas such as

1> Scope creep or Changing business needs: (it all matters at what stage theadditional changes are being suggested and how important are the scope enhancements for the requestor. Sometimes changes are so important that they can't live without them. Also the changes are introduced at such a later stage in the project life cycle, where it becomes almost inevitable to scrap the existing project and raथे r start with new one).

2> Cost management, Budget Planning: This is definitely one of the important aspects.
Due to the changing dynamics and the always changing priorities and strategies of business, budget is always fluctuating. I have seen many examples, where project starts, funds approved during baseline, but then suddenly funds are dried up or funds diverted to some other important priority items. In that case also no other option than to wind up.

3> Performance Issues: It's like unexpected performanceresults. I have seen few examples during my expereince where due to the performance criteria, almost near to completions projects were halted.

4> Changing Dynamics , Take overs, mergers: Many times projects are required to wind up due to these changing dynamics.

5> Schedule Overun, Quality issues are few of the issues which may cause an impact on the project and need to be closely watched.

India USA Nuclear Deal - What is Article 123

Please find below the so called article 123 from the India - USA nuclear deal।

GREEMENT FOR COOPERATION BETWEENTHE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND THEGOVERNMENT OF INDIACONCERNING PEACEFUL USES OF NUCLEAR ENERGY (123 AGREEMENT)
The Government of India and the Government of the United States of America, hereinafter referred to as the Parties,
RECOGNIZING the significance of civilian nuclear energy for meeting growing global energy demands in a cleaner and more efficient manner;
DESIRING to cooperate extensively in the full development and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes as a means of achieving energy security, on a stable, reliable and predictable basis;
WISHING to develop such cooperation on the basis of mutual respect for sovereignty, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality, mutual benefit, reciprocity and with due respect for each other's nuclear programmes;
DESIRING to establish the necessary legal framework and basis for cooperation concerning peaceful uses of nuclear energy;
AFFIRMING that cooperation under this Agreement is between two States possessing advanced nuclear technology, both Parties having the same benefits and advantages, both committed to preventing WMD proliferation;
NOTING the understandings expressed in the India - U.S. Joint Statement of July 18, 2005 to enable full civil nuclear energy cooperation with India covering aspects of the associated nuclear fuel cycle;
AFFIRMING their support for the objectives of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its safeguards system, as applicable to India and the United States of America, and its importance in ensuring that international cooperation in development and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is carried out under arrangements that will not contribute to the proliferation of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices;
NOTING their respective commitments to safety and security of peaceful uses of nuclear energy, to adequate physical protection of nuclear material and effective national export controls;
MINDFUL that peaceful nuclear activities must be undertaken with a view to protecting the environment;
MINDFUL of their shared commitment to preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; and
DESIROUS of strengthening the strategic partnership between them;
Have agreed on the following:
ARTICLE 1 - DEFINITIONS
For the purposes of this Agreement:
(A) "By-product material" means any radioactive material (except special fissionable material) yielded in or made radioactive by exposure to the radiation incident to the process of producing or utilizing special fissionable material. By-product material shall not be subject to safeguards or any other form of verification under this Agreement, unless it has been decided otherwise by prior mutual agreement in writing between the two Parties.
(B) "Component" means a component part of equipment, or other item so designated by agreement of the Parties.
(C) "Conversion" means any of the normal operations in the nuclear fuel cycle, preceding fuel fabrication and excluding enrichment, by which uranium is transformed from one chemical form to another - for example, from uranium hexafluoride (UF6) to uranium dioxide (UO2) or from uranium oxide to metal.
(D) "Decommissioning" means the actions taken at the end of a facility's useful life to retire the facility from service in the manner that provides adequate protection for the health and safety of the decommissioning workers and the general public, and for the environment. These actions can range from closing down the facility and a minimal removal of nuclear material coupled with continuing maintenance and surveillance, to a complete removal of residual radioactivity in excess of levels acceptable for unrestricted use of the facility and its site.
(E) "Dual-Use Item" means a nuclear related item which has a technical use in both nuclear and non-nuclear applications.
(F) "Equipment" means any equipment in nuclear operation including reactor, reactor pressure vessel, reactor fuel charging and discharging equipment, reactor control rods, reactor pressure tubes, reactor primary coolant pumps, zirconium tubing, equipment for fuel fabrication and any other item so designated by the Parties.
(G) "High enriched uranium" means uranium enriched to twenty percent or greater in the isotope 235.
(H) "Information" means any information that is not in the public domain and is transferred in any form pursuant to this Agreement and so designated and documented in hard copy or digital form by mutual agreement by the Parties that it shall be subject to this Agreement, but will cease to be information whenever the Party transferring the information or any third party legitimately releases it into the public domain.
(I) "Low enriched uranium" means uranium enriched to less than twenty percent in the isotope 235.
(J) "Major critical component" means any part or group of parts essential to the operation of a sensitive nuclear facility or heavy water production facility.
(K) "Non-nuclear material" means heavy water, or any other material suitable for use in a reactor to slow down high velocity neutrons and increase the likelihood of further fission, as may be jointly designated by the appropriate authorities of the Parties.
(L) "Nuclear material" means (1) source material and (2) special fissionable material. "Source material" means uranium containing the mixture of isotopes occurring in nature; uranium depleted in the isotope 235; thorium; any of the foregoing in the form of metal, alloy, chemical compound, or concentrate; any other material containing one or more of the foregoing in such concentration as the Board of Governors of the IAEA shall from time to time determine; and such other materials as the Board of Governors of the IAEA may determine or as may be agreed by the appropriate authorities of both Parties. "Special fissionable material" means plutonium, uranium-233, uranium enriched in the isotope 233 or 235, any substance containing one or more of the foregoing, and such other substances as the Board of Governors of the IAEA may determine or as may be agreed by the appropriate authorities of both Parties. "Special fissionable material" does not include "source material". Any determination by the Board of Governors of the IAEA under Article XX of that Agency's Statute or otherwise that amends the list of materials considered to be "source material" or "special fissionable material" shall only have effect under this Agreement when both Parties to this Agreement have informed each other in writing that they accept such amendment.
(M) "Peaceful purposes" include the use of information, nuclear material, equipment or components in such fields as research, power generation, medicine, agriculture and industry, but do not include use in, research on, or development of any nuclear explosive device or any other military purpose. Provision of power for a military base drawn from any power network, production of radioisotopes to be used for medical purposes in military environment for diagnostics, therapy and sterility assurance, and other similar purposes as may be mutually agreed by the Parties shall not be regarded as military purpose.
(N) "Person" means any individual or any entity subject to the territorial jurisdiction of either Party but does not include the Parties.
(O) "Reactor" means any apparatus, other than a nuclear weapon or other nuclear explosive device, in which a self-sustaining fission chain reaction is maintained by utilizing uranium, plutonium, or thorium or any combination thereof.
(P) "Sensitive nuclear facility" means any facility designed or used primarily for uranium enrichment, reprocessing of nuclear fuel, or fabrication of nuclear fuel containing plutonium.
(Q) "Sensitive nuclear technology" means any information that is not in the public domain and that is important to the design, construction, fabrication, operation, or maintenance of any sensitive nuclear facility, or other such information that may be so designated by agreement of the Parties.
ARTICLE 2 - SCOPE OF COOPERATION
1. The Parties shall cooperate in the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes in accordance with the provisions of this Agreement. Each Party shall implement this Agreement in accordance with its respective applicable treaties, national laws, regulations, and license requirements concerning the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
2. The purpose of the Agreement being to enable full civil nuclear energy cooperation between the Parties, the Parties may pursue cooperation in all relevant areas to include, but not limited to, the following:
a. Advanced nuclear energy research and development in such areas as may be agreed between the Parties;b. Nuclear safety matters of mutual interest and competence, as set out in Article 3;c. Facilitation of exchange of scientists for visits, meetings, symposia and collaborative research;d. Full civil nuclear cooperation activities covering nuclear reactors and aspects of the associated nuclear fuel cycleincluding technology transfer on an industrial or commercial scale between the Parties or authorized persons;e. Development of a strategic reserve of nuclear fuel to guard against any disruption of supply over the lifetime of India's reactors;f. Advanced research and development in nuclear sciences including but not limited to biological research, medicine, agriculture and industry, environment and climate change;g. Supply between the Parties, whether for use by or for the benefit of the Parties or third countries, of nuclear material;h. Alteration in form or content of nuclear material as provided for in Article 6;i. Supply between the Parties of equipment, whether for use by or for the benefit of the Parties or third countries;j. Controlled thermonuclear fusion including in multilateral projects; andk. Other areas of mutual interest as may be agreed by the Parties.
3. Transfer of nuclear material, non-nuclear material, equipment, components and information under this Agreement may be undertaken directly between the Parties or through authorized persons. Such transfers shall be subject to this Agreement and to such additional terms and conditions as may be agreed by the Parties. Nuclear material, non-nuclear material, equipment, components and information transferred from the territory of one Party to the territory of the other Party, whether directly or through a third country, will be regarded as having been transferred pursuant to this Agreement only upon confirmation, by the appropriate authority of the recipient Party to the appropriate authority of the supplier Party that such items both will be subject to the Agreement and have been received by the recipient Party.
4. The Parties affirm that the purpose of this Agreement is to provide for peaceful nuclear cooperation and not to affect the unsafeguarded nuclear activities of either Party. Accordingly, nothing in this Agreement shall be interpreted as affecting the rights of the Parties to use for their own purposes nuclear material, non-nuclear material, equipment, components, information or technology produced, acquired or developed by them independent of any nuclear material, non-nuclear material, equipment, components, information or technology transferred to them pursuant to this Agreement. This Agreement shall be implemented in a manner so as not to hinder or otherwise interfere with any other activities involving the use of nuclear material, non-nuclear material, equipment, components, information or technology and military nuclear facilities produced, acquired or developed by them independent of this Agreement for their own purposes.
ARTICLE 3 - TRANSFER OF INFORMATION
1. Information concerning the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes may be transferred between the Parties. Transfers of information may be accomplished through reports, data banks and computer programs and any other means mutually agreed to by the Parties. Fields that may be covered include, but shall not be limited to, the following:
a. Research, development, design, construction, operation, maintenance and use of reactors, reactor experiments, and decommissioning;b. The use of nuclear material in physical, chemical, radiological and biological research, medicine, agriculture and industry;c. Fuel cycle activities to meet future world-wide civil nuclear energy needs, including multilateral approaches to which they are parties for ensuring nuclear fuel supply and appropriate techniques for management of nuclear wastes;d. Advanced research and development in nuclear science and technology;e. Health, safety, and environmental considerations related to the foregoing;f. Assessments of the role nuclear power may play in national energy plans;g. Codes, regulations and standards for the nuclear industry;h. Research on controlled thermonuclear fusion including bilateral activities and contributions toward multilateral projects such as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER); andi. Any other field mutually agreed to by the Parties.
2. Cooperation pursuant to this Article may include, but is not limited to, training, exchange of personnel, meetings, exchange of samples, materials and instruments for experimental purposes and a balanced participation in joint studies and projects.
3. This Agreement does not require the transfer of any information regarding matters outside the scope of this Agreement, or information that the Parties are not permitted under their respective treaties, national laws, or regulations to transfer.
4. Restricted Data, as defined by each Party, shall not be transferred under this Agreement.
ARTICLE 4 - NUCLEAR TRADE
1. The Parties shall facilitate nuclear trade between themselves in the mutual interests of their respective industry, utilities and consumers and also, where appropriate, trade between third countries and either Party of items obligated to the other Party. The Parties recognize that reliability of supplies is essential to ensure smooth and uninterrupted operation of nuclear facilities and that industry in both the Parties needs continuing reassurance that deliveries can be made on time in order to plan for the efficient operation of nuclear installations.
2. Authorizations, including export and import licenses as well as authorizations or consents to third parties, relating to trade, industrial operations or nuclear material movement should be consistent with the sound and efficient administration of this Agreement and should not be used to restrict trade. It is further agreed that if the relevant authority of the concerned Party considers that an application cannot be processed within a twomonth period it shall immediately, upon request, provide reasoned information to the submitting Party. In the event of a refusal to authorize an application or a delay exceeding four months from the date of the first application the Party of the submitting persons or undertakings may call for urgent consultations under Article 13 of this Agreement, which shall take place at the earliest opportunity and in any case not later than 30 days after such a request.
ARTICLE 5 - TRANSFER OF NUCLEAR MATERIAL, NON-NUCLEAR MATERIAL, EQUIPMENT, COMPONENTS AND RELATED TECHNOLOGY
1. Nuclear material, non-nuclear material, equipment and components may be transferred for applications consistent with this Agreement. Any special fissionable material transferred under this Agreement shall be low enriched uranium, except as provided in paragraph 5.
2. Sensitive nuclear technology, heavy water production technology, sensitive nuclear facilities, heavy water production facilities and major critical components of such facilities may be transferred under this Agreement pursuant to an amendment to this Agreement. Transfers of dual-use items that could be used in enrichment, reprocessing or heavy water production facilities will be subject to the Parties' respective applicable laws, regulations and license policies.
3. Natural or low enriched uranium may be transferred for use as fuel in reactor experiments and in reactors, for conversion or fabrication, or for such other purposes as may be agreed to by the Parties.
4. The quantity of nuclear material transferred under this Agreement shall be consistent with any of the following purposes: use in reactor experiments or the loading of reactors, the efficient and continuous conduct of such reactor experiments or operation of reactors for their lifetime, use as samples, standards, detectors, and targets, and the accomplishment of other purposes as may be agreed by the Parties.
5. Small quantities of special fissionable material may be transferred for use as samples, standards, detectors, and targets, and for such other purposes as the Parties may agree.
6.
(a) The United States has conveyed its commitment to the reliable supply of fuel to India. Consistent with the July 18, 2005, Joint Statement, the United States has also reaffirmed its assurance to create the necessary conditions for India to have assured and full access to fuel for its reactors. As part of its implementation of the July 18, 2005, Joint Statement the United States is committed to seeking agreement from the U.S. Congress to amend its domestic laws and to work with friends and allies to adjust the practices of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to create the necessary conditions for India to obtain full access to the international fuel market, including reliable, uninterrupted and continual access to fuel supplies from firms in several nations.
(b) To further guard against any disruption of fuel supplies, the United States is prepared to take the following additional steps:
i) The United States is willing to incorporate assurances regarding fuel supply in the bilateral U.S.-India agreement on peaceful uses of nuclear energy under Section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act, which would be submitted to the U.S. Congress.
ii) The United States will join India in seeking to negotiate with the IAEA an India-specific fuel supply agreement.
iii) The United States will support an Indian effort to develop a strategic reserve of nuclear fuel to guard against any disruption of supply over the lifetime of India's reactors.
iv) If despite these arrangements, a disruption of fuel supplies to India occurs, the United States and India would jointly convene a group of friendly supplier countries to include countries such as Russia, France and the United Kingdom to pursue such measures as would restore fuel supply to India.
(c) In light of the above understandings with the United States, an India-specific safeguards agreement will be negotiated between India and the IAEA providing for safeguards to guard against withdrawal of safeguarded nuclear material from civilian use at any time as well as providing for corrective measures that India may take to ensure uninterrupted operation of its civilian nuclear reactors in the event of disruption of foreign fuel supplies. Taking this into account, India will place its civilian nuclear facilities under India-specific safeguards in perpetuity and negotiate an appropriate safeguards agreement to this end with the IAEA.
ARTICLE 6 - NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE ACTIVITIES
In keeping with their commitment to full civil nuclear cooperation, both Parties, as they do with other states with advanced nuclear technology, may carry out the following nuclear fuel cycle activities:
i) Within the territorial jurisdiction of either Party, enrichment up to twenty percent in the isotope 235 of uranium transferred pursuant to this Agreement, as well as of uranium used in or produced through the use of equipment so transferred, may be carried out.
ii) Irradiation within the territorial jurisdiction of either Party of plutonium, uranium-233, high enriched uranium and irradiated nuclear material transferred pursuant to this Agreement or used in or produced through the use of non-nuclear material, nuclear material or equipment so transferred may be carried out.
iii) With a view to implementing full civil nuclear cooperation as envisioned in the Joint Statement of the Parties of July 18, 2005, the Parties grant each other consent to reprocess or otherwise alter in form or content nuclear material transferred pursuant to this Agreement and nuclear material and by-product material used in or produced through the use of nuclear material, non-nuclear material, or equipment so transferred. To bring these rights into effect, India will establish a new national reprocessing facility dedicated to reprocessing safeguarded nuclear material under IAEA safeguards and the Parties will agree on arrangements and procedures under which such reprocessing or other alteration in form or content will take place in this new facility. Consultations on arrangements and procedures will begin within six months of a request by either Party and will be concluded within one year. The Parties agree on the application of IAEA safeguards to all facilities concerned with the above activities. These arrangements and procedures shall include provisions with respect to physical protection standards set out in Article 8, storage standards set out in Article 7, and environmental protections set forth in Article 11 of this Agreement, and such other provisions as may be agreed by the Parties. Any special fissionable material that may be separated may only be utilized in national facilities under IAEA safeguards.
iv) Post-irradiation examination involving chemical dissolution or separation of irradiated nuclear material transferred pursuant to this Agreement or irradiated nuclear material used in or produced through the use of non-nuclear material, nuclear material or equipment so transferred may be carried out.
ARTICLE 7 - STORAGE AND RETRANSFERS
1. Plutonium and uranium 233 (except as either may be contained in irradiated fuel elements), and high enriched uranium, transferred pursuant to this Agreement or used in or produced through the use of material or equipment so transferred, may be stored in facilities that are at all times subject, as a minimum, to the levels of physical protection that are set out in IAEA document INFCIRC 225/REV 4 as it may be revised and accepted by the Parties. Each Party shall record such facilities on a list, made available to the other Party. A Party's list shall be held confidential if that Party so requests. Either Party may make changes to its list by notifying the other Party in writing and receiving a written acknowledgement. Such acknowledgement shall be given no later than thirty days after the receipt of the notification and shall be limited to a statement that the notification has been received. If there are grounds to believe that the provisions of this sub-Article are not being fully complied with, immediate consultations may be called for. Following upon such consultations, each Party shall ensure by means of such consultations that necessary remedial measures are taken immediately. Such measures shall be sufficient to restore the levels of physical protection referred to above at the facility in question. However, if the Party on whose territory the nuclear material in question is stored determines that such measures are not feasible, it will shift the nuclear material to another appropriate, listed facility it identifies.
2. Nuclear material, non-nuclear material, equipment, components, and information transferred pursuant to this Agreement and any special fissionable material produced through the use of nuclear material, non-nuclear material or equipment so transferred shall not be transferred or re-transferred to unauthorized persons or, unless the Parties agree, beyond the recipient Party's territorial jurisdiction.
ARTICLE 8 - PHYSICAL PROTECTION
1. Adequate physical protection shall be maintained with respect to nuclear material and equipment transferred pursuant to this Agreement and nuclear material used in or produced through the use of nuclear material, non-nuclear material or equipment so transferred.
2. To fulfill the requirement in paragraph 1, each Party shall apply measures in accordance with (i) levels of physical protection at least equivalent to the recommendations published in IAEA document INFCIRC/225/Rev.4 entitled "The Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and Nuclear Facilities," and in any subsequent revisions of that document agreed to by the Parties, and (ii) the provisions of the 1980 Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and any amendments to the Convention that enter into force for both Parties.
3. The Parties will keep each other informed through diplomatic channels of those agencies or authorities having responsibility for ensuring that levels of physical protection for nuclear material in their territory or under their jurisdiction or control are adequately met and having responsibility for coordinating response and recovery operations in the event of unauthorized use or handling of material subject to this Article. The Parties will also keep each other informed through diplomatic channels of the designated points of contact within their national authorities to cooperate on matters of out-of-country transportation and other matters of mutual concern.
4. The provisions of this Article shall be implemented in such a manner as to avoid undue interference in the Parties' peaceful nuclear activities and so as to be consistent with prudent management practices required for the safe and economic conduct of their peaceful nuclear programs.
ARTICLE 9 - PEACEFUL USE
Nuclear material, equipment and components transferred pursuant to this Agreement and nuclear material and by-product materialused in or produced through the use of any nuclear material, equipment, and components so transferred shall not be used by the recipient Party for any nuclear explosive device, for research on or development of any nuclear explosive device or for any military purpose.
ARTICLE 10 - IAEA SAFEGUARDS
1. Safeguards will be maintained with respect to all nuclear materials and equipment transferred pursuant to this Agreement, and with respect to all special fissionable material used in or produced through the use of such nuclear materials and equipment, so long as the material or equipment remains under the jurisdiction or control of the cooperating Party.
2. Taking into account Article 5.6 of this Agreement, India agrees that nuclear material and equipment transferred to India by the United States of America pursuant to this Agreement and any nuclear material used in or produced through the use of nuclear material, non-nuclear material, equipment or components so transferred shall be subject to safeguards in perpetuity in accordance with the India-specific Safeguards Agreement between India and the IAEA [identifying data] and an Additional Protocol, when in force.
3. Nuclear material and equipment transferred to the United States of America pursuant to this Agreement and any nuclear material used in or produced through the use of any nuclear material, non-nuclear material, equipment, or components so transferred shall be subject to the Agreement between the United States of America and the IAEA for the application of safeguards in the United States of America, done at Vienna November 18, 1977, which entered into force on December 9, 1980, and an Additional Protocol, when in force.
4. If the IAEA decides that the application of IAEA safeguards is no longer possible, the supplier and recipient should consult and agree on appropriate verification measures.
5. Each Party shall take such measures as are necessary to maintain and facilitate the application of IAEA safeguards in its respective territory provided for under this Article.
6. Each Party shall establish and maintain a system of accounting for and control of nuclear material transferred pursuant to this Agreement and nuclear material used in or produced through the use of any material, equipment, or components so transferred. The procedures applicable to India shall be those set forth in the India-specific Safeguards Agreement referred to in Paragraph 2 of this Article.
7. Upon the request of either Party, the other Party shall report or permit the IAEA to report to the requesting Party on the status of all inventories of material subject to this Agreement.
8. The provisions of this Article shall be implemented in such a manner as to avoid hampering, delay, or undue interference in the Parties' peaceful nuclear activities and so as to be consistent with prudent management practices required for the safe and economic conduct of their peaceful nuclear programs.
ARTICLE 11 - ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
The Parties shall cooperate in following the best practices for minimizing the impact on the environment from any radioactive, chemical or thermal contamination arising from peaceful nuclear activities under this Agreement and in related matters of health and safety.
ARTICLE 12 - IMPLEMENTATION OF THE AGREEMENT
1. This Agreement shall be implemented in a manner designed:
a) to avoid hampering or delaying the nuclear activities in the territory of either Party;b) to avoid interference in such activities;c) to be consistent with prudent management practices required for the safe conduct of such activities; andd) to take full account of the long term requirements of the nuclear energy programs of the Parties.
2. The provisions of this Agreement shall not be used to:
a) secure unfair commercial or industrial advantages or to restrict trade to the disadvantage of persons and undertakings of either Party or hamper their commercial or industrial interests, whether international or domestic;b) interfere with the nuclear policy or programs for the promotion of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy including research and development; orc) impede the free movement of nuclear material, non nuclear material and equipment supplied under this Agreement within the territory of the Parties.
3. When execution of an agreement or contract pursuant to this Agreement between Indian and United States organizations requires exchanges of experts, the Parties shall facilitate entry of the experts to their territories and their stay therein consistent with national laws, regulations and practices. When other cooperation pursuant to this Agreement requires visits of experts, the Parties shall facilitate entry of the experts to their territory and their stay therein consistent with national laws, regulations and practices.
ARTICLE 13 - CONSULTATIONS
1. The Parties undertake to consult at the request of either Party regarding the implementation of this Agreement and the development of further cooperation in the field of peaceful uses of nuclear energy on a stable, reliable and predictable basis. The Parties recognize that such consultations are between two States with advanced nuclear technology, which have agreed to assume the same responsibilities and practices and acquire the same benefits and advantages as other leading countries with advanced nuclear technology.
2. Each Party shall endeavor to avoid taking any action that adversely affects cooperation envisaged under Article 2 of this Agreement. If either Party at any time following the entry into force of this Agreement does not comply with the provisions of this Agreement, the Parties shall promptly hold consultations with a view to resolving the matter in a way that protects the legitimate interests of both Parties, it being understood that rights of either Party under Article 16.2 remain unaffected.
3. Consultations under this Article may be carried out by a Joint Committee specifically established for this purpose. A Joint Technical Working Group reporting to the Joint Committee will be set up to ensure the fulfillment of the requirements of the Administrative Arrangements referred to in Article 17.
ARTICLE 14 - TERMINATION AND CESSATION OF COOPERATION
1. Either Party shall have the right to terminate this Agreement prior to its expiration on one year's written notice to the other Party. A Party giving notice of termination shall provide the reasons for seeking such termination. The Agreement shall terminate one year from the date of the written notice, unless the notice has been withdrawn by the providing Party in writing prior to the date of termination.
2. Before this Agreement is terminated pursuant to paragraph 1 of this Article, the Parties shall consider the relevant circumstances and promptly hold consultations, as provided in Article 13, to address the reasons cited by the Party seeking termination. The Party seeking termination has the right to cease further cooperation under this Agreement if it determines that a mutually acceptable resolution of outstanding issues has not been possible or cannot be achieved through consultations. The Parties agree to consider carefully the circumstances that may lead to termination or cessation of cooperation. They further agree to take into account whether the circumstances that may lead to termination or cessation resulted from a Party's serious concern about a changed security environment or as a response to similar actions by other States which could impact national security.
3. If a Party seeking termination cites a violation of this Agreement as the reason for notice for seeking termination, the Parties shall consider whether the action was caused inadvertently or otherwise and whether the violation could be considered as material. No violation may be considered as being material unless corresponding to the definition of material violation or breach in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. If a Party seeking termination cites a violation of an IAEA safeguards agreement as the reason for notice for seeking termination, a crucial factor will be whether the IAEA Board of Governors has made a finding of non-compliance.4. Following the cessation of cooperation under this Agreement, either Party shall have the right to require the return by the other Party of any nuclear material, equipment, non-nuclear material or components transferred under this Agreement and any special fissionable material produced through their use. A notice by a Party that is invoking the right of return shall be delivered to the other Party on or before the date of termination of this Agreement. The notice shall contain a statement of the items subject to this Agreement as to which the Party is requesting return. Except as provided in provisions of Article 16.3, all other legal obligations pertaining to this Agreement shall cease to apply with respect to the nuclear items remaining on the territory of the Party concerned upon termination of this Agreement.
5. The two Parties recognize that exercising the right of return would have profound implications for their relations. If either Party seeks to exercise its right pursuant to paragraph 4 of this Article, it shall, prior to the removal from the territory or from the control of the other Party of any nuclear items mentioned in paragraph 4, undertake consultations with the other Party. Such consultations shall give special consideration to the importance of uninterrupted operation of nuclear reactors of the Party concerned with respect to the availability of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes as a means of achieving energy security. Both Parties shall take into account the potential negative consequences of such termination on the on-going contracts and projects initiated under this Agreement of significance for the respective nuclear programmes of either Party.
6. If either Party exercises its right of return pursuant to paragraph 4 of this Article, it shall, prior to the removal from the territory or from the control of the other Party, compensate promptly that Party for the fair market value thereof and for the costs incurred as a consequence of such removal. If the return of nuclear items is required, the Parties shall agree on methods and arrangements for the return of the items, the relevant quantity of the items to be returned, and the amount of compensation that would have to be paid by the Party exercising the right to the other Party.
7. Prior to return of nuclear items, the Parties shall satisfy themselves that full safety, radiological and physical protection measures have been ensured in accordance with their existing national regulations and that the transfers pose no unreasonable risk to either Party, countries through which the nuclear items may transit and to the global environment and are in accordance with existing international regulations.
8. The Party seeking the return of nuclear items shall ensure that the timing, methods and arrangements for return of nuclear items are in accordance with paragraphs 5, 6 and 7. Accordingly, the consultations between the Parties shall address mutual commitments as contained in Article 5.6. It is not the purpose of the provisions of this Article regarding cessation of cooperation and right of return to derogate from the rights of the Parties under Article 5.6.
9. The arrangements and procedures concluded pursuant to Article 6(iii) shall be subject to suspension by either Party in exceptional circumstances, as defined by the Parties, after consultations have been held between the Parties aimed at reaching mutually acceptable resolution of outstanding issues, while taking into account the effects of such suspension on other aspects of cooperation under this Agreement.
ARTICLE 15 - SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES
Any dispute concerning the interpretation or implementation of the provisions of this Agreement shall be promptly negotiated by the Parties with a view to resolving that dispute.
ARTICLE 16 - ENTRY INTO FORCE AND DURATION
1. This Agreement shall enter into force on the date on which the Parties exchange diplomatic notes informing each other that they have completed all applicable requirements for its entry into force.
2. This Agreement shall remain in force for a period of40 years. It shall continue in force thereafter for additional periods of 10 years each. Each Party may, by giving 6 months written notice to the other Party, terminate this Agreement at the end of the initial 40 year period or at the end of any subsequent 10 year period.
3. Notwithstanding the termination or expiration of this Agreement or withdrawal of a Party from this Agreement, Articles 5.6(c), 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 15 shall continue in effect so long as any nuclear material, non-nuclear material, by-product material, equipment or components subject to these articles remains in the territory of the Party concerned or under its jurisdiction or control anywhere, or until such time as the Parties agree that such nuclear material is no longer usable for any nuclear activity relevant from the point of view of safeguards.
4. This Agreement shall be implemented in good faith and in accordance with the principles of international law.
5. The Parties may consult, at the request of either Party, on possible amendments to this Agreement. This Agreement may be amended if the Parties so agree. Any amendment shall enter into force on the date on which the Parties exchange diplomatic notes informing each other that their respective internal legal procedures necessary for the entry into force have been completed.
ARTICLE 17 - ADMINISTRATIVE ARRANGEMENT
1. The appropriate authorities of the Parties shall establish an Administrative Arrangement in order to provide for the effective implementation of the provisions of this Agreement.
2. The principles of fungibility and equivalence shall apply to nuclear material and non-nuclear material subject to this Agreement. Detailed provisions for applying these principles shall be set forth in the Administrative Arrangement.
3. The Administrative Arrangement established pursuant to this Article may be amended by agreement of the appropriate authorities of the Parties.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF the undersigned, being duly authorized, have signed this Agreement.
DONE at , this day of , 200 , in duplicate.
FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF THEUNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
FOR THE GOVERNMENTOF INDIA:
AGREED MINUTE
During the negotiation of the Agreement for Cooperation Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of India Concerning Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy ("the Agreement") signed today, the following understandings, which shall be an integral part of the Agreement, were reached.
Proportionality
For the purposes of implementing the rights specified in Articles 6 and 7 of the Agreement with respect to special fissionable material and by-product material produced through the use of nuclear material and non-nuclear material, respectively, transferred pursuant to the Agreement and not used in or produced through the use of equipment transferred pursuant to the Agreement, such rights shall in practice be applied to that proportion of special fissionable material and by-product material produced that represents the ratio of transferred nuclear material and non-nuclear material, respectively, used in the production of the special fissionable material and by-product material to the total amount of nuclear material and non-nuclear material so used, and similarly for subsequent generations.
By-product material
The Parties agree that reporting and exchanges of information on by-product material subject to the Agreement will be limited to the following:
(1) Both Parties would comply with the provisions as contained in the IAEA document GOV/1999/19/Rev.2, with regard to by-product material subject to the Agreement.
(2) With regard to tritium subject to the Agreement, the Parties will exchange annually information pertaining to its disposition for peaceful purposes consistent with Article 9 of this Agreement.
FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF THEUNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
FOR THE GOVERNMENTOF INDIA:
END TEXT

Will Gandhigiri be helpful ?

In the wake of recent serial blasts in Hyderabad, I really wonder where will it end? Or rather will it ever end? what do these sick minds achieve by killing so many innocent people.

I sincerely wonder if these kind of incidents do even matter to the people now a days। Does it have any impact on our day to day life at all? Or has it just become part of our routine? Have we (including the government as well) just accepted it as part of our fate and decided to move on?

1> 11th July 2006 Mumbai bomb blasts। Around 100+ casualties। Impact of only few hours on the train network, business and everything back to normalancy by very next morning
2> August 25th 2007, Hyderabad Bomb blasts at 7।45 PM. Believe me at 9.30 PM I have seen heavy traffic around the masab tank area. in fact I was also roaming around in the same area. I felt as if nothing has happened. Forget about any impact on business here.

Just read somehwhere India is second to Iraq when it comes to # of casualties by terrorism.Look at USA, when it was hit by the 11th September 2001 attacks, all of its B-1s, B-2s, F-1s, F-2s took off and within 3-4 months 2 governments were toppled, displaced. Warnings were given to the rest of the world regarding whether they (the countries) were with USA or against USA. See the results.There had not been a single small terrorist activity on the USA soil, forget the acivity of the magnitude of 9-11.

On the other hand I hardly rememebr India taking any stand (forget strong stand) against these elements. Forget toppling any government, we couldn't even exradict our own convicts from other countries. Results year after year, month after month we are seeing repeated activities.Obviously there are many questions with answers to few.
1> Are we capable of doing what USA has done?
2> Do we have guts of doing what USA has done?
3> Do we have external support for doing what USA has done?
4> And the last but the foremost important, are we matured enough to even think to the scale what they have done.
So many questions , but I am sincerely struggling to find any convincing answers.

Okay if we feel we are not as strong as USA, if we think we are not as powerful as USA, then compare ourselves against the tiny Israel.It was affected by worst ever terrorism than ours. You all know the strong actions they have taken and what's the status of israel now.

Coming back to the above 4 questions, I am afraid if answer to any one of the above question will be positive। But what could be the real reasons? There could be number of reasons.

May be we have different mind set altogether. May be Gandhigiri has deeply rooted in our blood. It's just that we have accepted this as our fate and surendered to it. Otherwise how it is possible that we have almost 10-15 major blasts in last 10-15 years. And still we don't act onto it.

But where is this heading? Is there any permanent solution for this in India? or we just have to live with it the way we are doing now?

Experts called me a 'bloody fool': india's milkman Verghese Kurien

The 'milkman of India' (Verghese Kurien) describes his moment of leadership as part of the Lead India initiative.

The world thought we had gone insane। I remember the time when almost everybody, including experts in the dairy industry, had snubbed our idea of producing milk powder from buffalo milk. Experts, especially from New Zealand, which was selling milk powder in India, held firm that milk powder cannot be produced from buffalo milk. When noted dairyman and director of dairy research in New Zealand Professor William Riddet visited Anand, he told me that he was happy to know that I had made a significant name in the dairy industry at such a young age.

Then he asked me: "But, why are you such a bloody fool? Why are you working on a project that is bound to fail?" I told him that I would make it। He asked me if there was anything on earth that could dissuade me from embarking on a project that was bound to fail and I replied "nothing."

It was on October 31, 1956 — Sardar Patel's birthday — that Jawaharlal Nehru came to Anand to inaugurate the Amul dairy। When he was leaving Anand, Morarji Desai told Nehru that many had tried to dissuade me from going ahead with my project to produce milk powder from buffalo milk, for it was never done before। Nehru came towards me, put his hands around me in an embrace and said: "I am glad that India has such people who can get done things that cannot be done."

We had succeeded in producing milk powder from buffalo milk, just 24 hours before Nehru inaugurated the dairy। It shocked dairy experts in New Zealand. The country did not want India to produce milk powder as we were a major market for them. Now, India produces 1.65 lakh tonnes of milk powder, much more than what New Zealand produces.

I still remember how I rubbed milk powder on the forehead of dairy expert and my companion HM Dalaya just 24 hours before Nehru's arrival in Anand।

Courtesey : Times of India 23rd August article

How to beat dirty negotiating tactics. 10 tips

Much has been written about negotiation styles। There have been many courses about negotiation, which dedicates entire course work on collaborating and reaching a win-win scenario.

In today's 'flat world' business environment, positional bargaining method or fact and reference based negotiation model are standard prescriptions for commercial negotiation।

But what do you do, when you sit across the table from somebody whose goal is not to come to a win-win conclusion, but to really beat you down and manipulate you। Well, although it is always a drain to combat dirty negotiation tactics, I have learned that being prepared can help overcome some of that headache.

The ten tips described below are designed to help you identify and respond appropriately to common dirty negotiation tactics used by unscrupulous business people।

Shock effect
As much of value selling and convincing you have done, at the end of the deal when the time comes to discuss price, many customers show some shock effect. What! That much for enterprise licenses, are you kidding me?
It is very easy to fall in the trap of desperately wanting to close the deal and offer unnecessary concessions like free services, installation etc. This will be a good time to remind your customer how they will truly benefit using your offerings.
Also, it is not rude to tell them that quality products have a fair price; after all you get what you pay for.

Ongoing discount
Have you ever heard something on these lines, "We are so close to signing this contract, if only we can solve this last issue?" You oblige, then comes out another issue followed by one more and then another. Very soon, you are giving away much more than what you originally intended.
It is a good practice to list all customer issues early in the sales cycle based on priority. If new issues are added, put it in the list and re prioritize. When your customer asks for resolving this last issue, get a firm commitment on closing the deal right then after that issue is resolved. In this way, you only maybe give in to the last demand and not the ones following it.

Boss knows best
I have spent countless hours discussing value props with customers convincing them to buy from me, only to find out that they are not the true decision makers. They can only negotiate to receive discounts but really do not have any rights to actually buy from me.
Basically I have negotiated with the wrong person. One way to avoid this is to ask early in the sales cycle how the decision to buy is being made on the customer side. Who makes the decision? Who influences the decision? Especially for higher end technical sales, many a times although the CIO has the final say on the procurement; he is completely dependent on the class architect to make the call on the vendor.
It is important to identify the players involved in the decision making process and talk to them individually or collectively to resolve their issues।

Fake deadline
"If we cannot sign the agreement today, the deal is off"। Be very wary when your customer puts a time pressure on the day of the meeting trying to get you committed on an unfair deal. Time is a valuable pressure tactic. Tell your customer that you are trying to create a true solution for them.

It is important that you truly understand their issues first and do due diligence. It is unfair to you and him if you commit on something you do not feel comfortable about.
If they do not want to listen and force the time issue, it is your call whether you want to walk or budge in to their unilateral demands।

Delays
March, June, September and December are hot months for sales folks trying to sprint to quarter end. Although progress has been made, your customer is deliberately delaying making a decision.
Many manipulative customers feel that they can count on the fact that you have spent time and money on the sales process for a long time and will not want to go back without selling. This will be a great way to snag in a few concessions.
It is wise to stay as emotionally detached as possible not caving in and making unnecessary concessions to close these deals। Remember, that your customer also spent valuable time with you in the sales cycle. You both have skin in the game. Don't rush to closing; you have mutual benefits tied to the deal.

Unfair trading request
A friend of mine in Dallas built a nice little dashboard for a manufacturing shop that can track orders online in near real time. When time came to close the deal, the manufacturing unit wanted sole rights to the product. They wanted to use it for themselves and then resell it to other similar outfits in the manufacturing space.
However, they did not want to offer my buddy any cuts from the profit for it। This is an example of unfair trading request. Ask something in return of value always. You may lose some deals in the short run, but probably will come ahead of the curve in the end when forcing fair trade.

Suddenly cold
Many employers like to play this mind game while trying to hire somebody. They seem very interested in the early stages of the interview process, and then all of a sudden they seem to have lost all interest in you.
When you pursue your interest for the position again, they say they will hire you. But they really cannot pay what you think they were going to pay you. You agree to their terms thinking that they seem to like you moderately and are not really jazzed up about you.
This is a good time to resell yourself again on why they should pay you what you think they should pay you। Craft your message on "what's in it for them" to hire you.

Wrongful summary
The other party summarizes the agreement but misrepresents certain sections on his favor. If you listen especially carefully to the wrapping up part of the negotiation, you will not fall in this trap.
You should take notes and refer back to them if necessary to make sure that the summary accurately describes what you agreed upon।

False importance to an item
A great deal of importance is placed on a agenda item that your customer knows that you simply cannot budge in। They make you feel guilty, put pressure etc. hoping that you would give them other concessions to make up for the one you could not give in. One way to avoid this is to treat each issue independently and make separate decisions.

New player
You feel that you are moving along well and suddenly you see a new person negotiating with you. He wants to start discussing every item from scratch and do not want to acknowledge previous agreements. If you cannot pursue him to honor prior understanding, start fresh again.
It may be good to get another negotiator from your side to start dealing all over again since you may get frustrated dealing over the same issues again.
As hard as it may sound, negotiators are better off remembering that dirty tactics used by manipulative negotiators are never really personal and it is all part of the game.If you are fair in your dealings and stay emotionally detached, you will possibly negotiate your way to a win/win result most of the time. I wish you all the best in your negotiations.

Anirban Dutta, PMP� is an Assistant Vice President for Satyam Computer Services Ltd

How to become indispensable at the office

One of the most difficult statements to digest but one that's very true (specially when it comes to work) is: "Nobody's indispensable!"

In today's competitive environment, where HR costs translate into one of the major expenses of a company, one must leave home with this thought somewhere at the top of mind, if not on our laptop's welcome note!

However, most companies find a way to hold onto their best or key players। So, without referring to situations as serious as downsizing, anyone drawing a salary need remember that his/her existence in an organisation is under scrutiny during every appraisal।

Right from the office peon who is made to multitask to the head honcho, everyone needs develop personal strategic plans to ensure that their bosses cannot afford to lose them। Here are some tips on how to do just that:

Become the chosen वन
A winner is one who develops "fast-start" actions to make himself/ herself the favourite one in the eyes of the management right from day one। The good old analyising of one's strengths, weaknesses and how they can add value to the organisation sets the foundation of a long-term relationship.

"Can Do" what others won't
employeeswho can get things done are highly prized in an organisation। "Can do" people rarely turn down a new assignment and always give their best despite possible initial rejections. They believe that new challenges improve their cross functional capabilities.
Communication All employers want employees with good communication skills -- starting with 'willingness' and ability to listen। Business communication should be accurate and brief. No long winding sentences where short ones would work. Also, perhaps the most damaging error in communication skills is losing your cool or whining. However justified your complaints are, cool down and peacefully express yourself if you want to be heard at all.

It's not personal
This may seem a difficult proposition in a place where you spend most of your waking hours, but you just have to learn the art of being objective at work। In a growing organisation there are bound to be differences of opinion. The ability to stay focused on issues and remain impersonal helps you to stick to the work objective.

Says Vaishali Achrekar, marketing manager at one of the leading FMCG companies in Mumbai, "I always thought that my efficiency justified my anger at those who wouldn't deliver। It would naturally become personal when I lost my cool with my team. Finally, my appraisals revealed that my team was petrified of me. It was an eye-opener that without a team, my efficiency was of no use to anyone."

Be caring
Think of the favourite senior in your office and it is easy to point out that he/ she is someone who genuinely cares about people and so can get anyone to deliver.
Helping sincere colleagues from other departments too during bad days, and being empathic towards one's team is always recognised। Also, such people command leadership and fierce loyalty from their teams/ colleagues. Organisations would definitely not question such leadership.

Be proactive
Take responsibility for your career advancement। In a forever "right-sizing" workplace, don't expect anyone else to hold your hand and take you to heights you wish for yourself. In times of transition, individuals must be proactive and make themselves useful in related departments.

Puja Masand, wealth manager with ABN Amro Bank, started her career in banking as a junior level customer service officer। Her career graph has soared to unbelievable heights over seven years, with every team she worked with labeling her indispensable.

"Being in a service role I was good with people, and went that extra mile to solve any customer problem that reached my desk। Gradually, I won confidence of our top-notch clients and helped the bank achieve their sales targets for many new products," shares Puja. "I overshot sales targets for my team month after month, along with my other duties. It was a consistent performance, and I made sure targets didn't slip after a good month's performance. That's when my boss realised that I am capable of moving to a more pivotal role of wealth management."

Puja is now working on complete penetration of the banks existing customer base and customising products and services for high net worth individuals। She unfailingly manages to win a trip abroad every quarter as incentive on beating huge sales targets.

No chalta hai attitude
Employers don't like people who restrict their job profile। Take ownership of all your responsibilities by seeing your department as a profit centre (even if your productivity doesn't easily translate into numbers) and yourself as an integral driver of that profit।

Give your best to the company
Remember, it is positive attitude and experience that hold weight above skills, between two equally qualified employees।

Prashant Panday, CEO, Radio Mirchi, selects three defined traits that make an employee valuable, in a high-growth competitive media environment। "Employees with a good (positive, helpful) attitude, energy (passion for their job) and an ability to successfully work in teams, definitely clinch the attention of top management," he says.

Health/ fitness
Health is key to reliability. Frequent absences or poor performance related to neglected health puts one on the short list when it is time to downsize.
AppearanceHaving said that, all companies generally have an acceptable dressing requirement। Most media companies don't enforce dress codes, but even the most fun-loving organisation will not take an employee dressed like a hippie seriously. The perception of whether or not you belong has more to do with appearance than you might think.

Loyalty
This is a rare commodity in times of frequent job jumping and three-month stints। Loyalty can be demonstrated through refusal to gossip, delivering high performance and sticking with a company through its highs and lows. You can also project loyalty by carrying out instructions as best you can, by disagreeing civilly and when you have been overruled, doing the job the way the boss wants you to.

Says Ankush Agarwal, founder and CEO of Mint International (a human resource consulting, resourcing and training organisation), "Today, while recruiting CEOs, middle and junior management levels, organisations are reference checking for high levels of integrity। They seek people with high energy who take pride in their work and have the capacity to make themselves feel like part of the bigger picture."

"Even during our corporate training sessions, we stress on qualities such as humility and work ethics, along with ownership for one's work, which goes a long way in forging a relationship between employer and employee।"

Avoid bad blood
It is not easy for huge organisations to appreciate everyone all the time. This naturally leads to some dissatisfaction, which can be dealt with a talk with your immediate senior. However, if an employee chooses to proclaim and believe that he/ she is the only undervalued, overworked, underpaid professional, his/ her whining may boomerang to make the HR department feel that the office might be a happier place without them.

Outsourcing: It's not about cost saving alone

Outsourcing is just no more about cost savings but also companies' accessibility to right talent and geographic expansion, a latest survey on business outsourcing revealed।

According to a study by global consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, outsourcing has matured beyond cost reduction to become a way for organisations to better access talent and capabilities, gain more flexibility, reinvent their business model and drive innovation.
It also revealed that gaining access to right talent and geographic expansion were also high on agenda of companies seeking to outsource their various activities।

The study, titled Outsourcing Comes of Age: The Rise of Collaborative Partnering, said outsourcing has come of age with leading customers and service providers shifting their base from traditional to collaborative business models.

"Outsourcing is still very much the game, but the rules have changed," PricewaterhouseCoopers executive director Ambarish Dasgupta said, adding that the lightning pace of growth in outsourcing is only matched by the transformation of the market as traditional models are gradually being replaced by multi-sourcing and joint ventures।
The survey pointed out that customers need to rely increasingly on multi-sourcing, joint ventures and open business models। Unlike traditional single-source transactional outsourcing।

Outsourcing service providers also feel the difference in the needs of their customers goes beyond cost saving to extensive expansion plans as well.
"The one thing that's starting to happen now is that collaboration is increasingly meaning that we help our clients grow and not just help our clients become more profitable," Ashish Gupta, Evalueserve India country head & COO, said।

"A large majority of customers around 87 per cent say todays outsourcing delivers the benefits projected in the original business plan। In fact, outsourcing is perceived as such an essential business practice that 91 per cent of customers, whether completely happy or not, said they will outsource again," the study said.

The study reflects insights garnered from both outsourcing customers and providers representing 19 countries across several continents.
Major areas for the outsourcing industry are, customer call centres, core products and services and logistics or distribution-felt customers in rising markets including Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, China, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates।

The customer call centres segment received vote of 56 per cent of respondents, core products and services which got 54 per cent votes and logistics or distribution received 53 percentage of votes।

As per the report, outsourcing is growing fast and delivering results। A high level of collaboration between customers and providers result has increased confidence in overcoming the challenges of outsourcing, broader business model innovation and for expanding investment in key areas of the business.

Companies seeking to improve their business model and performance, while managing the business complexity, are trying to achieve an optimal balance of top-down management and collaborative partnering in dealings with their service providers, Ambarish added.

Service Oriented Architecture

What is SOA?

"SOA is an architectural style whose goal is to achieve loose coupling among interacting software agents. A service is a unit of work done by
a service provider to achieve desired end results for a service consumer. Both provider and consumer are roles played by software agents on behalf of their owners."

Why SOA?

Companies across many industries view IT infrastructure as a source of competitive advantage. To maintain an edge, they must quickly adapt business applications to respond to customer needs and market changes. This introduces a challenge for development teams: building applications that are powerful enough to deliver competitive differentiation, yet flexible enough to evolve with rapidly changing business requirements.

An SOA approach to application development aims to maximize the reach and adaptability of software systems. Business applications built using a service-oriented approach are flexible and extensible, making them easy to adapt to new business requirements.
Three of the main reasons companies are turning to SOA include agility, maintainability, and efficient development.

Agility Continual change is a fact of life in software and a major source of expense. This is particularly true of rigid, monolithic systems. The greatest benefit offered by the SOA model is the ease with which SOA applications can change to meet new requirements.
In the SOA model, an application becomes a grouping of discrete, independent services communicating through messages. These discrete services can exist anywhere within network reach and may be built upon a variety of technologies. When some part of the business problem changes, the solution is simply to swap-out one or more of these discrete services with services that meet the new requirements.
Each service that participates in an SOA application is a separate, independent unit of functionality that interacts with other participating services through a simple service application program interface (API). Ideally the API consists of one or more service operation methods implemented with a few lines of code. Taken together, these qualities make SOA applications very easy to extend and modify

Maintainability Another key benefit of an SOA approach is the maintainability of the business logic that under­lies the services comprising an SOA application. Because the service APIs serve as a buffer between the other services that make up an SOA application and the business logic that imple­ments any particular service, changes to the business logic that underlies a particular service should have no effect on the overall SOA application.
Stated another way, a service should encapsulate business logic in such a way that other services do not need to know anything about how it provides the service, only about what the service takes as input and returns as a response. If such encapsulation is achieved, those tasked with maintaining any particular business logic can make changes, even very major ones, without worrying that their changes will cause major pain to those who maintain other parts of the business logic, or who maintain the SOA application itself.

Efficient Development SOA applications are, by nature, highly modular. This modularity has positive implications for the development of SOA applications as well. Even a very complex SOA application is com­prised of a number of autonomous services. Each service can be designed and fabricated sepa­rately by the developers who best understand the particular functionality. The developers work­ing on a service have no need to interact with or even know about the developers working on the other services that comprise the application.
The fact that the development of SOA applications consists of many distinct, relatively small, and largely independent tasks favors the use of small, focused, efficient development teams. Also, because SOA applications are modular and agile, they can be developed and deployed in a series of small steps. Often a reasonable subset of the full functionality can be developed and deployed quickly, which has obvious time-to-market advantages. Additional functionality can readily be added in planned stages until the full feature set has been realized.

SOA principles
The following guiding principles define the ground rules for development, maintenance, and usage of the SOA
· Reuse, granularity, modularity, composability, componentization, and interoperability
· Compliance to standards (both common and industry-specific)
· Services identification and categorization, provisioning and delivery, and monitoring and tracking
The following specific architectural principles for design and service definition focus on specific themes that influence the intrinsic behavior of a system and the style of its design:
· Service Encapsulation - separation of concerns and information hiding, in software engineering, the process of enclosing programming elements inside larger, more abstract entities.
· Service Loose coupling - Services maintain a relationship that minimizes dependencies and only requires that they maintain an awareness of each other.
· Service contract - Services adhere to a communications agreement, as defined collectively by one or more service description documents
· Service abstraction - Beyond what is described in the service contract, services hide logic from the outside world
· Service reusability - Logic is divided into services with the intention of promoting reuse
· Service composability - Collections of services can be coordinated and assembled to form composite services
· Service autonomy – Services have control over the logic they encapsulate
· Service optimization – All else equal, high-quality services are generally considered preferable to low-quality ones
· Service discoverability – Services are designed to be outwardly descriptive so that they can be found and assessed via available discovery mechanisms
SOA and web service protocols
SOA may be built on Web services standards (e.g., using SOAP) that have gained broad industry acceptance. These standards (also referred to as web service specifications) also provide greater interoperability and some protection from lock-in to proprietary vendor software. One can, however, implement SOA using any service-based technology, such as Jini.
Service-oriented architecture is often defined as services exposed using the Web Services Protocol Stack. The base level of web services standards relevant to SOA includes the following:
XML - a markup language for describing data in message payloads in a document format.
HTTP (or HTTPS) - request/response protocol between clients and servers used to transfer or convey information
SOAP - a protocol for exchanging XML-based messages over a computer network, normally using HTTP
XACML - a markup language for expressing access control rules and policies.
Web Services Description Language (WSDL) - XML-based service description that describes the public interface, protocol bindings and message formats required to interact with a web service
Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) - An XML-based registry to publish service descriptions (WSDL) and allow their discovery.

An SOA - Constituent Parts
To determine what the constituent parts of an SOA are it is first necessary to break down the question into the design-time and run-time requirements. We will look at the two separately, and then propose a single view of an SOA by combining them.
The idea that SOA encapsulates both design-time and run-time (and is really about both physical and logical architectures) is critical to understanding SOA.

SOA Design-time requirements
UDDI directory of External web services
UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and integration) provides the definition of a set of services supporting the description and discovery of:
· Businesses, Organizations and other web service providers
· The web services they make available and
· The technical interfaces which may be used to access those services.
UDDI’s, like phone books, are used to discover organizations and the web services they offer. In an SOA environment this would be a directory of external web services already being used by the
enterprise. Of course, any external web services not currently being used by an enterprise would still be available in the appropriate external UDDI and could always be accessed from there. The idea is to use this UDDI as a register to aid the design process.

Directory of Enterprise Internal web services
Similar to UDDI, but containing those web services published by the enterprise itself. This internal directory would indicate whether the web service is externally available also. This would help developers and designers to re -use available web services when designing new business processes.
The directory needs to cross -reference the web service to the organisations and processes it is currently being consumed by.

Agile Design Methodology
An agile design methodology is one which is standards oriented, ensuring lowest possible TCO and enabling best re-usability. The key standards in this case are for language (XML-based, SOAP compliant),
Web services definition (WSDL) and business process modeling (BPML / BPEL4WS). It is a methodology which is oriented towards re-use, with re-usability a key design paradigm at all times.
Because the nature of SOA is of a series of quick, fast-ROI, business focused projects (each delivering a part of the overall SOA framework) there will at any given time be a number of parallel projects running. The design methodology needs to emphasize the requirement for cross-project information and working.
An agile design methodology should also not be too proscriptive regarding the actual development technique (for example Extreme Programming can be a valid approach); it should instead focus on
the deliverables.

Process Driven Development
Development based upon the modelling or re -modelling of business processes. The start point should be the expansion or re-working of the set of modelled business processes. Each business process can itself become a new web service, enabling the whole business process to be re-used by other processes or channels.
The creation of web services should be driven by the process or process part which needs to consume the web service. This is key; progression to an SOA means exposing functionality only as required rather than as a “Big Bang” approach. Obviously the main body of work for new web
Services will be the creation of the web service itself which can be drilled into from the business process flow.
A main feature of this style of development is the orchestration of new business processes via underlying (possibly pre -existing) web services. The orchestration should be supported by the toolset, and should be captured using one of the two key standards in this area (BPML/BPEL4WS).
This ensures continued re -usability in the event of new or extended development toolsets being adopted.
The flexibility to design new (composite) applications/processes is traditionally thought of as application server functionality; one of the key benefits of SOA is the empowerment of business functions to have greater control over the implementation of the business process.
Another reason for the standards oriented approach is that business process modelling no longer ends at the edge of the enterprise. Increasingly the extended processes are being modelled; shared
With partners in a common and standard format, the collaboration is greatly enhanced and success is much more a likely proposition.


Workflow Oriented Development
One of the key paradigms for SOA development is that the business processes are seamless. Each step in each process should be linked, either as an automatic next step (workflow or flow driven),
Or as a workflow task on a users’ consolidated task list. Equally cross -process interactions are often workflow driven – especially where there are decision points. Business processes are not just modelled, they are orchestrated.

Multi-level Design Management
SOA delivers the challenge of creating an agile development and implementation environment, whilst retaining good project control and an overview of the overall SOA implementation roadmap.
Design management must be based primarily on the business objectives each project is to deliver, but also must include the following:
· Step-by-step approach to create building blocks (components)
· Overall programme management to retain the overview of all parallel projects plus the
· overall roadmap
· Driving the need for easy integration at all levels – content, information, process and
· application as key design criteria
· X-Project control, planning and co -ordination
· Release management

Agile Toolset for SOA Development
The toolset itself must also be agile in order to deliver or facilitate the following:
· Abstraction of existing application functionality into new web services
· Minimize coding, yet able to link to disparate systems with disparate communications styles,
· databases and interfaces
· Ability to plug in existing middleware interfaces
· Standards based, with good upgrade paths to transform into latest versions of standards and convert between versions
Any SOA solution will thrive or shrivel based on the agility of the delivered toolset. If development often means coding, and if changes to versions of standards (especially for XML industry-specific messaging definitions) means re-working rather than simple conversion or upgrade, then the solution is not really agile and will always inhibit agile implementations.

Whilst most parts of a business process can be abstracted as discrete web services, it will also be true (at least initially) that there will be requirements to build message -based interfaces underlying the process flow. Typically this will be true in the short-term where such interfaces already exist, or where the flow starts by the extraction of data independently of the data creation (e.g. batch extractions). These can be built as separate components which can be attached to the relevant business process step and are then, themselves, re-usable web services.

Information Routing Modelling
The complete SOA concept is not just about agile business processes; it also incorporates the need to integrate information and to deliver this information to the right people at the right time. As with business processes, this integration is not just about internal information, but will often include information from external sources. The SOA solution must also be able to model the flows of information across the enterprise and the extended supply chain.

Debugging and Simulation Capability
It is true for all development tools that the availability of good debugging and simulation tools will greatly facilitate the fast delivery of robust and reliable solutions. Any SOA solution should provide
capabilities for debugging process steps, whole processes, and cross-process flows, as well as simulation to support performance testing.

Multi-Language Capability In order for an SOA solution to be deployed globally it must support multiple code page and multiple language scenarios. This may be in the form of separate application or database servers, Unicode capability, or separate presentation layers.

SOA – Run-time requirements
Run-time SOA is characterized by the need for visibility of flows, errors and bottlenecks. It is further characterized by the need for single point sign-on and enterprise identity management.
Run-time flows fall into two categories: the business process flow and the underlying integration flow.
The latter is the extraction, handling and routing of data from one system to another which is triggered by the business process.

Consolidated Process Management
A key criterion for the run-time portion of an SOA solution is the ability to present transactional and information flows visually by business process, organizational unit and server. This will not only facilitate monitoring, collection of business activity data and error recognition but will also help to identify performance bottlenecks. The SOA solution should include a management console which will allow / facilitate the following:
· Visibility of flows by process, organizational unit and server
· Visibility of the underlying interface flows where relevant
· Alert handling
· Collecting data on activity monitoring at process, organizational unit and server levels
· Capacity and volume visibility
· Bottleneck / performance visibility

Process Oriented Monitoring and Administration Tools
The run-time environment should display information also at the business Process level and allow activation / de-activation of any process (or stopping the process at a specific step) as a means of
handling problems / implementation. Transactional information (underlying messages where relevant) should also be available by drilling into a specific process.

Business Activity Monitoring (BAM)
The SOA tool-set should include BAM capability; the run-time environment should feed data to the BAM module to support this.
Persistence of Message-Based Asynchronous Process Data
SOA requires a data store external to the applications that provide the underlying functionality, akin to an Operational Data Store, to store potentially long-term but essentially transient process related data.
Whilst some processes will be synchronous, and may be online (driven from the user task list or an external web service for instance), others will be asynchronous and message-based. The ability to store data after each step in a flow (both process flows and the underlying technical integration flows) is critical to the ability of an SOA solution to guarantee delivery, to support store and forward, and to manage long -duration business processes.
This data should store the operational context of the process such that the process can be restarted, monitored, analyzed and debugged as necessary.
Alongside this transient operational data the process model meta-data (process definition, routing and transformation rules) also needs to be stored.

Scalability of the Environment
Given the building block approach of SOA implementations it is critical that an SOA solution is entirely scalable. Scalable really means that the toolset supports the deployment of further servers, the assignment of specific processes or organizational units to servers and the
management of software across servers.
Typically an SOA might start with one organizational unit handling one Business Process via the SOA environment (single server plus resilience) and will migrate to Enterprise wide processes. The SOA toolset must be capable of seamless deployment of further servers (without significant
Business impact) underpinned by the secure management of software across all servers.

Resilience
As for any other IT architecture, a Service Oriented Architecture must provide sufficient resilience to support the business. The SOA run-time environment must facilitate this via enterprise-wide alert handling and, if possible, the ability to target process flows on a specific server (or server group) as a fall-back (prioritization of flows).

User Access and Security
One of the ways in which SOA can empower a workforce is the creation of single -point sign on. The SOA solution should offer a browser-based, role -oriented experience for the user which incorporates task lists based on the users’ roles and the relevant collaboration and knowledge
content as well as links to the key web sites for the role. The most critical parts of this are the concepts of enterprise-wide identity management and federated identity management (across enterprises) which allow the user to sign on once and for the appropriate access to be given in any application/task the user can access.
Given that an SOA environment inevitably will communicate both across the internet and intranet, the set-up of appropriate firewalls to control external (internet) access is a critical factor as for any system which needs to allow external access.

Workflow
Availability of work -flow functionality in any SOA solution facilitates the following;
· Linking into the underlying applications where necessary (it is a utopian concept to imagine that ALL processes, across the whole enterprise, will be abstracted into web services – some processes may remain within the application)
· Browser-based task lists for the users

Event driven
The link between processes (or between a process and the external world) will often be in the form of an event (e.g. order created, error detected, document released). An SOA solution which supports event handling and allows process modelling to incorporate event handling can be thought of as more agile than one that does not.

Simulation capability
The ability to simulate traffic across any process is very useful when reviewing performance and scalability questions.

Error Management
A key criterion for any SOA run-time environment is its error management. The criteria for error management are;
· Visibility of errors
· Re-start capability
· Error notification
· Workflow linking

SOA Elements

Industry Background

For several years now, SOA, or services-oriented architecture, has promised to deliver unprecedented flexibility and cost savings to IT, by defining a methodology for the use and re-use of software components and business processes. However, SOA is still new, and organizations are still in the process of learning how to implement it so that it fulfils its potential for intra and inter-enterprise services reuse and process interoperability. Meanwhile, would-be SOA practitioners encounter the challenges typical of a software methodology that is not yet supported by a fully mature industry.

For example:
• Every major vendor claims to have adopted SOA and has published its own view and reference architecture for SOA. SOA start-ups are being acquired by larger vendors, creating further volatility

• IT typically does not communicate effectively to the business how money spent on SOA will automate business functions and deliver solutions cheaper, better, and faster

• Every major standards body has multiple groups attempting to define SOA, adding to the confusion and slowing adoption of SOA.

• Development and management tools are not sufficient

• A lack of common vocabulary across the industry has made it difficult to share best practices.

Stephen Covey's 90:10 Principle

Discover the 90/10 Principle.


It will change your life (at least the way you react to situations).


What is this principle? 10% of life is made up of what happens to you. 90% of life is decided by how you react.


What does this mean? We really have no control over 10% of what happens to us.


We cannot stop the car from breaking down. The plane will be late arriving, which throws our whole schedule off. A driver may cut us off in traffic.


We have no control over this 10%. The other 90% is different. You determine the other 90%.
How? ……….By your reaction.


You cannot control a red light. but you can control your reaction. Don't let people fool you; YOU can control how you react.


Let's use an example.
You are eating breakfast with your family. Your daughter knocks over a cup of coffee onto your business shirt. You have no control over what just happened.


What happens next will be determined by how you react.


You curse.


You harshly scold your daughter for knocking the cup over. She breaks down in tears. After scolding her, you turn to your spouse and criticize her for placing the cup too close to the edge of the table. A short verbal battle follows. You storm upstairs and change your shirt. Back downstairs, you find your daughter has been too busy crying to finish breakfast and get ready for school. She misses the bus.


Your spouse must leave immediately for work. You rush to the car and drive your daughter to school. Because you are late, you drive 40 miles an hour in a 30 mph speed limit.


After a 15-minute delay and throwing $60 traffic fine away, you arrive at school. Your daughter runs into the building without saying goodbye. After arriving at the office 20 minutes late, you find you forgot your briefcase. Your day has started terrible. As it continues, it seems to get worse and worse. You look forward to coming home.


When you arrive home, you find small wedge in your relationship with your spouse and daughter.

1. Why? …. Because of how you reacted in the morning.
   Why did you have a bad day?
   A) Did the coffee cause it?
   B) Did your daughter cause it?
   C) Did the policeman cause it?
   D) Did you cause it?
   

The answer is "D".


You had no control over what happened with the coffee. How you reacted in those 5 seconds is what caused your bad day.


Here is what could have and should have happened.


Coffee splashes over you. Your daughter is about to cry. You gently say, "Its ok honey, you just need to be more careful next time". Grabbing a towel you rush upstairs. After grabbing a new shirt and your briefcase, you come back down in time to look through the window and see your child getting on the bus. She turns and waves. You arrive 5 minutes early and cheerfully greet the staff. Your boss comments on how good the day you are having.
Notice the difference?


Two different scenarios. Both started the same. Both ended different.


Why?


Because of how you REACTED.


You really do not have any control over 10% of what happens. The other 90% was determined by your reaction.


Here are some ways to apply the 90/10 principle.

If someone says something negative about you, don't be a sponge. Let the attack roll off like water on glass. You don't have to let the negative comment affect you!
React properly and it will not ruin your day. A wrong reaction could result in losing a friend, being fired, getting stressed out etc.


How do you react if someone cuts you off in traffic? Do you lose your temper? Pound on the steering wheel? A friend of mine had the steering wheel fall off) Do you curse? Does your blood pressure skyrocket? Do you try and bump them?
WHO CARES if you arrive ten seconds later at work? Why let the cars ruin your drive?
Remember the 90/10 principle, and do not worry about it.


You are told you lost your job.
Why lose sleep and get irritated? It will work out. Use your worrying energy and time into finding another job.


The plane is late; it is going to mangle your schedule for the day. Why take outpour frustration on the flight attendant? She has no control over what is going on.
Use your time to study, get to know the other passenger. Why get stressed out? It will just make things worse.
Now you know the 90-10 principle. Apply it and you will be amazed at the results. You will lose nothing if you try it. The 90-10 principle is incredible. Very few know and apply this principle.


The result?
Millions of people are suffering from undeserved stress, trials, problems and heartache. We all must understand and apply the 90/10 principle.
It CAN change your life!!!


Enjoy….