The U.S. healthcare system is in "complete chaos-disarray." Medical costs have increased significantly over the past 6 years with 70% increase for deductibles and 24% or more for health insurance premiums. All the while, workers earnings have either not increased or if they did, the pay raises were for less than the increase in the cost of medical care. The situation is unsustainable and the public wants the system fixed. This book offers ways of fixing the problems in healthcare. HEALTHCARE's OUT SICK - PREDICTING A CURE - Solutions that WORK !!!! first defines the "healthcare in crisis" problem. Through real patient experiences, the book describes the difficulties of getting through the maze of complexity among the plethora of "silo providers" which make up the industry. The heart of the book provides readers with a comprehensive solution that can work, a disruption that is necessary to provide Americans the medical care they need without the US public and healthcare providers and payors going into bankruptcy, insolvency or closure. This book delves into digitized medicine, payor and provider reimbursement models, and value-based healthcare delivery. It also includes a philosophy or mode of thinking and operation for the solutions that are needed for diagnosis-effective, cost-effective, and time-efficient healthcare delivery, of which digitized medicine, value-based care, and payor reimbursement modes are just some of the factors. The authors propose that the real solution involves having the patient at the center of the issues and changing from an archaic gold standard way of thinking to a "Predictive Analytic thinking" where one gets at the real truth by doing "real science" that in the end becomes effective not only for the population but for the individual person. This all leads to real person-centered and person-directed medicine and healthcare delivery.

Transformation and Your New EHR offers a robust communication and change leadership approach to support electronic health record (EHR) implementations and transformation journeys. This book highlights the approach and philosophy of communication, change leadership, and systems and process design, giving readers a practical view into the successes and failures that can be experienced throughout the evolution of an EHR implementation.

Following in the tradition of its popular predecessor, A Practical Guide to Content Delivery Networks, Second Edition offers an accessible and organized approach to implementing networks capable of handling the increasing data requirements of today's always on mobile society. Describing how content delivery networks (CDN) function, it provides an understanding of Web architecture, as well as an overview of the TCP/IP protocol suite. The book reports on the development of the technologies that have evolved over the past decade as distribution mechanisms for various types of Web content. Using a structural and visual approach, it provides step-by-step guidance through the process of setting up a scalable CDN. Supplies a clear understanding of the framework and individual layers of design, including caching and load balancing Describes the terminology, tactics, and potential problems when implementing a CDN Examines cost-effective ways to load balance web service layers Explains how application servers connect to databases and how systems will scale as volume increases Illustrates the impact of video on data storage and delivery, as well as the need for data compression Covers Flash and the emerging HTML5 standard for video Highlighting the advantages and disadvantages associated with these types of networks, the book explains how to use the networks within the Internet operated by various ISPs as mechanisms for effectively delivering Web server based information. It emphasizes a best-of-breed approach to building your network to allow for an effective CDN to be built on practically any budget. To help you get started, this vendor-neutral reference explains how to code Web pages to optimize the delivery of various types of media. It also includes examples of successful approaches, from outsourcing to do it yourself.

With the majority of IT projects being delivered late, over budget, or cancelled altogether, it is clear that traditional project management methodologies do not provide an effective framework for today's IT projects. It is evident that a new Return-on-Investment (ROI) oriented approach is required that focuses on the ROI of a project from its inception. Maximizing Benefits from IT Project Management: From Requirements to Value Delivery provides comprehensive guidelines for determining an accurate ROI before the project has progressed to the point where it's over budget and over-run. It applies an iterative approach to the entire project management life cycle that re-visits the ROI, re-assesses the value delivered, defines the project scope, and allows the project to be planned as successive iterations based on the value delivered. This book details a systematic and simplified approach for effectively and efficiently selecting and evaluating IT projects for your organization. Filled with equations, tables, and figures that facilitate understanding, it explains how to evaluate subsequent success of a project so that it is simpler to manage, more efficient, and yields the ROI estimated at the outset. Using the novel approach outlined in the book, you will be able to deliver value throughout the project life cycle and make sure your projects are delivered on time, on budget, and within the constraints of the resources available.

Project Management: Theory and Practice, Third Edition gives students a broad and real flavor of project management. Bringing project management to life, it avoids being too sterilely academic and too narrowly focused on a particular industry view. It takes a model-based approach towards project management commonly used in all industries. The textbook aligns with the latest version of the Project Management Institute's Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK (R)) Guide, which is considered to be the de facto standard for project management. However, it avoids that standard's verbiage and presents students with readable and understandable explanations. Core chapters align with the Project Management Institute's model as well as explain how this model fits real-world projects. The textbook can be used as companion to the standard technical model and help those studying for various project management certifications. The textbook takes an in-depth look at the following areas important to the standard model: Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) Earned Value Management (EVM) Enterprise project management Portfolio management (PPM) Professional responsibility and ethics Agile life cycle The text begins with a background section (Chapters 1-9) containing material outside of the standard model structure but necessary to prepare students for the 10 standard model knowledge areas covered in the chapters that follow. The text is rounded out by eight concluding chapters that explain advanced planning approaches models and projects' external environments. Recognizing that project management is an evolving field, the textbook includes section written by industry experts who share their insight and expertise on cutting-edge topics. It prepares students for upcoming trends and changes in project management while providing an overview of the project management environment today. In addition to guiding students through current models and standards, Project Management: Theory and Practice, Third Edition prepares students for the future by stimulating their thinking beyond the accepted pragmatic view.

Information security has a major gap when cryptography is implemented. Cryptographic algorithms are well defined, key management schemes are well known, but the actual deployment is typically overlooked, ignored, or unknown. Cryptography is everywhere. Application and network architectures are typically well-documented but the cryptographic architecture is missing. This book provides a guide to discovering, documenting, and validating cryptographic architectures. Each chapter builds on the next to present information in a sequential process. This approach not only presents the material in a structured manner, it also serves as an ongoing reference guide for future use.

Examining the flow of technical knowledge between the US, Taiwan and Mainland China over the last sixty-five years, this book shows that the technical knowledge that has moved between these states is vast and varied. It includes the invention and production of industrial goods, as well as knowledge of the patterns of corporate organization and management. Indeed, this diversity is reflected in the process itself, which is driven both by returning expatriates with knowledge acquired overseas and by successful government intervention in acquiring technology from multinational firms. Technology Transfer Between the US, China and Taiwan engages with the evolving debates on the merits, importance and feasibility of technology transfer in the process of economic development globally, and uses the example of Taiwan to show that multinational corporations can indeed play a positive role in economic development. Further, it reveals the underlying tension between international cooperation and nationalism which inevitably accompanies international exchanges, as well as the delicate balancing act required between knowledge acquisition and dangerous levels of dependency, and the beneficial role of the US in East Asia's technological development. With contributors from disciplines ranging from history, geography, urban planning, sociology, political science and electrical engineering, this multi-disciplinary book will be of great interest to students and scholars working across a broad range of subjects including Taiwan studies, Chinese studies, economics, business studies and development studies.

The past decade has seen a dramatic increase in the amount and variety of information that is generated and stored electronically by business enterprises. Storing this increased volume of information has not been a problem to date, but as these information stores grow larger and larger, multiple challenges arise for senior management: namely, questions such as "How much is our data worth?" "Are we storing our data in the most cost-effective way?" "Are we managing our data effectively and efficiently?" "Do we know which data is most important?" "Are we extracting business insight from the right data?" "Are our data adding to the value of our business?" "Are our data a liability?" "What is the potential for monetizing our data?" and "Do we have an appropriate risk management plan in place to protect our data?" To answer these value-based questions, data must be treated with the same rigor and discipline as other tangible and intangible assets. In other words, corporate data should be treated as a potential asset and should have its own asset valuation methodology that is accepted by the business community, the accounting and valuation community, and other important stakeholder groups. Valuing Data: An Open Framework is a first step in that direction. Its purpose is to: Provide the reader with some background on the nature of data Present the common categories of business data Explain the importance of data management Report the current thinking on data valuation Offer some business reasons to value data Present an "open framework"-along with some proposed methods-for valuing data The book does not aim to prescribe exactly how data should be valued monetarily, but rather it is a "starting point" for a discussion of data valuation with the objective of developing a stakeholder consensus, which, in turn, will become accepted standards and practices.

DataOps is a new way of delivering data and analytics that is proven to get results. It enables IT and users to collaborate in the delivery of solutions that help organisations to embrace a data-driven culture. The DataOps Revolution: Delivering the Data-Driven Enterprise is a narrative about real world issues involved in using DataOps to make data-driven decisions in modern organisations. The book is built around real delivery examples based on the author's own experience and lays out principles and a methodology for business success using DataOps. Presenting practical design patterns and DataOps approaches, the book shows how DataOps projects are run and presents the benefits of using DataOps to implement data solutions. Best practices are introduced in this book through the telling of a story, which relates how a lead manager must find a way through complexity to turn an organisation around. This narrative vividly illustrates DataOps in action, enabling readers to incorporate best practices into everyday projects. The book tells the story of an embattled CIO who turns to a new and untested project manager charged with a wide remit to roll out DataOps techniques to an entire organisation. It illustrates a different approach to addressing the challenges in bridging the gap between IT and the business. The approach presented in this story lines up to the six IMPACT pillars of the DataOps model that Kinaesis (www.kinaesis.com) has been using through its consultants to deliver successful projects and turn around failing deliveries. The pillars help to organise thinking and structure an approach to project delivery. The pillars are broken down and translated into steps that can be applied to real-world projects that can deliver satisfaction and fulfillment to customers and project team members.

Portfolio management is becoming the 'must have' for organizations to prosper and survive in this decade and beyond. No longer can the organizational focus be one of following best and repeatable practices as resource limitations mean only those programs, projects, and operational work that add business value can and should be pursued. Executives are focusing on strategic ability and managing complexity, which only can be done through a disciplined portfolio process in ensuring the best mix of programs, projects, and operational work is under way. In turn, the portfolio is constantly in flux as difficult decisions are made if a project, for example, is no longer contributing to business value and providing benefits and should be terminated to reallocate resources to one of higher priority. Commitment to this difficult approach is necessary at all levels, and communication is required so everyone knows how their work contributes to the organization's strategic goals and objectives. Portfolio Management: Delivering on Strategy, Second Edition focuses on the benefits of portfolio management to the organization. Its goal is to provide senior executives a view on how portfolio management can deliver organizational strategy. The emphasis is on the specific aspects within the portfolio management discipline and how each aspect should be managed from a business perspective and not necessarily from a portfolio management perspective. Highlights of the book include: Agile portfolio management Delivering organizational value Portfolio management and uncertainty Portfolio governance Marketing a portfolio Portfolio management success Starting with a review of the project portfolio concept and its development, the book is a reference for executives and practitioners in the field, as well as a students and researchers studying portfolio management.

It's axiomatic to state that people fear what they do not understand, and this is especially true when it comes to technology. However, despite their prevalence, computers remain shrouded in mystery, and many users feel apprehensive when interacting with them. Smartphones have only exacerbated the issue. Indeed, most users of these devices leverage only a small fraction of the power they hold in their hands. How Things Work: The Computer Science Edition is a roadmap for readers who want to overcome their technophobia and harness the full power of everyday technology. Beginning with the basics, the book demystifies the mysterious world of computer science, explains its fundamental concepts in simple terms, and answers the questions many users feel too intimidated to ask. By the end of the book, readers will understand how computers and smart devices function and, more important, how they can make these devices work for them. To complete the picture, the book also introduces readers to the darker side of modern technology: security and privacy concerns, identity theft, and threats from the Dark Web.

Fifteen years ago, a company was considered innovative if the CEO and board mandated a steady flow of new product ideas through the company's innovation pipeline. Innovation was a carefully planned process, driven from above and tied to key strategic goals. Nowadays, innovation means entrepreneurship, self-organizing teams, fast ideas and cheap, customer experiments. Innovation is driven by hacking, and the world's most innovative companies proudly display their hacker credentials. Hacker culture grew up on the margins of the computer industry. It entered the business world in the twenty-first century through agile software development, design thinking and lean startup method, the pillars of the contemporary startup industry. Startup incubators today are filled with hacker entrepreneurs, running fast, cheap experiments to push against the limits of the unknown. As corporations, not-for-profits and government departments pick up on these practices, seeking to replicate the creative energy of the startup industry, hacker culture is changing how we think about leadership, work and innovation. This book is for business leaders, entrepreneurs and academics interested in how digital culture is reformatting our economies and societies. Shifting between a big picture view on how hacker culture is changing the digital economy and a detailed discussion of how to create and lead in-house teams of hacker entrepreneurs, it offers an essential introduction to the new rules of innovation and a practical guide to building the organizations of the future.

This book introduces students to business process management, an approach that aims to align the organization's business processes with the demands of the marketplace. Processes serve as a coordination mechanism, and the aim of business process management is to improve the organization's effectiveness and efficiency in adapting to change, and maintaining competitive advantage. In Business Process Management, Kumar argues for the value of looking at businesses as a collection of processes that cut across departments, and for breaking down functional silos. The book provides an overview of the basic concepts in this field before moving on to more advanced topics such as process verification, flexible processes, process security and evaluation, resource assignment, and social networks. One chapter of the book is also devoted to process analytics. The book concludes with an examination of the future directions of the discipline. Blending a strong grounding in current research with a focus on concepts and tools, Business Process Management is an accessible textbook full of practical examples and cases that will appeal to upper level students.

This books aims to present fundamental aspects of optical communication techniques and advanced modulation techniques and extensive applications of optical communications systems and networks employing single-mode optical fibers as the transmission system. New digital techqniues such as chromatic dispersion, polarization mode dispersion, nonlinear phase distortion effects, etc. will be discussed. Practical models for practice and understanding the behavior and dynamics of the devices and systems will be included.

Many of the challenges of the next century will have physical dimensions, such as tsunamis, hurricanes, and climate change as well as human dimensions such as economic crises, epidemics, and emergency responses. With pioneering editors and expert contributors, Advanced Geoinformation Science explores how certain technical aspects of geoinformation have been used and could be used to address such global issues. The editors and chapter authors have been involved in global initiatives such as Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) and Digital Earth, and research problems such as air quality, public health, and cloud computing. The book delineates the problems communities are likely to face and how advanced geoinformation science can be a part of their solution. It introduces different methods in collecting spatial data as the initial feeds to geoinformation science and computing platforms. It discusses systems for data management, data integration and analysis, the geoinformation infrastructure, as well as knowledge capture, formatting, and utilization. The book then explores a variety of geoinformation applications, highlighting environmental, agriculture, and urban planning uses. Geoinformation science encompasses more than just traditional technologies such as Remote Sensing, GIS, GPS, and supporting disciplines. And although the science continues to become more multidisciplinary, the literature remains compartmentalized according to the traditional disciplinary boundaries. Capturing recent developments in geoinformation science and linking IT with a wide range of Earth sciences, the authors explain how advanced technology and concepts play a significant role in recent advancements. Enhanced with forty-four color illustrations, live examples such as GOS and AirNow, and insights from NASA, EPA, and USGS, the book provides a vision for the future and explores how to bring that vision into reality.

Focusing on the critical role IT plays in organizational development, the book shows how to employ action learning to improve the competitiveness of an organization. Defining the current IT problem from an operational and strategic perspective, it presents a collection of case studies that illustrate key learning issues. It details a dynamic model for effective IT management through adaptive learning techniques-supplying proven educational theories and practices to foster the required changes in your staff. It examines existing organizational learning theories and the historical problems that occurred with companies that have used them, as well as those that have failed to use them.

The Unified Process methodology for object-oriented component-based development has taken the information technology community by storm. This first volume in a four-book series addresses the Inception Phase, in which developers focus on the initial requirements for a system, determining its scope and organizing the project. These articles from "Software Development" magazine have been written by industry luminaries.

Close collaboration across agencies and international borders is mandatory for public health officials. A powerful tool for sharing knowledge, knowledge management (KM) can help public health professionals quickly collaborate and disseminate knowledge for solving public health issues worldwide. The latest initiatives for reforming healthcare have put the spotlight on the need for maximizing resources. In addition to providing a platform for sharing knowledge, KM can help healthcare professionals do more with less. One tool, two problems solved. Yet the sharing of knowledge and KM continues to be a major challenge in the public health field. Knowledge Management in Public Health provides a general introduction to KM and social networking in the public health arena. The book begins with coverage of basic principles, components, and methodologies as well as trends and key issues in public health. It includes ten case studies illustrating applications of KM and social networking in public health. The chapters are written by leading individuals from organizations involved in applying KM in public health worldwide. The editors and chapter authors explore the many elements of KM, delineating how and why to start such an initiative. They provide specific examples of the development and value-added benefits of KM in a variety of public health environments. Tough or quick decision making has always benefitted enormously from knowledge based on the maximum amount of pertinent information available at the time-this has not changed. What is new in the present public health environment is the need to do this more often, with fewer personnel available, and increased expectations relative to the services expected by the public. Better use of information under a KM system is well suited to serve that purpose. This book explores the many ways to use KM to anticipate potential health issues and quickly resolve key incidents when they occur.

Getting Web projects done right and delivered on time is all about efficiency. Putting the information you need and tools you can rely on at your ready disposal-Managing Web Projects-is a complete guide for project managers in the Internetworking industry. Whether you are a Web developer or an Internet Service Provider, whether your project is a quick fix, a complete overhaul, or a new start-up, this resource provides you with an organized path. It will walk you through a typical project life cycle, while providing you with all the tools and definitions needed to take charge and instill confidence in your staff and your customers. Invaluable for those seeking ISO 9001 certification, the text includes a number of detailed Work Instructions that can be used to develop a formal quality management system specific to a project management organization. They can also be leveraged in a TQM (Total Quality Management) or a Six Sigma environment. The book includes: Management guidelines for web hosting, data center migrations, site security, content development, application and Web site loading and testing, VPNs, VoIP, business continuity, and disaster recovery An Internet project management glossary, a technical Internetworking glossary, and a project management acronym table A tools suite with a proven record of success for project initiation, planning, execution, control, and close out This complete resource provides the resources needed-including dozens of time-tested templates, schedules, checklists, and flow charts-to become fully versed in and aligned with the nine knowledge areas and five major processes codified by the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK (R)).

An exploration of the benefits of cloud computing in geoscience research and applications as well as future research directions, Spatial Cloud Computing: A Practical Approach discusses the essential elements of cloud computing and their advantages for geoscience. Using practical examples, it details the geoscience requirements of cloud computing, covers general procedures and considerations when migrating geoscience applications onto cloud services, and demonstrates how to deploy different applications. The book discusses how to choose cloud services based on the general cloud computing measurement criteria and cloud computing cost models. The authors examine the readiness of cloud computing to support geoscience applications using open source cloud software solutions and commercial cloud services. They then review future research and developments in data, computation, concurrency, and spatiotemporal intensities of geosciences and how cloud service can be leveraged to meet the challenges. They also introduce research directions from the aspects of technology, vision, and social dimensions. Spatial Cloud Computing: A Practical Approach a common workflow for deploying geoscience applications and provides references to the concepts, technical details, and operational guidelines of cloud computing. These features and more give developers, geoscientists, and IT professionals the information required to make decisions about how to select and deploy cloud services.

Edited by Jussi Kantola, the founding faculty member of the world's first university Knowledge Service Engineering Department at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and Waldemar Karwowski from the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems at UCF, Knowledge Service Engineering Handbook defines what knowledge services engineering means and how it is different from service engineering and service production. This groundbreaking handbook explores recent advances in knowledge service engineering from the accomplished researchers and practitioners in this field from around the world and provides engineering, systemic, industry, and consumer use viewpoints to knowledge service systems and engineering paradigms. The handbook outlines how to acquire and utilize knowledge in the 21st century presenting multiple cultural aspects including US, European, and Asian perspectives. Organized into four parts, it begins with an introduction to the main concepts of knowledge services. It then explores data, information and knowledge based engineering methods and applications that can be used to develop knowledge services, followed by discussions of the importance of human networks in knowledge services. The handbook concludes with descriptions of high-performance knowledge service systems. This structure allows different uses: the information can be looked up as needed or read in the order presented. As with any new field, the excitement lies in seeing how to combine these advances in data, information, and human parts of knowledge services in the future. While most books on this subject concentrate on data, information, or knowledge, this handbook integrates coverage of all three, thus providing a complete examination of sustainable knowledge services. The handbook has been carefully designed to be of use to professionals who develop new knowledge services and related businesses, for academic researchers and lecturers to start new research projects, and for students studying knowledge services, knowledge service production, and knowledge service business.

Many professionals and students in engineering, science, business, and other application fields need to develop Windows-based and web-enabled information systems to store and use data for decision support, without help from professional programmers. However, few books are available to train professionals and students who are not professional programmers to develop these information systems. Developing Windows-Based and Web-Enabled Information Systems fills this gap, providing a self-contained, easy-to-understand, and well-illustrated text that explores current concepts, methods, and software tools for developing Windows-based and web-enabled information systems. Written in an easily accessible style, the book details current concepts, methods, and software tools for Windows-based and web-enabled information systems that store and use data. It is self-contained with easy-to-understand small examples to walk through concepts and implementation details along with large-scale case studies. The book describes data modeling methods including entity-relationship modeling, relational modeling and normalization, and object-oriented data modeling, to develop data models of a database. The author covers how to use software tools in the Microsoft application development environment, including Microsoft Access, MySQL, SQL, Visual Studio, Visual Basic, VBA, HTML, and XML, to implement databases and develop Windows-based and web-enabled applications with the database, graphical user interface, and program components. The book takes you through the entire process of developing a computer and network application for an information system, highlighting concepts and operation details. In each chapter, small data examples are used to manually walk through concepts and operational details. These features and more give you the conceptual understanding and practical skill required, even if you don't have a computer science background, to develop Windows-based or web-enabled applications for your specialized information system.

Today's high-speed and rapidly changing development environments demand equally high-speed security practices. Still, achieving security remains a human endeavor, a core part of designing, generating and verifying software. Dr. James Ransome and Brook S.E. Schoenfield have built upon their previous works to explain that security starts with people; ultimately, humans generate software security. People collectively act through a particular and distinct set of methodologies, processes, and technologies that the authors have brought together into a newly designed, holistic, generic software development lifecycle facilitating software security at Agile, DevOps speed. -Eric. S. Yuan, Founder and CEO, Zoom Video Communications, Inc. It is essential that we embrace a mantra that ensures security is baked in throughout any development process. Ransome and Schoenfield leverage their abundance of experience and knowledge to clearly define why and how we need to build this new model around an understanding that the human element is the ultimate key to success. -Jennifer Sunshine Steffens, CEO of IOActive Both practical and strategic, Building in Security at Agile Speed is an invaluable resource for change leaders committed to building secure software solutions in a world characterized by increasing threats and uncertainty. Ransome and Schoenfield brilliantly demonstrate why creating robust software is a result of not only technical, but deeply human elements of agile ways of working. -Jorgen Hesselberg, author of Unlocking Agility and Cofounder of Comparative Agility The proliferation of open source components and distributed software services makes the principles detailed in Building in Security at Agile Speed more relevant than ever. Incorporating the principles and detailed guidance in this book into your SDLC is a must for all software developers and IT organizations. -George K Tsantes, CEO of Cyberphos, former partner at Accenture and Principal at EY Detailing the people, processes, and technical aspects of software security, Building in Security at Agile Speed emphasizes that the people element remains critical because software is developed, managed, and exploited by humans. This book presents a step-by-step process for software security that uses today's technology, operational, business, and development methods with a focus on best practice, proven activities, processes, tools, and metrics for any size or type of organization and development practice.

Is your enterprise's strategy for cybersecurity just crossing its fingers and hoping nothing bad ever happens? If so...you're not alone. Getting cybersecurity right is all too often an afterthought for Fortune 500 firms, bolted on and hopefully creating a secure environment. We all know this approach doesn't work, but what should a smart enterprise do to stay safe? Today, cybersecurity is no longer just a tech issue. In reality, it never was. It's a management issue, a leadership issue, a strategy issue: It's a "must have right"...a survival issue. Business leaders and IT managers alike need a new paradigm to work together and succeed. After years of distinguished work as a corporate executive, board member, author, consultant, and expert witness in the field of risk management and cybersecurity, David X Martin is THE pioneering thought leader in the new field of CyRMSM. Martin has created an entirely new paradigm that approaches security as a business problem and aligns it with business needs. He is the go-to guy on this vitally important issue. In this new book, Martin shares his experience and expertise to help you navigate today's dangerous cybersecurity terrain, and take proactive steps to prepare your company-and yourself -to survive, thrive, and keep your data (and your reputation) secure.

Coud reliability engineering is a leading issue of cloud services. Cloud service providers guarantee computation, storage and applications through service-level agreements (SLAs) for promised levels of performance and uptime. Cloud Reliability Engineering: Technologies and Tools presents case studies examining cloud services, their challenges, and the reliability mechanisms used by cloud service providers. These case studies provide readers with techniques to harness cloud reliability and availability requirements in their own endeavors. Both conceptual and applied, the book explains reliability theory and the best practices used by cloud service companies to provide high availability. It also examines load balancing, and cloud security. Written by researchers and practitioners, the book's chapters are a comprehensive study of cloud reliability and availability issues and solutions. Various reliability class distributions and their effects on cloud reliability are discussed. An important aspect of reliability block diagrams is used to categorize poor reliability of cloud infrastructures, where enhancement can be made to lower the failure rate of the system. This technique can be used in design and functional stages to determine poor reliability of a system and provide target improvements. Load balancing for reliability is examined as a migrating process or performed by using virtual machines. The approach employed to identify the lightly loaded destination node to which the processes/virtual machines migrate can be optimized by employing a genetic algorithm. To analyze security risk and reliability, a novel technique for minimizing the number of keys and the security system is presented. The book also provides an overview of testing methods for the cloud, and a case study discusses testing reliability, installability, and security. A comprehensive volume, Cloud Reliability Engineering: Technologies and Tools combines research, theory, and best practices used to engineer reliable cloud availability and performance.