Citus Blog

From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United Kingdom (UK) government has made it a top priority to track key health metrics and to share those metrics with the public.

And the citizens of the UK were hungry for information, as they tried to make sense of what was happening. Maps, graphs, and tables became the lingua franca of the pandemic. As a result, the GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard became one of the most visited public service websites in the United Kingdom.

The list of people who rely on the UK Coronavirus dashboard is quite long: government personnel, public health officials, healthcare employees, journalists, and the public all use the same service.

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How do you know if the next update to your software is ready for hundreds of millions of customers? It starts with data. And when it comes to Windows, we’re talking lots of data. The Windows team measures the quality of new software builds by scrutinizing 20,000 diagnostic metrics based on data flowing in from 1.2 billion Windows devices. At the same time, the team evaluates feedback from Microsoft engineers who are using pre-release versions of Windows updates.

At Microsoft, the Windows diagnostic metrics are displayed on a real-time analytics dashboard called “Release Quality View” (RQV), which helps the internal “ship-room” team assess the quality of the customer experience before each new Windows update is released. Given the importance of Windows for Microsoft’s customers, the RQV analytics dashboard is a critical tool for Windows engineers, program managers, and execs.

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Most of us who work with open source like working with open source. You get to build on what’s already been built, and you get to focus on inventing new solutions to new problems instead of reinventing the wheel on each project. Plus you get to share your work publicly (which can improve the state of the art in the industry) and you get feedback from developers outside your company. Hiring managers give it a +1 too, since sharing your code will sometimes trigger outside interest in what you’re doing and can be a big boon for recruiting. After all “smart people like to hang out with smart people”.

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