Migrating Enterprise Apps to AWS? Standardize your software estate

More and more CIOs and enterprise IT managers are under pressure to get some portions of their IT landscape onto public clouds, notably AWS. Typically, the first step in their journey is an assessment of the existing app landscape, and to segment and classify apps that are feasible for cloud migration. The actual migration may be simple lift and shift, a minor re factor, or a complete re architecture, depending upon the application technology and the benefits of moving it to cloud. These approaches are becoming common, with lots of cloud migration vendors and professionals adopting it. However, the migration itself offers an opportunity for the IT to streamline and standardize their application landscape. Aspects of driving standardization, base lining criticality, redefining development/QA usage and revisiting security guidelines are worth considering prior to migration of the application landscape, as it will ensure that the cloud move is robust, stays relevant and delivers the expected benefits. These aspects are over and above the business, technical and operational related facets that IT professionals consider while assessing cloud migration feasibility.

One such aspect is standardization of the software estate. Large enterprises often have offices in many geos, with IT resources being provisioned and managed by local IT teams or local datacenter providers. This tends to cause a sprawl in the software estate, with different versions of operating systems, databases & middleware being used. This is normally dictated by the applications run (typically supported by local vendors), vendors selected (both of infrastructure as well as support) and the preference of application teams to refresh to the latest versions.

While migrating such scores of applications to cloud, it is worthwhile to take stock, define and restrict the versions to a minimum, especially when moving to AWS. One approach is to define a recommended software stack version and a minimum software stack version. The idea is to push application teams to conform to the recommended software stack version, and give an exception to fall back to a minimum software stack version.

For example, a recommended software stack version can be Windows 2012 with SQL 2012, while the fall back version may be Windows 2008 with SQL 2008. The advantage here is that AWS offers all these versions at the same cost. Hence it encourages application teams to look at application upgrades and refreshes, without worrying about the base software upgrade costs. And it makes it easier for the enterprise IT to ensure upgrades and security patches are completed on time with the ongoing support for the current versions.

The standardization exercise is best done after analyzing a significant part if not the entire estate. This is to ensure that the standardized estate is small and manageable, and does not have many variations that will make manageability difficult. The standardization should be done with an aim to publish a catalog of software’s to the various application teams that they can use for existing and newer applications. This is an important step for Enterprise IT towards delivering IT as a Service.

Mobility: Smarter, Faster and Closer, and Safer

Smart devices are increasingly becoming indispensible, especially in the enterprise environment. According to a recent report by Gartner, mobile applications are fast overtaking enterprise applications, so a largely mobile workforce with grey areas between professional and personal workspace, is the biggest reason to have a mobile strategy in place, for every company.

A clearly defined strategy for mobility not only lays down the round rules but also leverages the advantages of mobile technologies to create an inclusive work culture for the enterprise. The next step is BYOD which grants employees freedom to work on their personal devices allowing the freedom of flexibility, increased collaboration and productivity and a better work life balance to them. Enterprise IT needs to encourage the productivity advantage that mobility assures, without being restrictive, while having the policies to monitor and control in place.

Most enterprises have policies and strategies to deal with the risks that BYOD brings. The current trends in technologies and tools ensure an increasingly higher level of support to leverage the advantages of mobility while fighting the risks it entails:

• While in most organisations MDM tools, endpoint security and device management are used to ensure a secured environment for BYOD, their inconsistent implementation across disparate mobile platforms may create breach- able loopholes. This is one trend that enterprises need to collaborate with users as well as business managers to create strategies that neither restrict nor negate freedom, but ensure data security.
• Most enterprises deploy WLANS that are utilised for both enterprise and personal devices, and these may already be overburdened with bandwidth or performance issues. Adding personal devices to them can only lead to more congestion, hence inefficiencies, if no extra network capacity or bandwidth is added.
• Access management is highlighted in terms of relevance of resources that are authenticated a users. An adaptive access control that adds contextual information like location to the user identity is increasingly being used for identity assurance and reducing ID risk. But this has some inherent risks of privacy as well.
• Isolating corporate applications on a personal device is one way of creating boundaries, or what is referred to as secure workspaces. So while essential business applications like email is allowed, access to more critical corporate data is not.
• Mobile devices security is the next focus, and CISOs need to define stronger strategies on application configuration and mobile testing. New technologies like applications sandboxing and digital signing are on the anvil, while contextual identification may create the much needed walls to user access.

It is inevitable that mobile technologies will become the centre stay of enterprise over time. Devices are only growing and as Gartner predicts, through 2014, more focus will be given to developing better UI than enterprise applications. This trend cannot be reversed so enterprises need to keep up with technologies that will make this new disruption advantageous for everyone, the users as well as the enterprises.

The Internet of Things – Is this the Sci- Fi we saw a decade ago?

A phenomenon that is predicted to fuel an industry worth $8.9 trillion by end of the decade, a whopping 212 billion connections, pegged to change the future of how most enterprises function—the Internet of Things (IoT)—is here to change the world.

In a world of heterogeneous entities seamlessly and securely integrated with each other and the internet, nothing will be impossible. Driven by M2M communication, wireless sensor, and actuator networks (WSAN), ubiquitous computing, and web-of-things (WoT), IoT will offer many advantages in terms of technologies and functionalities in an enterprise context. It will facilitate a number of technologies – simplifying environment sensing, proximity triggering, automated sensing and actuation to name a few. This will lead to higher adoption and easier utilization of applications. So there will be a much better track rate for automated home appliances, smart grids and high-resolution asset and product management apps.

M2M applications will drive business that will generate approximately 714 billion Euros by the end of 2020. Industry experts see IoT facilitating a double digit growth in some verticals – consumer electronics, automotive, and healthcare, as well as assuring a much faster adoption of intelligent buildings and utilities in the consumer market. Of course, this rapid adoption will depend on the connectivity requirements of all applications, affecting the feasibility of some technologies.

Despite the unlimited opportunities it presents, IoT faces certain limitations, the biggest being the risk of incompatibility between applications, legacy or otherwise. Components by disparate vendors are rarely compatible, and the need of the hour is to have interoperability standards so that these entities can work with each other.
As IoT gains ground, there will emerge a whole range of business ecosystems, comprising organizations which will compete and complement each other through their offerings in hardware, software, platforms, standards & connectivity. There will be needed a whole range of services focused on provisioning, assurance, and billing of the application services, in the new business environment.

The emergence of Internet of Things is expected to create new service lines by IoT application vendors and services providers, platform providers and integrators, or technology system integrators. The growth of the IoT market will hence be dependent on common platforms, standards and interfaces which match the requirement of specific domains.

The number of connected devices in use is expected to grow almost threefold by the end of this decade – from 9 billion in 2011 to 24 billion in 2020. In these, the fastest growing segment is M2M devices, growing form 2 billion to 12 billion in the same period, and the vertical that has zoomed ahead due to this growth is the automotive sector, followed by digital homes and healthcare. Some examples are in-vehicle infotainment, eCall, parking meters, information sharing about road conditions and traffic density, toll collection, taxation, pay as you drive (PAYD) car insurance, digital consumer electronics, home automation with Smart Home solutions, automated meter reading (AMR), residential security and of course, monitoring solutions to support wellness, prevention, diagnostics or treatment services.

There is huge potential for Technology support organizations to play important roles in the mainstream acceptance of IoT when. mature business models and market players emerge.

My two cents on mobilizing the enterprise

As we all know Mobile computing is transforming the way people interact with each other. It is no surprise mobility is transforming the way we live and work. It is also transforming the enterprise work environment. Employees have started using smart phones and tablets for personal as well as official use. As per research reports over 80% of employees see improved productivity with mobility and 72% employees demand personal device enablement for work.

With this mobility no longer remains an option but has become a necessity for organizations to enable their environment by investing heavily on employee mobility. So organizations require the right strategy and solution to mobile enable their environment based on their business requirement to facilitate remote and mobile productivity, without compromising on security and personal privacy concerns.

Organizations need to fully understand and utilize the benefits of mobility to innovate, increase employee efficiency & satisfaction without falling prey to threats like data security loss, privacy encroachment, policy mismatch etc.

Enterprise IT needs a solution to simplify device management, applications, users’ content & policy management for every device and OS type entering and exiting its premises.

According to a global survey 53% of employees bring personal devices to work. Around 90% of them connect to corporate networks through mobile devices. It is very important to draw lines between personal and official space, manage user profiles, secure shared resources and at the same time enhance user experience. So a comprehensive device management solution will enable the employee workforce to be more productive and without obfuscating user experience.

IT organizations will dedicate at least 25 percent of their software budget to mobile application development, deployment, and management by 2017. The number of enterprise applications optimized for mobility will quadruple by 2016, driven both by competitive necessity and rapidly evolving technologies that support faster and more secure enterprise applications.

Enterprises have to ensure that data is accessible to mobile employees without worrying about data being lost or stolen by accident or intent. It must be protected against all forms of security breaches. Estimated $400 Million being lost in US annually due to poor data protection practices. Data cannot be recovered when devices are lost (11.9M out of 70M devices).

Enterprises are also looking to ensure quality of service and quality of experience for business critical mobile apps. These are required to protect revenue, end-user productivity and customer satisfaction.

Thus, an adaptable, end-to-end mobility strategy and solution helps enterprises achieve a significant uplift in workforce productivity and collaboration, along with enhanced operational agility.

 

Walking the distance

Infrastructure management began life as a manually provided support service, with direct access to the equipment, hardware and software. It was critical in the early days of enterprise technology when the entire setup would be delicate to say the least, and any disruptions meant hard work to get the systems up and going.

With development in technology, came remote access to the various components of a technology infrastructure, so much so that almost all issues could be taken care of, with minimum downtime or outage, from a distance.

More recently, this remote management has given away to remote diagnosis, much like medical diagnosis to prevent any issues from coming up. Every piece of software and hardware needed a defined health level, so technical personnel could monitor it according to the base requirements and then if any issues are foreseen, the concerned monitoring engineers are alerted and problems can be prevented in time. 

This proactive monitoring can prevent much larger issues from developing and causing major disruptions.

The natural progression of this path is now proactive monitoring, self-diagnosis as well as auto healing.  The systems have been successfully programmed to do a self diagnosis at specified intervals against specified parameters of health, and then run healing activities. This will help reduce workloads on human resources, while cutting down costs. The basic premise for this auto-healing is that almost all the issues diagnosed in systems are repetitive in nature, so developing tools to take care of these problems can save a lot of resources and cost. Diagnosis, prognosis and treatment- all can be done faster and more cost effectively by the machine itself.

Today we have developed sophisticated tools that self-diagnosis issues and proactively run commands to detect early stages of infrastructure issues, as well as set them right. In fact the market is moving not just towards proactive monitoring, but also towards workload automation, making it a clear differentiator. Self healing tools are fast catching up with the market requirements, and we are reaching a point where almost no human intervention will be required. The speed of recovery recorded for infrastructure bugs is faster than ever before, especially for repetitive faults.

Infrastructure management is no more manpower centric. The path ahead is about integrating this self healing with other devices- mobile devices, security centres and all other applications that will define an efficient auto-healing integrated infrastructure management system.

 

2015 – What will it look like

 

The last month of 2014, saw world leaders gather in Lima, Peru, in what was supposed to be a fight for the environment. Under the United Nations banner, high powered government delegates from 192 countries tried to reach an agreement on how to tackle the crisis of climate change. This meeting was the precursor to the mother of all meetings, to be held in Paris in 2015 – where world leaders, Presidents and Prime Ministers, will gather for the great big climate summit. The summit will be held to address the contentious issue on how the world needs to contain rising temperatures and help prevent catastrophic climate change.

The Lima conference embroiled in all kinds of climate politics, got linked to development rights, ended with what is now known as the Lima Call to Action.

Low carbon growth

An immediate fall out of the Lima meeting and the upcoming Paris climate summit is likely to find its way into the first trend of 2015 – a move towards a low carbon growth.

The need by governments, businesses and individuals to kick the carbon habit will find favoured currency. As developing countries grapple to meet their energy demands, there is every possibility that renewable could get a bigger share of the energy pie giving way to a low cost of production for renewable energy.

The likely high of 2015 will therefore be the move to low carbon emissions.

Water will matter

The Global Risks 2014 report published by the World Economic Forum, identifies water as one of the top 3 risks for governments and business. The IPCC in its latest report says that large parts of the global population will “experience water scarcity and be affected by major river floods”

How governments, businesses and local civic bodies manage water will determine the future of several countries and industries. Since 2010, there has been a growing awareness on environmental risks, such as climate change, extreme weather events and water scarcity. The Russian drought of 2010 was the first wake up call. This year California rudely fired up US government to change the way they approach water. The cost of water is likely to increase, tariffs will be higher and there will be stricter regulations on water management – from waste water usage, to recycling and rain water harvesting.

Globally there will be trend in recognising and valuing our wetlands, forests and their role in acting as sponges for water and there will be renewed thinking of the economics of water and ecosystem services.

From governments, to countries, to industries, to locals, to individuals there will be a need to get more judicious about water.

Food – the where and how

Where does it come from and how it is being grown will be asked by ordinary citizens on food and agricultural produce. Given the growing awareness on the impacts of mass produced factory farmed food on health and environment, more questions and pressure is being exerted by citizens on their governments and food companies for labelling and for responsible food production. All actors in the food chain, from cultivators, to producers, to regulators and to consumers will start making more responsible and sustainable choices.

The move will be towards locally grown and produced food.

Gender and Sexuality – the good and the bad

If Apple’s Tim Cook became a hero in 2014 for “coming out”, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella got it all wrong. By dismissing the gender gap and blaming karma for the difference in salaries between men and women Nadella fell a couple of notches. He quickly had to retract what he said and apologise profusely. Clearly, gender remains a largely unresolved issue but not for long.

At the workplace, both these will trend in 2015 – diversity and inclusivity. Business will have targets for hiring more women specially at senior positions on a more equal footing, but also targets for a more inclusive and diverse workforce where discrimination on gender, sexuality have no role.

If these trends emerge on 2015, there is much to cheer in the New Year.

 

Supporting the connected customer

Deriving Value from Deeper Customer Insights

Excellent customer support has traditionally been the key to market success. Maintaining customer satisfaction levels would be the goal of any enterprise, specially a support organisation. But this is becoming an increasingly difficult task in a constantly connected world. While automated and connected systems and processes generate and accumulate mammoth amounts of customer data at every interaction point, not many tech support teams realise the value they are sitting on.

The tech support organisation of any enterprise is the biggest repository for customer data, and needs to learn how to store both structured and unstructured data to use it to their best advantage. In most cases, all that is required is awareness that this data bank can be a fertile ground for reaping intelligent insights. That can actually be the biggest market differentiator.

It is time that enterprises realise the value that this data can provide, with the help of the right analytics and Big data solutions. In the enterprise world today, it is this value that can be the keystone of superlative customer experience. An intelligent Big data strategy can play the most significant role in generating meaningful customer insights from these huge amounts of data. It has the capability to offer scale out, cost effective analytics framework, that adds the ability to ensure business strategies have strong data backup.

The biggest point of contention for the tech support teams and the primary reason why they do not recognise the business value for this data, because it is completely unstructured and comes from very disparate sources and the backend systems don’t have the intelligence needed to analyse the new data.

The Big data strategy needs to be based on the premise that its utility is for providing better customer service, so essentially CEM (Customer Experience management) needs to be the core layer of this strategy. The fact that this is a business strategy, with revenue implications, will ensure it is put to good use. However, there needs to also be an awareness that an analytics strategy is not merely about facts, figures and statistics. It has to do with intangibles that nevertheless add value to an engagement – excellence in agent performance and understanding customer behaviour, which build up to data collation. In order to be able to chart out an effective strategy for extracting meaningful insights not only from customer interaction content but also legacy data which is often concealed in silos, analytical tools are the best support. Since data flow is dynamic, and a constant, an analytical framework that uses a loosely coupled Big Data strategy is needed. What is needed is a clear technology layer that derives, sifts and structures data from myriad sources, and presents the right data for an efficient customer experience across all touchpoints.

Only an action driven, well supported Big Data strategy can ensure that this technology sits on a comfortable framework of customer support and will be able to offer enterprises maximum value from this data. For this, the support of a technology and strategy integrator, an intelligent partner to success is imperative.