Category: Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing / Modernizations / Strategy

A 10-step guide to a reliable, repeatable & risk-optimized approach to cloud migration

A 10-step guide to a reliable, repeatable & risk-optimized approach to cloud migration. 1. Define business goals & KPIs to layout a clear definition of success. 2. Identify current-state roadblocks to the above goals. 3. Consider technology as table stake. Focus on people, processes, culture, and value of the existing IT landscape. 4. Set up a COE made up of reps from business, leadership, technology, cross-functional teams, to play the change agent within the organization. 5. Establish inventory of existing applications. Leverage 6R framework (Retain, Retire, Re-host, Re-architect, Re-platform, Rewrite) to identify what can stay on, what needs to change...

Cloud Computing / Data Strategy / Digital Transformation / Modernizations / Strategy

What is the future of RDBMS?

Serverless philosophy came a long way & likely to be the default architecture paradigm of the future. Currently, there are heavy uses of “serverless” for websites, applications, APIs, workflows & CDNs. In contrast, serverless RDBMSs are still not so widely used. While there are offerings like AWS Aurora (for MySQL), there are concerns in terms of security, access control, transaction mgmt, etc. As a result, RDBMSs still mostly get deployed either as on-prem or in VPC private subnets. But such deployments fail to align well with serverless apps & front-ends? Should then lambda functions with infinite scalability be allowed to...

Artificial Intelligence / Big Data / Cloud Computing / Data Strategy / Digital Transformation / Insurance / Integrations / Leadership / Machine Learning / Modernizations / NOSQL / Strategy

A “member enrollment” challenge in group employee benefits that is far deep-rooted than was thought to be, and how a “next-gen” solution can fix it.

Why member enrollment is an area of concern! Member enrollment is a crucial business function in healthcare and insurance group benefits and is directly associated with customer experience. It influences the experiences of all major external personas in the following way: Eligible employees start receiving coverage protection only when successfully enrolled in the carrier’s system Employers depend on the successful completion of the enrollment process for determining premium installments and accounting Plan administrators get paid only when the enrollment process is complete Brokers receive commission only on successful completion of the enrollment process as the way to determine employee participation...

Cloud Computing / Strategy

Why a Cloud COE is so critical for a successful cloud strategy!

A Cloud COE is critical for a successful cloud strategy. I have seen cloud migrations fail because they lacked a COE that could champion those. If we look at its nature, Cloud is not meant to be tactical, in contrast, it needs a strong strategic alignment with the enterprise with long-term implications. Any cloud adoption brings in a slice of digital transformation with new operating models & reusability that impact the whole enterprise. Thus there is a cross-functional aspect to it, meaning it needs active support from other functional teams. Cloud implementation, when done in a silo, would be a...

Cloud Computing

Serverless Cloud Computing: Tech’s unsung hero!

This article is about the technologies that ruled 2019, and the hypes & the promises. Five names that kept buzzing in my ears through 2019 in the sphere of technology are AI, BlockChain, Serverless Cloud Computing, Quantum Computing, & Robotics. The question is, standing today which of these have been truly game-changers, & which are hypes at least from a near to long-term perspective! I think serverless cloud computing got the better of the rest of them significantly if we truly reflect from a utilitarian perspective. In my mind, serverless computing where you do not have to procure & manage...

Cloud Computing

Cloud trends that will define 2020

What’s your strategy for these “cloud” trends in 2020? 1. Multi-cloud- Not one cloud platform but the “best of the breed” approach will prevail. Customer-facing apps, business processes, analytics, & APIs running in disparate cloud platforms & seamlessly connected would be the new “normal”. 2. On-premise apps will be “truly” modernized to cloud-native apps for the real benefits of cloud adoption. AS-IS Lift & Shift, or data-center migrations alone are not likely to work anymore. 3. Re-skilling would remain high, not just for technical teams but also for business, PMs, sponsors, etc. since “cloud” transforms not just technology but also...

Big Data / Cloud Computing / Integrations

A serverless approach to relational data replication!

A serverless approach to relational data replication! I felt it challenging keeping cost & complexity at bay while designing real-time replication of data from operational RDBMSs, primarily due to the need for layering in multiple middlewares like CDCs, message brokers, message streams, etc. in different capacities which often result in a lot of plumbing. Also, the commercially available middleware platforms are not always free of compatibility issues, integration complexities & high costs. An alternate serverless option that I found handy is to leverage MySQL-compatible Amazon Aurora for such replications by leveraging its Stored Procedure that invokes Lambda functions. While it...

Cloud Computing / Legacy / Migrations / Modernizations / Strategy

What workloads you must move to the Cloud – Part 3 (for Batch workloads)

Batch workloads date back to the early days of computation when mainframes dominated the computing world.  They still play a significant role in different disciplines including business, engineering, medical, healthcare, and other areas. Batch workloads are normally designed to run in the background and are meant to process huge amounts of data. What are the challenges of running batch workloads on-premise? 1. Poor customer experience Less availability of business functionality On-premise IT ecosystems typically have batch workloads that need an extensive amount of computing and storage provisioning. This is why real-time workloads cannot share environments with batch workloads due to...

Cloud Computing / Migrations / Modernizations / Strategy

What workloads you must move to the Cloud – Part 2 (for application resilience)

What is application resilience? How do we define application resilience! Application resilience is the ability of the application to tackle problems in one or more of its components without any degradation in its quality of service. A resilient application should be able to elastically handle failures and recover to its original state in a minimum time period. Resilience ensures that an application runs perfectly all the time, in other words, it makes the application reliable. Thus, reliability is the outcome, while resilience is the way to that outcome. What are the fundamental elements that build up application resilience? The key...

Scaling

Cloud Computing / Migrations / Modernizations / Strategy

What workloads you must move to the Cloud – Part 1 (for application scalability)

Many organizations, including a lot of those in Fortune 500, are running all or most of their business applications on-premise. These organizations have not considered moving their applications to the public cloud yet as a result of which they are unable to take advantage of the strategic advantages that public cloud offers in terms of performance & application scalability, reliability, cost-benefit, innovations, and operational excellence. What that leads to is that these organizations still grapple with issues that concern with application scalability, availability, high infrastructure costs, and limitations in business capabilities. Thus, if you are in charge of managing and...