• Cloud transformation can offer a range of benefits to organizations, but it requires careful planning and execution to be successful.

Cloud computing has become ubiquitous and significantly impacts various aspects of everyday life. However, it is important to note that cloud technology is continuously evolving. The recent shift towards remote working has prompted businesses to hasten their digital transformation and adopt cloud technology.

The adoption of cloud technology has gained momentum even after the pandemic as it provides speed, flexibility, and cost savings. Cloud technology is no longer just a tool for technology transformation but also acts as a catalyst for business transformation.

The journey toward digitalization opens up new customer-focused experiences, and businesses are now placing more emphasis on transformation during economic turmoil. The positive effects of cloud platforms, such as accelerating innovation, transforming business functions, enhancing communication and collaboration, and increasing productivity, have been recognized by C-suite executives over time.

According to Precedence Research, the global market for cloud computing is projected to exceed one trillion dollars by 2028.

Despite the belief held by some that moving to the cloud is a straightforward process, the reality is much more complex. Suppose companies do not have a comprehensive plan to address the intricate challenges of cloud adoption. In that case, the transition can lead to various issues, such as unexpected expenses, limited scalability and availability, inadequate security controls, and compliance violations, which can worry corporate stakeholders.

To ensure a successful cloud transformation, it is crucial to follow the key factors outlined below, which most business leaders implement.

Key Factors to Ensure a Successful Cloud Transformation for Businesses

Ensuring Security in the Cloud

Data-driven organizations prioritize cloud security and recognize the importance of implementing a vendor-agnostic solution to safeguard their on-premises and multi-cloud assets. They also focus on effective authentication to verify all access requests by leveraging Zero Trust security principles and adopting a “trust nothing, always verify” mindset.

Configuring cloud systems and applications is crucial to avoid misconfiguration that could lead to cloud breaches. Organizations must also adapt their traditional security controls to protect cloud-based endpoints by implementing EDR solutions that offer visibility and enable proactive threat identification for workloads.

Treating security as “code” is a successful approach that automates enforcing security policies and standards. This method, known as Security as Code (SaC), provides a secure cloud environment that enables enterprises to innovate quickly and without constraints.

Implementing strong security measures is crucial in preventing cyber-attacks, unauthorized access, and data theft, which could lead to significant financial losses, data loss, and harm to a business’s reputation.

Robust Cloud Governance Strategy

Applying traditional IT infrastructure and compliance methods to the cloud is not adequate. Cloud governance refers to managing the costs and risks of cloud services. It is essential for businesses primarily because it enhances scalability.

By establishing a clear cloud governance framework, effective cloud governance can help organizations fully utilize the benefits of cloud services while proactively managing costs, operational risks, and security concerns.

Defining a strong strategy regarding provisioning, access, and location is crucial. When deciding on an enterprise cloud governance strategy, it is important to consider the following key principles:

• Organize and arrange subscriptions in a logical structure, for instance, by organization domains or functions
• Establish and implement resource standards, i.e., prohibit the development of unwanted resources
• Examine and correct resources
• Enforce policies for all resources based on organizational standards and compliance requirements
• Continuously monitor all resources and assess the policies established for each resource.

Leveraging Data and Analytics

Data is the lifeblood of innovation, and businesses today use a massive amount of data. On-premises infrastructure is completely unsuitable for managing information of this scale and complexity. The cloud provides not only limitless storage and compute but also a plethora of analytics, machine learning, and AI solutions as a service, allowing businesses to derive accurate, actionable, and real-time insights.

Over-arching Cloud Strategic Plan

A successful cloud strategy views cloud transformation as a process, not a “project.” A comprehensive strategy and vision will aid in determining the transition’s trajectory. Without a complete plan, a succession of discrete, one-off projects can result in inconsistencies, disputes, deployment inefficiencies, and security holes, diminishing the benefits of migrating to the cloud.

A successful cloud transformation requires a well-defined and comprehensive cloud strategic plan. Here are some key elements that organizations should consider when creating their cloud strategic plan:

• Define business objectives
• Identify cloud use cases
• Determine cloud deployment model
• Address security and compliance
• Choose cloud service providers
• Develop a cloud migration plan
• Optimize cloud operations
• Foster a culture of innovation

A successful cloud transformation requires a holistic and well-defined cloud strategic plan that addresses all aspects of the transformation, from business objectives to security and compliance, migration, and optimization. The plan should be regularly reviewed and updated to remain relevant and aligned with the organization’s evolving needs and priorities.

Don’t Underestimate the Complexity

Migration to the cloud can seem deceptively simple: cloud providers can tantalize you with the ease of deployment, emphasizing doing it fast instead of doing it right. Many can go wrong from a configuration and security perspective. Cloud skills are scarce, and attracting, hiring, and retaining top talent is costly and time-consuming.

Moving to the cloud involves lifting and shifting your existing applications and infrastructure. It requires a fundamental shift in thinking about and managing your technology environment. You need to rethink your architecture, security, governance, and operations in a cloud-native context.

There are many factors that can make cloud transformation complex, including:

• Legacy infrastructure
• Data migration
• Application modernization
• Security and Compliance
• Organizational change

Cloud transformation is a complex process that requires careful planning, execution, and ongoing management. Understanding the challenges and risks associated with cloud transformation and working with experienced cloud experts to ensure a successful transformation is essential.

Strong Relationships with Cloud Providers

Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) can be valuable allies in your quest to revolutionize your industry and achieve a competitive edge. Your partnership with them should not be rigid and unchanging but instead adaptable and fluid, adjusting to the advancements in cloud technology over time.

To achieve maximum benefit from your cloud provider, establish a partnership that enables you to access their knowledge base for strategic advice, developing business cases, prioritizing workloads, and other related aspects. Top-tier organizations may opt for biannual meetings with the CSP’s senior technical architects to brainstorm technology and platform improvements that can give them a competitive edge. Meanwhile, SMEs can adopt best practice recommendations and obtain whitepapers and technical guidance from the CSP or peers in local groups like the Cloud Security Alliance.

Migrating to the cloud is a strategic decision that fosters innovation. Thus, to maximize the benefits of this innovation, it is crucial to establish a strong and flexible relationship with your cloud provider.

Conclusion

Cloud transformation can offer a range of benefits to organizations, but it requires careful planning and execution to be successful. Key factors that organizations should consider are security, scalability, data and amp; analytics, and this blog can help you climb the ladder of success seamlessly. By taking a strategic approach and addressing these factors, organizations can achieve a successful cloud transformation that enables them to improve efficiency, flexibility, and innovation while reducing costs and enhancing the customer experience.

• The network is a real foundation of an organization, as it is useful in connecting on-premises servers to the public cloud and edge data centers.
• SDN or software-defined network infrastructure has a clear significance in providing a continuous network and robust security policies.

In this century, businesses are expanding rapidly and quickly adapting to the dynamic nature of digitalization. Technology is unveiling new ways for businesses to evolve and modernize. We, as a business, need to be up-to-date with new technological trends and avenues that are likely to benefit us. Regarding network modernization and cloud applications, in particular, there are several connections between them. The speed at which information is set to be delivered is also crucial to success. Data is needed to move at the right pace, but it will be possible when there is a profound network setup. Let’s dive deeper into these terms separately and then collectively to understand the subject better.

What is Network Modernization?

The network performs a critical function in reviving digital transformation. The network is a backbone of any enterprise, as it connects on-premises servers to the public cloud and edge data centers. Employee working remotely or in a branch can work properly with a strong network.

According to Insight, 37% of top executives had set modernizing networking technology as a primary objective for 2022.

A modernized network is capable of shaping the demands of the modern world. It will then be easier for organizations to achieve digital transformation goals. An organization’s advantages after moving to the cloud are impossible without modern networking. It enables the organization to meet its demands or needs in a complex environment; applications and services are accessible 24/7/360 days without any connectivity issues.

The modern network considers all the critical facts while working on remote locations, high bandwidth consuming video applications, cloud services, traffic patterns, and business application landscape.

A modern network can respond swiftly to the changing expectations of customers or users. It has come up with more modern and adaptable solutions.

What are Modern Cloud Applications?

The web-based application needs a continuous internet connection. On the other hand, a cloud-based application can be stored over the cloud and are accessible offline. Cloud-based applications are more advanced as it ensures uptime, security, and integration with other systems. These are the basic difference between the two.

Modern cloud applications are deployed across private cloud, public cloud, data centers, and edge-data centers, sometimes delivered as SAAS as well. Modern application has become the cornerstone of an organization’s digital strategy.

What are the Functions of Cloud Strategies:

A company’s cloud strategy is a plan where particular technical activities are directly proportional to the business outcomes. Business priorities and cloud adoption efforts are the active elements that validate and define the strategy.

An organization’s cloud strategy looks after the following:

• Finance
• Line of business
• Human resources
• Operations
• Enterprise architecture
• IT Infrastructure
• Application group

Cloud strategies facilitate the effective management of corporate operations, business processes, consumer interactions, and product development cycles. A well-versed cloud strategy provides means for involving key participants in a more organized way which is a need of an hour.

To fulfill the imperatives of cloud and multi-cloud strategies, following pointers need to be considered and implemented:

• The data center network needs to be modernized.
• There is a need to be the automation of networks.
• The software-defined network is necessary to provide continuous network and security policies.
• SDN or software-defined network infrastructure provides operational simplicity, elastic scale, and ubiquitous visibility and supports traditional and cloud-native applications spanning on-premises environments and clouds.
• SDN helps add a level of abstraction to the functions of network nodes like switches, routers, bare metal servers, etc., beneficial to manage globally.

• Simplification of the network is needed—Data-centre network to be more agile and open.
• The network needs to be easy to deploy, easy to manage, easy to support, and easy to consume.

To satisfy the future networking needs of an industry and to provide portable application layer networking, the below functionality needs to be followed.

• Service meshes: A service mesh is an infrastructure layer that controls service-to-service communications over a network. It enables application components to interact with one another. Service meshes appear with microservices, containers, and cloud-based applications.
• Ingress Controller: Ingress Controller is used for fulfilling the ingress, is a good load balancer, and helps in configuring edge routers to handle the traffic loads.
• Microservices: It improves performance as teams handle particular services more than a whole application. However, it accelerates the functions like greater accountability, good compliance, and enriched data security.
• Visibility into workloads: Automatic tracking of workloads helps in good visibility, control, and compliance. Application controllers assign a unique identifier to every workload, which leads to more effective monitoring and policy controls for any particular workload. It is useful in dealing with dynamic traffic patterns. It is also valuable for creating asset inventory reports. In addition to this, it will also provide an updated representation of enterprise applications.

Winding Up:

The demands of IT administrators and network users with network modernizations are enormous and overwhelming. Organizations face skill gaps to keep up with the fluid and fast-paced cloud domain. The cloud community demands full automation at every level to attain great agility, scalability, flexibility, and compliance. AI-tailored virtual network with actionable insights to create a good user experience is needed at this point in time.

Nonetheless, workflow simplification through automation is necessary. AI-tailored network incorporated with micro-services helps save time and money. The challenges are extensive concerning IT processes and staff productivity. Besides this, there is a continuous threatening security challenge for hybrid IT and multi-cloud application landscape.

• Qualcomm’s Aware platform furnishes ubiquitous global connectivity, intelligently optimizing and fusing location technologies with critical device management, sensor alerts, and control features.
• The platform stretches beyond silicon, encompassing technology from PoLTE Corp and Skyhook Wireless Inc., both companies purchased by Qualcomm in 2022.

Qualcomm Technologies Inc. recently disclosed a new platform designed to enable enterprises and developers to harness real-time information and data insights so they can speed up their digital transformation programs.

The Qualcomm Aware Platform strives to respond to the issues wherein system design complexity and ecosystem fragmentation frequently prevent “internet of things” deployments from reaching their full potential. According to the company, Qualcomm Aware integrates silicon and an extensive ecosystem of hardware and software partners with a developer-friendly cloud framework to provide services for directing assets that need accurate, time-sensitive, and critical decision-making.

The platform furnishes ubiquitous global connectivity, intelligently optimizing and fusing location technologies with critical device management, sensor alerts, and control features. The integration is said to provide a new baseline for IoT and help enterprises handle operational efficiencies.

Critical use cases that Aware can serve consist of utility asset monitoring, cold chain distribution, warehouse and inventory management, and cargo shipment tracking.

The Aware service is based upon three main pillars:

• Technology leadership
• Enablement of an expansive ecosystem of software and hardware partners
• Application programming interface-first architecture and developer-convenient tools that empower interoperability with leading enterprise software tools and partner clouds

The platform stretches beyond silicon, encompassing technology from PoLTE Corp and Skyhook Wireless Inc., both companies purchased by Qualcomm in 2022. The technology consists of proprietary positioning techniques and a solid global signal database of about eight billion wireless Media Access Control or MAC addresses, and hundreds of millions of cells.

As per the company, in combination with Qualcomm’s current location technology, the acquired technology empowers Aware to provide ubiquitous and intelligent location capabilities in an always-on and low-power manner. The platform is designed intelligently to work in challenging signal environments, consisting of underground, indoors, and when devices are offline, furnishing critical awareness and condition monitoring context to enterprise solutions for operational visibility and end-to-end asset.

The platform comprises the encryption and mutual authentication of all device-to-cloud communications and cloud security tools. It also supplies device management, global cellular connectivity, and provisioning.

Senior vice president and general manager of connected smart systems at Qualcomm, Jeff Torrance, said, “Qualcomm Technologies is rapidly diversifying with new opportunities. Qualcomm Aware is designed to support organizations across industries with a scalable, cost-effective, capital-efficient investment solution that delivers an accelerated time to market, simplifies digital transformation, and delivers transformative insights needed to mitigate risk, make more informed business decisions, and navigate challenges across industries.”

Initial launch partners include BASF SE, Ferrero International S.A., Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd.), Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp, Microsoft Corp, Maersk A/S and Mondelēz International Inc., among others.

The availability of Qualcomm Aware is expectedly later this year.

• This latest addition, that the company claims to be its next-gen cloud platform, is developed to help customers catalyze their cloud-supported digital transformation and adopt new AI-based applications.
• The new CE 23.1 can deal with security issue which is gradually turning complicated due to siloed data and growing threat vector sophistication in the hybrid environment.

OpenText Corp., a business software provider, announced Cloud Editions 23.1, a new technical innovation on the way of its Project Titanium.

This latest addition, that the company claims to be its next-gen cloud platform, is developed to help customers catalyze their cloud-supported digital transformation and adopt new AI-based applications. With the newly launched CE 23.1, enterprises can work responsibly by utilizing technology pertaining to the updated rules and regulations as well as seamlessly associating with partners, employees, and customers in their ecosystem.

The new CE 23.1 can deal with security issues which are gradually turning complicated due to siloed data and growing threat vector sophistication in the hybrid work environment. This launch facilitates administration and visibility across attack areas by introducing OpenText Webroot Standalone DNS Protection and OpenText Webroot portfolio via the Secure Cloud platform.

The network protection is extended by OpenText Webroot Standalone DNS Protection by integrating with current endpoint protection platform investments. The service secures roaming users and network from DNS-based attacks and malware without compromising the privacy, user experience, and visibility into internet usage.

The OpenText Webroot portfolio integrated with the firm’s Secure Cloud suite of solutions allows Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to extend protection across vulnerable attack areas with the help of a single interface. According to OpenText, MSPs can also cater an entire suite of compliance, security, and productivity solutions to their customers.

CE 23.1 houses integrated solutions for Microsoft, Salesforce Inc., and SAP SE which are made available at online marketplaces of these companies, namely, Microsoft AppSource, Salesforce AppExchange, and SAP Store, respectively.

It also offers the latest cloud content service solutions for life sciences organizations and the US public sector, along with the enhanced support for FedRAMP, the Federal Risk and Authentication Management Program.

Mark J. Barrenechea, Chief Executive and Chief Technology Officer at OpenText, reported in a statement, “In the next stage of digital where organizations of all sizes are becoming software and information companies, OpenText can bring the information management multiplier needed to accelerate new ways of working. The OpenText Cloud, through Project Titanium, is leading digital transformation, delivering on our promise of open, integrated cloud management by bringing information and automation together for businesses and customers.”

OpenText last made highlights on Feb 2, reporting combined financial results and completing the acquisition of Micro Focus International plc. The deal worth six billion dollars, announced back in August, enabled OpenText to penetrate in the segments of enterprise technology market where it’s a novice and also enlarged its products’ central portfolio to maintain business records.

• Agencies can swiftly and independently reconfigure and redeploy the modular components by deconstructing and re-architecting applications into a collection of microservices.
• According to research by the Cloud Security Alliance, 90% of CIOs had at least one disrupted or failed modernization project.

The need to adjust to the requirements of a shifting market cannot be overstated enough. Cloud-native applications help companies create digital platforms that boost efficiency, speed up innovation within the company, and increase revenue.

This means that cloud-based enterprise application modernization services are essential for future-proofing IT to meet the needs of the digital age. It has demonstrated its value to businesses by delivering scalability, cost savings, and security.

Today’s businesses prefer cloud computing because it allows them to utilize their existing on-premises expertise better.

Modernization is essential to make the most of new technology and adapt to the evolving needs of businesses. Realizing the benefits of cloud modernization requires an all-encompassing strategy that considers apps, infrastructure, and services.

What is Cloud Application Modernization?

Modernization of cloud-based applications is a term that is frequently used and often inaccurately. It is insufficient to migrate existing infrastructure to the cloud using a lift-and-shift methodology.

Unlocking the full benefits of the cloud is a continual, iterative process that requires a comprehensive reevaluation of the application portfolio.

With older cloud-based apps, modifying or scaling a component necessitates updating the entire application, like running the same on-premises.

Agencies can swiftly and independently reconfigure and redeploy the modular components by deconstructing and re-architecting applications into a collection of microservices.

These can be improved with cloud-native technologies such as containerization, serverless architectures, and DevOps.

What are Common Types of App Modernization?

The most common methods of application modernization include:

• Rehosting: Rehosting, also called “lift and shift,” entails shifting software or servers from the current environment to a public cloud infrastructure. Rehosting is the conventional approach for companies just beginning their modernization journey. This option does not necessitate changes to the code, features, or functions. Data is transferred to the cloud while business logic is maintained.
• Refactoring: This technique of application modernization involves rewriting major portions of a legacy application’s underlying code to improve its performance in a new environment, typically the cloud. It assists in eliminating technical debt and enhancing nonfunctional features.
• Replatforming: As an alternative to rehosting or refactoring, re-platforming simply transfers preexisting cloud-based apps to a new cloud service provider without making any substantial changes to the original application. The term “re-platforming” refers to updating an application to communicate with a cloud-native managed database, switching the OS or middleware it uses, or packaging the application in a container. Companies can boost scalability and developer efficiency through re-platforming.
• Replacing: It is important to consider decommissioning an application when it is no longer required in a cloud environment. Applications should be replaced when their functionality is duplicated elsewhere in the environment, they are of little value, or it is more cost-effective to replace them than to move them.

How can Cloud Modernization Help?

To modernize an application further means breaking down the application into pieces and then taking each part and building it to gain efficiencies and reduce costs.

Modernizing your data swiftly transforms your business into one driven by analytics and data. Modernization is the key to getting all the long-term value and benefits of running your IT infrastructure and applications in the cloud.

That means you need to keep looking at your infrastructure, cloud applications, and services to ensure they’re helping you reach your business and IT goals and working as well as they can.

Businesses must update their apps, infrastructure, and data to realize their full potential.

• Modernize your apps: Moving your apps to the cloud would save money and fix technical debt problems. But how much would your users and employees use it? You need to update your cloud-based applications to get the most out of the cloud ecosystem.
• Modernize the infrastructure: As software-defined infrastructure takes over the world, working in the new “infrastructure as code” system is important. Modernizing infrastructure is important in this kind of setting because it allows for more automation and management based on intelligence, which can cut costs.
• Modernize your data: Data is the third main part of a strategy for modernizing. On-premises data is difficult, expensive, rigid, and hard to keep up with in organizations today. On the other hand, data on the cloud is safe, easy to scale, flexible, and easy to move around.

Why is Cloud Modernization Important?

Businesses can migrate their aging on-premises software to the cloud with modernization.

By doing this, you may benefit from certain advantages, including –

• A quicker time to market
• Increased scalability
• Flexibility
• Cheaper costs

Application modernization improves workflow and boosts productivity for enterprises.

Trends in App Modernization

When coming up with a plan for application modernization, keep the following trends in mind:

• Multi-cloud environments: Multi-cloud refers to using multiple public cloud service providers for virtual data storage or computing power resources, with or without private cloud and on-premises infrastructure. According to Gartner, multi-cloud strategies are now more of a question of when than if. Many enterprises have 70% of their cloud portfolio with one provider and diversify the remaining 30%.
• Hybrid-cloud environments: A hybrid cloud is a combination of public cloud, private cloud, and on-premises infrastructure. With data currently held in on-premises data centers, 77% of business global infrastructure decision-makers who are planning, adopting or updating cloud infrastructure report being in a hybrid-cloud environment, according to Forrester.
• Containers and orchestration: One popular way to package, deploy, and manage applications and workloads is with containers and orchestration. Even though you can put a legacy app in a container, containers are best for development and operations that are less tied together (i.e., microservices).

How Can We Do It?

Even while the rationale for cloud application modernization in state and local governments is compelling, it can be challenging to implement.

According to research by the Cloud Security Alliance, 90% of CIOs had at least one disrupted or failed modernization project.

To maximize chances of success, agencies must take time to plan, navigate, engineer, and incrementally execute their cloud app modernization project.

The following steps are an excellent place to start:

• Know the application portfolio:

Most state and local governments have a massive collection of software resources that they can use. Some may have been made to run on mainframes in the early days of computers. They may have been written in languages like COBOL and assembler, which are now outdated and complex to keep up with because the programmers who know how to use them are getting close to retirement age. Some apps are essential to the mission, but others have been forgotten.

It’s essential to keep track of what hardware apps run on, if they depend on each other, what language they were written in, how old they are, and if they pose any known security risks. Since doing this by hand takes much time, many companies buy software to make the process easier. No matter what method you use, try not to take shortcuts during the discovery process. Doing so can ruin any future efficiency gains.

• Remove unused software:

Once a complete picture of the agency’s application portfolio is ready, it’s essential to eliminate unused and out-of-date software. State and local governments are known for keeping old software for a long time. This makes it much easier to keep track of and manage the assets that are still left.

• Consider future needs and goals:

Cloud-native apps provide advantages like nearly limitless computational power, AI-driven tools, and plenty of storage. Agencies must consider translating these extensive capabilities into concrete operations to reap these advantages.

• Find quick wins:

Avoid trying to modernize every application at once since it will be chaotic. Instead, choose the outcomes that come to you quickly. This could entail updating programs to address urgent issues, perform tasks more quickly, or even lessen significant security flaws. Remember that these choices should be supported by knowledge and data.

• Create a roadmap that includes both the overarching infrastructure and individual app:

It will be easier to avoid unpleasant shocks if you have a clear plan (both macro and micro).

• Make ongoing improvements:

You can’t just set up a portfolio of cloud-native apps and forget about them. To track performance, ensure that app data is collected throughout the tech landscape.

The Bottom Line

Modernizing cloud apps for state and local governments will take much work. But to increase resilience, guarantee ROI, and boost productivity, IT decision-makers must make it happen.

The process can be streamlined by choosing a partner with the required expertise, technology, and employees, which will reduce setup times and upfront costs.

• The integration of DBaaS has been gaining traction with multiple organizations switching to cloud databases from on-premise systems.
• The small and medium-sized enterprises that don’t have reliable IT operations can prefer DBaaS model as an ideal option.

Database-as-a-Service

Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) is a cloud computing service that allows users to access and utilize cloud database system without spending and installing individual hardware system. They can manage the database all by themselves by integrating own database software. The cloud service providers look after frequent updates, backups, security, and 24/7 availability of database systems.

Cloud databases and DBaaS are surging rapidly among the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) markets, anticipated to hit USD 320 billion by 2025. Users can enjoy multiple benefits of cloud computing in terms of search, storage, access, and applications. This is because, the data warehouse vendors have integrated cloud service providers to avail hosted software versions.

The adoption of DBaaS has been gaining traction with multiple organizations switching to cloud databases from on-premise systems. Although DBaaS operations are compatible with public cloud infrastructure, a few cloud providers integrate DBaaS technologies in on-premise data centers to remotely manage for the customers in hybrid cloud infrastructure.

How is DBaaS Different from On-premise Database?

The database server, in on-premise computing domain is an integral part of organization’s IT infrastructure and is indigenously managed by the company’s own IT staff. Besides, a database administrator (DBA) handles and configures the databases running on server.

Contrary to this, in DBaaS model, the system infrastructure and database are maintained by provider as a fully managed cloud service. The database installation, high-end administrative functions, maintenance, configuration, and upgrades are covered under the service. Moreover, miscellaneous activities including patching, performance management, and backups are also coordinated by the provider.

Benefits

DBaaS offers surplus advantages as compared to on-premise database management system in terms of operations, strategies, and finance. The legitimate benefits of the service are as follows:

• Flexibility: Users can immediately facilitate additional storage and operational capacity during run time if required. They can scale down the database cluster during redundant usage times to save on expenses.
• Negating Physical Infrastructure: The supporting IT infrastructure to run the database is offered by the DBaaS vendor or cloud platform provider hosting the DBaaS domain, if the organizations are different.
• Price Management: Infrastructure creation for database management is an expensive affair, while leveraging it whenever required is also costly and often not thathelpful. DBaas helps organization to pay just projectable regular charges as per the services used. Spending on supplementary capacity for hypothetical future requirements is negligible.
• Easy and Cost-effective Management: The on-premise database management is a function of in-house administrative team. However, when it comes to managing the DBaaS, the cloud provider maintains everything. Thus, it is observed that DBaaS alleviates the burden of service and administration on IT personnel, allowing them to focus on operations and applications.
• Application and Data Security: Cloud providers generally provide business oriented security with safety features such as default data encryption during transit or at rest, identity integration, and access management variables. They work adhering to particular regulatory compliance standards.
• Quicker Time-to-market and Developments: In on-premise DBMS, the operational teams request access through IT and the development might require days or weeks to process. On the other hand, with DBaaS, developers can autonomously work on database capabilities and configure and integrate the database with applications in minimal time.
• Software Reliability: The prominent cloud service providers provide a pool of advanced configurable DBaaS options with reliable quality. As a result, users don’t have to hover over thousands of different databases.
• Risk Mitigation: Major cloud service providers offer a Service Level Agreement (SLA) ensuring a specific amount of operational time. In case of undesirable events where the provider couldn’t fulfill the requirements specified in SLA, expenses would be reimbursed to the user for any additional downtime encountered.

DBaaS Selection

A range of DBaaS options available includes Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMs) and non-relational or NoSQL databases comprising column stores or documents. Finding the most suitable option for the business involves identifying compatible database technology for applications. Following criteria helps to find the right fit for your enterprise solutions:

• Database’s Suppporting Infrastructure

Its crucial to find a database engine that will leverage to meet the future application requirements along with being compatible to the system’s existing operations. Even the decentralized systems are tedious to manage, maintain, and build as compared to single-node systems. Besides, their flexibility may incur the cost of existing performance features.

• Compatibility of Primary or Auxiliary Data Stores with Applications

Primary data stores offer scalable data models such as document-based data stores and relational databases. They generally support SQL implementations and data modeling tools while emphasizing data integrity. Such flexibility makes them a suitable choice of multiple operations. On the contrary, auxiliary data stores can perform specific specialized tasks but are not concrete general-purpose tools. They offer limited data models and capabilities but deliver best performance in specific domain.

Auxiliary data stores are often recommended if found compatible with existing application requirements. Otherwise, it is advisable to stick to primary data stores.

• Database’s Performance During Testing

The integration of features and capabilities of database with application can be understood only after real-world testing. Creating and exploring a prototype must be an essential part of selecting database. Users should analyze the response time when application sends real-time requests to the database and observes it to process them with multiple operations and traffic that it’ll face in operations.

Uses of DBaaS

The small and medium-sized enterprises that don’t have reliable IT operations can prefer DBaaS model as an ideal option. Outsourcing the maintenance and service of database to some DBaaS providers helps these businesses to integrate systems and applications that are little expensive to build and sustain on premises.

Earlier, most of the DBaaS adoption in large-scale organizations was confined to less crucial operations, such as pilot projects and developments. However, it is evident that even mission-critical workloads can also run on cloud services. The survey of considerable number of cloud users revealed that 49% organizations use relational database cloud service while 38% relies on NoSQL database services.

DBaaS nullifies the requirement of hiring and training the team for database management. The database for instance can be controlled through with the help of management dashboard and an API. Complex processes such as specification and provisioning are facilitated with dashboard’s one-click operations.

DBaaS allows users to operate a database with common set of primitives (abstractions) without implementation requirement. Irrespective of the database type in use, a developer can integrate database instance with the same set of API calls. DBaaS model also offers easy operation for activity tracking, schemas creation, access granting, and adding users.

Challenges of Using DBaaS

Despite equipped with numerous features and advantages, some potential discrepancies of DBaaS as compared to on-premise database are as follows:

• Organizational Control: Deteriorating control over IT infrastructure has been a critical issue with DBaaS. With all databases being managed, the IT personnel don’t have much to control and coordinate over the servers and storage devices. They have to depend on cloud providers for effective infrastructure management. In case if the cloud provider faces a system failure, the organization cannot access its database until the issue is resolved.
• Safety Concerns: Since the system security is monitored by DBaaS provider, the organization cannot have direct control over the servers executing database. Its only under the shared responsibility model for cloud security, where the enterprises can influence a few aspects of data security. However, the cloud service vendor still remains in charge of monitoring the database platform and supporting infrastructure.
• Latency: With DBaaS integration, the system becomes prone to latency. The delay caused to access enterprise data over the internet can lead to performance issues that surge while executing large data volumes.
• Vendor Lock-in: Once the organization deals with a specific cloud service provider, it becomes complicated to move the infrastructure to a different cloud service. Hence, enterprises must pay attention to the service structure of their respective DBaaS provider, so that the enterprise can freely make some changes in the future with less dependency on cloud provider.
• Later-stage High Expenses: Although the initial investment of hosting services for deploying database is affordable, the costs surge as the service needs to grow. The enterprises should deploy only the minimum services required without overprovisioning, as it may lead to higher expenditure.
• System Susceptibility: Despite the reliable security of the cloud infrastructure from vendors, it is still evident that no system is entirely immune to attacks. Hosting crucial data online might lead to the chances of data breach. To cope with such security concerns, an elaborative cloud security policy must be communicated to all application developers. Most data breaches often arise due to human error.

Conclusion

After evaluating the benefits and challenges of using DBaaS, organizations can determine to thrive on the technological shift prevailing in the market. Among the two options available – on premise and Cloud DBaaS, most companies prefer DBaas as a suitable choice for their entrepreneurial operations. Various database engines can be provisioned and managed with the help of common set of API calls that can assist and standardize the system process.

• Walmart has come up with a refined CI/CD pipeline, where various capabilities have been integrated within WCNP, to attain a solid DevOps.
• The company wishes to switch fully to automation soon with no human decisions at any level.

To attain digital transformation, organizations frequently must come up with new technologies. Organizations generally customize them so that it will be suitable for their company-specific use cases or end goals.

Due to complicated company-specific cloud tools, a trend is evolving where they match with the “supercloud paradigm”. A more suitable example of this is the Kubernetes-based Walmart Cloud Native Platform or WCNP.

Jack Greenfield, Chief architect of the global tech platform and Vice president of enterprise architecture at Walmart Inc. stated “WCNP is essentially an implementation of Kubernetes for the Walmart ecosystem. And what that means is that we’ve taken Kubernetes off the shelf as open source and integrated it with a number of foundational services that provide other aspects of our computational environment. Kubernetes, off the shelf, doesn’t do everything, but it delegates a lot of key functions through APIs.”

While talking with a leading digital broadcast community, Greenfield discussed Walmart’s foray into the supercloud. Also, they spoke about their in-house WCNP solution.

A Refined and Sophisticated CI/CD Pipeline

As per Greenfield, continuous integration and delivery are foremost for any digitally driven company. Eyeing this, Walmart has come up with a refined CI/CD pipeline, where various capabilities have been integrated within WCNP, resulting in solid DevOps. By doing this, there will be no need for manual integration, activation, or operation in processes.

Greenfield added “Within a Kubernetes cluster, there’s a function that is critical to allowing services to discover each other and integrate with each other securely and with proper configuration provided by the concept of a service mesh. So Istio, Linkerd, these are examples of service mesh technologies. And we have gone ahead and actually integratd those two, for example.”

It is beneficial for developers to manage and tune the existing YAML data serialization language as this cloud platform has been equipped with configuration points.

Greenfield said “At the end of the day, it offloads an awful lot of work from them having to stand up and operate those services, fail them over properly and make them robust. All of that is provided for.”

Walmart has set some objectives regarding the creation of WCNP. The first and foremost is, bettering developers’ productivity by subtracting said inefficiencies. The second is resilience improvement by reducing human error. The third and a prime objective is, to go away from the underlying cloud provider, to avoid or neglect typical dependencies with ready-made enterprise cloud solutions, Greenfield highlighted.

He said, “One doesn’t want to take dependencies on a cloud provider that doesn’t add a lot of value. And with Kubernetes, we have the opportunity, owing to how Kubernetes was designed and why it is the way it is, to sort of abstract from the underlying cloud provider for stateless workloads on compute.”

A Robust Infrastructure

Their tri-point approach is equally significant as the WCNP. The deployment approach is where workloads have been differentiated between on-premises private clouds and two public cloud services. Following this, the company can easily operate the public cloud’s “elasticity” and reduce the traffic load induced by the private cloud, as per Greenfield.

He added, “This is a very important paradigm that I think is going to be very commonplace, ultimately. As the industry evolves, private cloud is easier to operate and less expensive, but the public cloud provider capabilities are difficult to match.”

Substantially, each architecture type in the eastern, western, and central regions of the United States is operated by Walmart in different instances. The proper configuration indulged to reduce latency between each center to under 10 milliseconds, which anyway increases the cost-efficiency for cross-infrastructure interaction.

To attain full automation, the company wishes to convert ongoing human decisions of where particular workloads run in the overarching infrastructure. This might be done in coming future.

Greenfield stated, “We’re actively developing patterns and practices that will allow us to automate the placement of the workloads for a variety of criteria. For example, if in a particular region a particular provider is heavily overloaded and is unable to provide the level of service that’s expected through our SLAs, we could choose to fail workloads over from the cloud provider to a different one within the same region.”

• Worlds Enterprises Inc., a business in the industrial metaverse, closed a USD 21.2 million Series A1 investment round recently with the goal of bringing more companies into the realm of digital twins. 
• Digital twins are first formed by combining data from 3D files and 2D floor plans to map a physical area, including the position and capabilities of its current sensors. 

Worlds Enterprises Inc., a business in the industrial metaverse, closed a USD 21.2 million Series A1 investment round recently, intending to bring more companies into the realm of digital twins. 

According to a statement from the business, Moneta Ventures led the round, with participation from Chevron Technology Ventures, Perot Jain, Piva Capital, and Capital Factory. 

Worlds Enterprises is the developer of an “industrial metaverse” platform on which businesses may create very exact digital twins of their actual factories, warehouses, and other facilities. These digital twins are then connected to the real world via various sensors that monitor their internal activity. 

Then, Worlds Enterprises uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) models to enhance company operations, highlighting the significant deviations that result in inefficiency, decreased output, and harmful environments. When armed with this insight, customers may then choose how to rethink and automate processes to uncover additional value. 

Digital twins are first formed by combining data from 3D files and 2D floor plans to map a physical area, including the position and capabilities of its current sensors. Through this method, Worlds Enterprises establishes a dynamic and shared coordinate system that serves as the connecting element for its digital twins. 

Then, new zones of interest may be added to produce a digital twin enriched by the context linkages between sensors and human activities. The space’s sensors and equipment data are merged into a consistent network to train the World’s AI. 

The system tracks physical items based on their appearance and behavior through a sensor network. This procedure is performed in real-time using a continuous feedback loop between the AI and the physical space. It enables the system to re-identify objects across sensors, comprehend unaccounted-for abnormal detections, and recognize successful results that should be duplicated elsewhere. 

Companies may automate physical operations using the Worlds application programming interface and the real-world data stream it provides. They consist of spotting and responding to crucial deviations, triggering messages to remove errors that lead to inefficiency, and giving continuous measurements to enhance operations. 

Chris Rohde, president of Worlds Enterprises, stated that businesses lose the capacity to watch, evaluate, and improve processes at scale when they expand. 

Chris Rohde said, “We stand unique in a market flooded with point solutions, computer vision companies, digital twin providers, and sensor companies that address only a tiny part of a much larger problem. After hearing from hundreds of digital transformation teams, it is clear that what is really needed is one place where all of these things come together; that is what we built with Worlds.” 

Worlds Enterprises debuted its industrial metaverse platform in 2021 and has already attracted notable clients such as Chevron Corporation, Petroliam Nasional Berhad, and Hillwood Development Company, LLC. The firm claims to have increased its yearly recurring income by more than 400% in the past year while commencing expansions with several satisfied clients. 

Constellation Research Inc.’s Holger Mueller stated that the Internet of Things had been a significant use case for next-generation applications for some time. Still, despite this, some businesses have been hesitant to develop these applications. 

Holger Mueller said, “As often happens, new trends like IoT can get overtaken by newer ones that emerge, such as the metaverse. In this case, however, it happens that the metaverse can be complementary with IoT use cases, so the combination of the two might give it the push it needs to take off. It’s good to see Worlds Enterprises getting the funding it needs. Soon we’ll see if the digital twin use case finally takes off for enterprises.” 

According to Worlds Enterprises, the cash from the recent funding round will further develop its AI platform, extend meaningful go-to-market relationships, and accelerate the adoption of its industrial metaverse. 

Aasim Hasan, a partner at Moneta Ventures, said, “Worlds has created a new 4D infrastructure for building the industrial metaverse, that is unlike anything else we have seen in the market and is reinventing how some of the largest industrial companies are doing business. Working with Worlds is also easy, fast, and cost-effective for clients. And we see massive potential for growth. We are excited to be part of the journey with the Worlds team.” 

• Massachusetts-based Locus Robotics develops a series of robots that can carry goods automatically from one warehouse area to another.
• Over more than 230 warehouses and other locations worldwide have signed agreements to use the startup’s robots.

Locus Robotics Corp., a company that creates warehouse robots for businesses to improve the efficiency of their supply chains, has raised more than USD 117 million through a new late-stage funding round.

Today, Locus Robotics disclosed the Series F financing round. The principal investors were G2 Venture Partners and Goldman Sachs. More than a half dozen additional backers, including Silicon Valley Bank, participated in the round, which places Locus Robotics’ worth at close to two billion dollars.

According to Goldman Sachs Managing Director Mark Midle, “Locus has established itself as an innovative, high-quality market leader for flexible automation in the massive warehouse fulfillment and distribution market. Our investment reflects our view that Locus has the product offering and the operational excellence required to meet and exceed the market challenges posed by today’s dynamic economic environment.”

Locus Robotics, based in Wilmington, Massachusetts, develops a series of robots that  automatically carry goods from one warehouse area to another. The startup’s robots are primarily made to speed up the task known as the picking process. It includes employees locating a product’s shelf in the warehouse, taking the product off the shelf and carrying it to a part of the warehouse where it can be set up for shipping.

Warehouse robots from Locus Robotics help businesses complete tasks more quickly. After taking it off the warehouse shelf, workers can load a product into the cargo bin of one of the startup’s robots. The product will then be transported automatically to the warehouse area, where it may be made ready for delivery by the machine.

Locus Robotics offers three robots. The Locus Origin, the company’s first system, can transport up to 80 pounds of goods between two storage divisions. The other two are the more sophisticated Locus Vector and Locus Max, which can move up to 600 pounds and 1.5 tons of merchandise, respectively.

According to Locus Robotics, the deployment of its technology in a warehouse can happen in as little as four to six weeks. After the deployment procedure is complete, warehouse owners can use an application called the Locus Management Portal to keep an eye on the operation of their robot fleets. Access to information like the number of packages each robot processes in an hour is made possible by the program.

According to the company, their clientele comprises businesses from various industries as well as significant logistics providers, including DHL and Ceva Logistics Ltd. More than 230 warehouses and other locations worldwide have signed agreements to use the startup’s robots. Locus Robotics anticipates deploying as many as 500 of its robots at some of these locations.

According to Locus Robotics Chief Executive Officer, Rick Faulk, “This new round of funding marks an important inflection point for Locus Robotics as we look toward our next stage of growth, and we strategically chose to bring in investors with a wealth of experience in both the public and private markets to advise us as we continue our journey. As the rapid digital transformation of the supply chain continues, warehouses increasingly seek flexible, intelligent robotics automation to improve productivity and grow their operations.”

• The new distributed cloud service integrates VMware’s managed and supported cloud infrastructure-as-a-service with Equinix’s interconnected, bare-metal-as-a-service offering.

In today’s world, cloud computing is just not nice to have but is a must-have. However, various enterprise workloads have certain requirements around latency, data sovereignty and location, security, and performance.

This necessitates that modern businesses embrace hybrid and multi-cloud environments: As per reports from Virtana, 82% of firms are presently utilizing a multi-cloud approach, and 78% have workloads deployed across more than three public clouds.

Zachary Smith, global head of edge infrastructure services at digital infrastructure company Equinix, said, “What used to be the standard of a single availability zone or two different regions has expanded to 10 or more locations for many enterprise deployments.”

VMware Cloud on Equinix Metal facilitates core-to-edge connectivity

Equinix and VMware introduced VMware Cloud on Equinix Metal to make it easier for clients to develop, run, and manage classic and contemporary applications.

The new distributed cloud service integrates VMware’s managed and supported cloud infrastructure-as-a-service with Equinix’s interconnected, bare-metal-as-a-service offering.

He stated, “As companies accelerate their digital transformation by adopting hybrid multi-cloud architectures, they require consistent application experiences that span private and public clouds and reach from the core to the edge.”

More multi-cloud, more challenges

Tim Grieser, vice president of research for enterprise system management software at IDC, in times of digital transformation, hybrid and multi-cloud strategies are “table stakes.”

According to Dave McCarthy, research VP for cloud and edge infrastructure services at IDC, for mission-critical applications that rely on low-latency and high-performance network bandwidth, the default has been to retain workloads on-premises or perform real-time needs, such as data processing, at the branch office or metro locations.

He stated that customers frequently lack a preferred choice that combines on-premises security and control with high performance, data locality, and low total cost of ownership. They need tools that address demands for enterprise applications “where latency, performance, security, and data locality are key drivers,” said McCarthy.

Accelerated digital transformation

Equinix is a publicly listed digital infrastructure firm whose platform integrates local computation and demand capabilities. According to Gartner, its rivals include NTT Communications, Expedient, Iron Mountain, and TierPoint.

VMware is a prominent supplier of multi-cloud services for all applications. Its competitors include Cisco, Cell Technologies, HPE (Aruba), and Nokia (Nuage Networks).

According to Smith, the ultimate goal of the firm’s new combination tool – unveiled today at VMware Explore 2022 Europe – aims to expedite digital transitions for clients.

Increasingly, he added, organizations must reach ecosystems in more locations across the globe and reduce application latency for end users or between application architecture components. Smith described the new technology as an efficient and secure method to extend cloud environments to dispersed metropolitan areas. He stated that this would address business-critical performance requirements at the edge while allowing enterprises to maintain the integrity of corporate workloads.

Use cases for the distributed cloud may include business data warehouses, ERP installations, core database applications, smart cities, and retail apps. In addition, he mentioned video analytics, game development, real-time financial services front office, and clients that utilize the internet of things (IoT) and data-intensive machine learning.

According to Smith, combining VMware Cloud and Equinix’s worldwide presence enables users to link their private cloud workloads to any cloud. They can benefit from higher-level platform services available in public clouds that offer or host data locally to meet data residency rules.

Removing ‘day two’ management responsibilities

Smith explained that by using Equinix’s network of more than 240 data centers with low-latency connections to public cloud services and hundreds of networks, the new service could provide less than 20 milliseconds of latency while meeting stringent data residency standards.

Research indicates that clients may lower TCO by as much as 67% using VMware Cloud, according to Narayan Bharadwaj, VMware’s vice president of cloud solutions.

Narayan Bharadwaj said, “Businesses across industries seek to become cloud smart by matching enterprise application needs to the best cloud environments.”

According to Bharadwaj, this new strategy will allow them to benefit from a high-performing, consistent infrastructure with a low TCO. It extends VMware Cloud to additional places to give application choice and flexibility and to speed up cloud transformation.

Smith stated that by reducing the burden of “day two” administration and offering physical infrastructure deployment and life-cycling as a service, users may rapidly and globally activate dedicated private cloud infrastructure.