Folks,
In this post I would
like to explore the anatomy of a client conversation, as we navigate these blurry lines and make sense of the solution. I would also like to take a closer look at the emerging solution centric
technologies such as Box, iCloud, etc that are creeping into
‘enterprise space’ driven by the
desire for an unified Digital experience by end users, employees and partners alike.
I have always said the
hardest part of our job is to keep up, and in these interesting times, there
are tremendous innovation coming to markets faster than ever, this speed and
adoption around innovation with
promise of transformation can be overwhelming for businesses. I think, with our
consultative approach we can work with our clients in navigating these
innovative paths and help them make the right choices.
In my earlier forum discussion on “ How does rise in Mobile Cloud services
aid in delivering Digital experience?”
I discussed that Fundamentally a
solution design around Mobile Solutions includes:
a.
Eco
system integration – Includes things like Mobile OS, APIs
and notification eco systems, etc.
b.
Cloud
integration – MbaaS, Cloud Services, APIs, and invocation
of other Mobile services.
c.
Enterprise
Integration – Includes integration with existing middleware
and legacy systems.
In
many workshops with clients on Mobility and Cloud based services delivery the distinction between the
above concepts get blurry. Think about it, most of the eco systems have a cloud based services ( push, iCloud,
Messaging, and more announced at WWDC),
These cloud based services
which includes IBM Bluemix, Google App Engine (GAE), and Amazon Web
Services (AWS) and others also provide cloud integration , via APIs and an
avenue to legacy enterprise integration, be it a service on SalesForce.com, or
on premise enterprise systems. With considerations around security, scalability
and performance ( yes we still have to understand network, round tripping and the
security vulnerability, etc) imposed by the hybrid or converged platform.
So
let us try and understand the landscape of these cloud based services and
employments of these towards a better application design, and I think we ought
to leverage our understanding to our advantage in not only positioning
products and services but also provide
feedback into labs. There are other players
like Google Application Engine (GAE), Amazon Web Services and
many new startup’s such as Parse (facebook), StackMob ( PayPal) and Kinvey
which offered specific accelerated Mobile application development, and other
back end services.
IBM BlueMix – As I read and play with
this, I think BlueMix attempts to provide a Hybrid PaaS and Saas model, where
some middleware platforms and capabilities are available and some are exposed
as APIs, that can be composed to form mobile services, integration services, data services, dev
ops services, a full set of services that enable me now to build my next
generation of application.
IBM
BlueMix is designed to be an open cloud platform built on Pivotal's Cloud
Foundry. IBM also made its software suite available on BlueMix – BlueMix
Catalog and BlueMix Offers ( MbaaS beta) is a good example to explore. So in
short BlueMix provides following ramp up features:
a.
Run
apps in any language
b.
Build
on open standards (OpenStack – Cloud Foundry)
c.
Provides
integration services to system of record
d.
Designed
for Mobile
e.
Rapidly
delivering composable services
f.
Provides
DevOps services for integrated dev experience
g.
And
more..
Amazon
– AWS – AWS is
a IaaS, which implies that
one needs to administer their own servers such as AWS hosted Ec2 instance, DB and S3 Instances, Load
balancers, security etc. While
some may argue that AWS does have a PaaS support for some platforms, but the
core offerings align with IaaS. Which means that there are traditional planning
and design tools around security, scalability, performance, topology and
application design.
Google
Application Engine (GAE) – With GAE one needs to consume the APIs
( services) and design the application
with some of the GAE specific deployment specifications and deploy the
application to Google cloud, which falls under PaaS and SaaS models, where the
design imperatives is API/services governance and while scalability,
performance and Security is a design consideration there are little or no administrative tasks. With some of these application design
and deployment to GAE like environment then becomes a utilitarian model and
cost – of deployment, services consumption and on going maintenance becomes
central to application decision making.
Now
from a Mobile Application and Solution design perspective, any
client would (at a minimum) need the following services:
a.
Custom
Objects – Arguably one of the most important features
that can accelerate any Application
design and development. This represents an array of model Objects that
represent data ( people, places, things etc) it is these custom objects and
their integration with APIs/Services that make the notion of composable service
possible.
b.
File
Storage – Every application has storage needs such as
storing user, object specific files, images, user profiles etc. Which can be
used to maintain context, and allow for analytics application operations.
c.
Geolocation
– for a richer and contextual engagement I think geolocation
whether it is Cartesian coordinates, Wi-Fi or even BLE enabled location is
vital for object tagging and subsequent operations such as offer customization,
and loyalty.
d.
Users
(registry) and Authentication – Every application
needs some kind of access control, which allows for a fine grain mechanism to
provide access to Object related data and file store.
e.
Push
Notification -
Another Mobile specific requirement, while very common from a technology and
service perspective, ability to send contextually relevant notification is a
product of holistic application design that include robust analytics, EMM – enterprise
marketing management and user profile integration.
f.
Marketing
control point – This implies knowing your constituents and
does not just apply to retail, but also to any entity including government,
banking, FinTechs, healthcare etc is to connect industry specific application imperatives
(security, use engagement, legislation etc) with the constituent. This very
connection makes the digital experience possible.
AND
g.
Enterprise
Integration – This is the piece that I think that the new paradigms around MBaaS, and many cloud-based
services seem to amiss. This is the area that many clients have been investing
for several decades, and in many cases the “enterprise” – which has assets such
as a Business rules, policies around products, Product related information,
regulatory compliance data and logic etc, is codified into a series of “systems’ that we call “The Enterprise”. So any “enterprise
Mobility” project should include an understanding of these “systems” that have
evolved overtime.
Now let us look at the other Players who are providing these services aiming to capture the
Mobile application and back end service market. Some of these include ( In
addition to GAE):
Stackmob
(Acquired by Paypal), Parse ( Acquired by facebook), Appcelerator Cloud service,
Kii and Kinvey to name a few. While many of these up and
coming vendors may provide all of the fundamental services NOT many of these have “enterprise
awareness” – What IBM Bluemix does
to differentiate it’s value proposition is to
bridge the gaps between the “ New application design requirements” and
“Traditional enterprise application design”. This Bridge manifest
itself in forms of features such as a
“Any runtime”, API Management services, Eco system awareness and Partner
services, from many such business partners who have been helping our own
enterprise clients in implementing their solution on IBMs stack. By
putting it all together in a “Mix” Big blue has not only carved a niche with
the notion of “composable services” but also challenged our clients and
ecosystem alike to fit into this open model.
thoughts?
As
always I am open to your comments and critique. I do invite your feedback on the forum or e-mail.
:)
Nitin
