Using public cloud to securely build context aware enterprise applications, just like the startups do

Almost every one of our enterprise clients wants to be innovative… give their clients an “experience”… go “mobile first”… and focus on the customer experience. Innovation isn’t about incrementally adding functionality to existing platforms, and some clients have figured this out. But they still have the anchor of corporate tools, outdated security standards, and IT-department thinking slowing them down. Startups don’t have these issues.

Enterprises can behave more like startups, and can leverage the technology of startups – the public cloud.

In this paper, I will address three key aspects that enterprises need to address in order improve the mobile (and beyond mobile) experience of their users.

• Performance
• Context
• Security

There is more to building the overall experience, but these three components are where enterprises stumble sometimes and where public cloud providers can make the biggest impact on an enterprise’s mobile applications.

Enterprises must jump forward in their approach to innovate. That includes the technical architecture required to build secure, high-performance, contextually aware applications.

High-performance (and low latency) apps are much harder than just optimizing the networks and software stack. Most of these apps will be touching the SOA infrastructure at some point. Most apps have been designed to show “dashboard” type functionality, which will make many (dozens? hundreds?) of calls to the SOA backend. An app has to show this immediately, without the multi-second delay such a process would normally take. Public cloud providers have already been optimized (memcache, globally distributed, scalable) for high-performance and are well suited for the architectural pattern required.

Context aware is not something most enterprises are experienced in delivering. Yet, startups have differentiated themselves by optimizing what people want to see, and when. I don’t see a chronological list when I open Facebook, or Instagram… I see a prioritized list based on my preference and history. Enterprises will have to develop learning models to deliver this to “surprise and delight” customers. Public cloud providers have the sophisticated analytics capabilities required to deliver the context aware data for the application.

Secure applications are the norm for in-house delivered enterprise applications. They hit the SOA layer (usually through some intermediate layer) and manage identity against some internal system. But security is different in the mobile space and identity and access management is much more complex than most understand. Enterprises need to step out and look for help in this space. Identity as a service has become mainstream, and the ability to deploy Micro Services into the public cloud securely is here now.

Public Cloud providers are the secret sauce to delivering this for enterprises (and startups). Enterprise customers have to learn to use these outside providers and abandon plans to develop the necessary infrastructure internally. This isn’t about “spinning up servers”… the capabilities that are available in cloud providers goes well beyond infrastructure and will be the secret sauce for how an enterprise truly innovates.

We will address the middle tier architecture between the mobile app / website and the SOA layer. We will present a position that public cloud is the only reasonable solution for this tier for most enterprises.

(To read the full post, click here.)

These concepts are not new – however, too many enterprises still stick to “enterprise technology”. While small groups will use public cloud to stand up a quick application, or extend the storage capabilities, few enterprises are capable of delivering the user experience of a company born in the public cloud.

It is time for enterprises to shift their thinking to public cloud, without giving up the value of their enterprise systems. It is possible to have both – enterprise value with startup flexibility.