Arabnet Arabnet

A full version of this article will be published in the Summer issue of ArabNet Quarterly

By removing barriers to entry, Cloud has allowed startups to explode. We can see this in our own region where there are emergent startup ecosystems appearing in many cities, enabled -in large part - by Cloud.

New entrants are disrupting incumbents and taking shares from existing market players by delivering services and experiences on users’ own terms, and they are leveraging new technologies, delivered from the cloud, to do this.

However, enterprises can also take advantage of the same technologies. They have tremendous amounts of data, applications, and services that, although hidden behind the firewall, represent untapped opportunity. They should look to unlock this value and, leveraging mobile, analytics, and Cloud, deliver it to end users in a way that is engaging.

By doing so, they can capture new markets and maintain their foothold in existing ones. They must focus singularly on delivering value and experiences on their users’ terms; they must focus only on what delivers differentiation.

Creating Platforms for Digital Innovation

Enterprises need to look at how they can marshal the creative energies and talents of external developer communities as well as the ones sitting inside their own walls. This is especially true in the Middle East where we see youthful tech savvy populations developing nascent startup ecosystems in cities such as Riyadh, Cairo, Amman, and Beirut.

They can do this by making their data, applications and services available to the public as APIs and running initiatives to promote use of these APIs to create new apps or incorporate into existing ones.

For example, Citi is working with IBM to run a global competition, called Citi Mobile Challenge, in which external developers compete to develop the most innovative apps, leveraging Citi, IBM, and third party APIs. The best apps selected will move to production.

To do this, they need a platform for digital innovation delivered from the cloud (Platform as a Service or PaaS). This platform provides an environment wherein the developer can just focus on the code and the data, with everything else, such as runtimes, databases and supporting services, provided by the Cloud.

The right PaaS gives enterprises the opportunity to start thinking and acting like startups - at startup speed. It allows enterprises to accelerate to the point where new apps can be deployed in seconds. It can help them innovate to address new opportunities and new markets and deliver new value in new ways. Developers can rapidly test ideas, deploy code, and get feedback to evolve. It can be game changing.

There are 7 key factors that are critical if enterprises are to leverage PaaS to its fullest transformational potential:

1. Select a platform that offers choice to developers

In order for developers to innovate, they need the freedom of choice. Some workloads can run in a PaaS runtime but others may need to run in a virtual machine or a Docker container. Maybe Java is the optimum language for one app or one function, but maybe Ruby, Go or Node is optimum for another. Maybe they want to create microservices. Maybe they want to use NoSQL as the data store for one service, but use a relational database for another.

2. Select a platform that offers choice of deployment model

Some enterprises will be comfortable using a public PaaS; others will want a dedicated PaaS; and, yet others will want all the benefits of the public PaaS but deployed securely in their own data centers. Others may want a combination of all three models.

3. Ensure the platform supports open standards

The platform should be based on open standards, such as Open Stack and Cloud Foundry. It should not lock the enterprise in to a proprietary platform but instead allow them to retain ownership and control of the assets they develop in the platform. At the same time, enterprises need enterprise-grade support for this open platform.

4. Choose a platform that enables hybrid apps

Just as we have hybrid clouds, enterprises need to create hybrid apps. The tremendous value locked away in enterprise systems can’t always be moved to the cloud; maybe due to it being a regulated domain, such as telco or public sectors; or maybe because it sits in an ERP or CRM system that shouldn’t move. Therefore, the PaaS should provide the capability to securely integrate these services, data, and apps with the apps that are deployed in the cloud.

5. Consider enterprise-grade security

Security is important to enterprises. As such, they should select a PaaS provider that ensures enterprise-grade security whilst also providing services and tools to ensure that the developer can factor security into their application development.

6. Ensure platforms come with rich API and service catalogue to accelerate time to value

This allows developers to quickly and easily stitch these functions into their applications. For example, IBM’s digital innovation platform (IBM Bluemix) provides services as diverse as Watson cognitive computing, Twitter data, tools for sentiment analysis and mobile quality analytics. Developer can focus on what is important and accelerate time to market, as well as access very advanced capabilities that might otherwise not be available to them in their environments.

In addition, the PaaS should allow the enterprise to securely publish their own APIs into the platform so that their internal and external developer communities can use these APIs to access their existing services exposed from the enterprises’ on-premises systems. The enterprise can even participate (and benefit from) the startup ecosystem by effectively using the API as a channel to sell services and data for inclusion in the startups’ own apps.

7. Select a platform that provides flexible pricing

The selected platform should offer a pay as you grow option. It should be based on consumption and, given the focus on experimentation, should offer free tiering so that a decision can be made to commit to pay only when or if value is proven.

*Anthony Butler is the CTO of IBM Cloud in Middle East and Africa; responsible for technical leadership across IBM’s cloud services and software portfolio. He is focused on helping clients create new sources of value using cloud technologies; and enabling their digital transformation