Quilt Syndrome: From siled apps to connected business apps.
Imagine that you are the CIO or CTO of a very successful Startup and you are moving quickly to become a Unicorn in the next five years. Your business has a unique value proposition that benefits SMEs and enterprise customers. You started as a single-country organization, expanded into a multinational organization, and now you want to become a global organization. Everything looks promising.
Pero siempre hay un “pero”. Tuviste una reunión con tus arquitectos senior y te informaron que, debido a razones históricas, no es posible escalar al ritmo necesario.
You ask them why?
“Esto es una consecuencia de nuestra historia y éxito”, answers Elizabeth, your IT architecture lead. “¿Recuerdas los viejos tiempos? Empezamos pequeños, con frugalidad, con una mentalidad de ‘cada centavo cuenta’, y construimos soluciones MVP (Productos Mínimos Viables) en plataformas de Cliente-Servidor porque eran fáciles de implementar, accesibles para los administradores y fáciles de construir nuevas funcionalidades utilizando metodologías Ágiles y Scrum”.
Bobby, your cloud architect, keep going:
“Hace unos años, migramos muchas aplicaciones a una nube híbrida, manteniendo la misma arquitectura y conectando las aplicaciones mediante conectores de comunicación de aplicaciones o APIs. Fue la decisión correcta desde el punto de vista de costos y rendimiento, pero no fue una solución perfecta: la realidad es que nuestras APIs fueron diseñadas para soportar casos de uso puntuales, por lo que pasar del nivel de madurez actual al siguiente requerirá re-arquitectar estas conexiones de TI en una capa de comunicación de aplicaciones empresariales” que atienda casos de uso puntuales y genéricos con rapidez.
“¿Eso es todo?”, questions.
“Bueno, mover aplicaciones a una nube híbrida nos dio tiempo y ahorros de costos”, says elizabeth, “pero no fue una solución completa: necesitamos transformar nuestras soluciones iniciales construidas sobre un esquema de punto a punto en una plataforma de TI nativa de nube más sólida y robusta. Es como pasar de un ‘edredón’ (“Quilt”: múltiples piezas de tela conectadas mediante puntadas para construir una cubierta de cama) a una nueva cubierta de cama donde cada tela tiene el mismo aspecto y sensación pero está conectada sin puntadas externas”.
“¿Me estás diciendo que desarrollaremos una super aplicación que cubra todo?”, preguntas.
“No”, Bobby intervenes, “seguiremos utilizando múltiples aplicaciones. Esta vez, cada aplicación seguirá las mejores prácticas (nativas de nube), para que puedan trabajar juntas sin problemas y sin limitaciones de escalabilidad. En muchos casos, utilizaremos el código de aplicación existente para acelerar la creación de la nueva aplicación, el refactorizado y las aplicaciones componibles. ¿Recuerdas?”.
Does it sound familiar to you?
This is often thought to be unique to Startups, but the reality is that this scenario also occurs in established organizations planning strategic growth plans. They need to review their IT architecture to make sure they can support the incremental business due to exponential growth.
One thing you are sure of is that the business does not have the budget or resources to solve this situation using a big bang approach. And another constraint: a solution is needed, and it is needed fast.
How can an MSP help the CIO/CTO accelerate startup IT transformation and enable exponential growth for the organization?
This is where a managed service provider (MSP) can play a critical role.
An MSP can provide technical talent with proven experience to help in many ways, documenting and executing multiple small projects (stepped approach), so you can respond to business while transforming your organization to your next level of maturity. These are only some of them:
- Cloud Architecture and Migration Services– An MSP can help the startup migrate their applications to a cloud-native architecture, allowing their applications to scale and perform better. They can help assess your existing architecture, identify gaps and issues, and provide a cloud migration plan.
- IT Managed Services– An MSP can provide a team of IT professionals to support the business and operations of the startup. This would include services such as help desk, network management, system monitoring, and security management. This would allow the startup to focus on its core business while the MSP oversees IT operations.
- Billing and Cost Optimization Services– An MSP can help the startup select a cloud service provider that offers itemized billing and tax incentives. They can also help optimize startup cloud costs by identifying areas of inefficiency and suggesting cost-saving strategies.
- API Development and Integration Services: An MSP can provide resources and expertise to develop a new layer of APIs that can respond and scale to the needs of new customers. They can also help integrate these APIs with existing systems and applications.
- Cloud Security and Compliance Services– An MSP can help the startup ensure that its cloud infrastructure and applications are secure and comply with relevant regulations. This would include services such as vulnerability assessments, security audits, and compliance assessments.
Evaluating whether it makes sense to outsource your startup's IT operations? Our team is here to help you!
Contact us via DM cloud_journey@honneservices.com and learn more about how we can help your business.
Author: José Noguera – Country Manager USA